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Find out why spanking is so damaging to your children and what healthy alternatives should be used when disciplining them.

*Davee is very passionate about this topic and gets a little worked up, so this excerpt is not for sensitive ears.*

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Davee Chandler – Secret To Child Discipline

This FREE MP3 is an excerpt from a parenting lecture given by Davee Chandler in May 2010. (Approx. 13:40 min. long)

I’d love to hear what you think. Please comment below.

In this excerpt, Davee teaches a very helpful and practical method for correcting bad behavior in children.

Whether your child is hyperactive, defiant, or just keeps pushing the boundaries, this is the solution you’ve been waiting for.

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Davee Chandler – light equals good behavior

This FREE MP3 is an excerpt from a parenting lecture given by Davee Chandler in May 2010. (Approx. 5 min. long)

I’d love to hear what you think. Please comment below.

This FREE MP3 is an excerpt from a parenting lecture given by Davee Chandler in April 2010. (Approx. 7 min. long)

Davee talks candidly about positive reinforcement and how the principles he’s teaching can help reinforce good behavior in children of all ages.

Don’t miss the hilarious story about his 3 year old grand daughter, the kitty, and the restaurant!

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Positive Reinforcement for 3 Year Olds

You can also listen to the same MP3 on the YouTube video below

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This FREE MP3 is an excerpt from a parenting lecture given by Davee Chandler in April 2010. (Approx. 8 min. long)

If you have a child, relative, friend, or loved one who needs help but doesn’t think they do, then you’ll definitely want to hear this mp3.

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How to help an adolescent who doesn’t think they need help

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One of the problems parents have is that we anticipate that our kids just some how are supposed to know how to behave properly, but we’ve never really taught them. Parents punish their kids when they “misbehave”, but they never really reinforce their kid’s positive behavior. We also do the same thing to ourselves as parents. Somehow we’re just supposed to know how to be good parents even though no one has ever taught us. If we make a mistake, then we beat ourselves up for having made a mistake.

Do you see how this thing got started? It started when we were little kids. It was done to us all through our childhood, we’re doing it to ourselves as parents, and then we keep doing the same thing to our kids. We have to turn that around. We have to get used to the idea that we have to teach our kids how to be good people. We have to teach and reinforce the behavior that we want our kids to exhibit.

Nobody gets married planning on a divorce.  Yet, the divorce statistics certainly make it seem that divorce is almost an expected part of marriage in our society.  It is well known that most marriages end in divorce.  It’s as simple as that.  The majority of people who get married, also get divorced.  Those divorces are unpleasant, usually expensive, and often have lingering and even lifetime effects on the participants.  Again, that’s not a newsflash to anyone and to most people, it would represent common sense.

However, the people that are often the most seriously impacted and the most devastated by divorce are most often the least thought about.  You know who I mean.  It’s the children.  The children are the innocent bystanders.  They are the ones whose lives are shattered or blown to bits by the actions and decisions of their parents.  These are decisions that they have little or absolutely no control over and from which they will suffer for years or throughout their lives.  They are most often truly helpless to alter the course that leads them to live without their parents in the same place.  More often than not, they lose one parent partially if not totally as a result.  The perceived and actual loss to them is unspeakable and inestimable.

Now, the problem with all this is that the only thing worse than a divorce for children is living with two parents who don’t like each other.  That’s correct.  Living with parents who fight and quarrel, who blame each other for their unhappiness, who cheat on each other, or do other things to tear each other down and apart is tantamount to living in hell.  It also teaches the children some pretty messed up ideas about relationships and often causes them to feel that their parents’ unhappiness is their fault.  How in the world can you expect your children to learn about healthy relationships or to learn to respect others if they live in a household where mom and dad don’t live that with each other.

So, let me express my view as clearly as I can.  I believe that the presence of children in a marriage make it worth doing all you can to save and improve your marriage.  It is worth fighting for.  Do it for the kids.  But, for the love of the kids, don’t stay married for them.  Don’t blame them for your misery.  Take responsibility for your life and your happiness or lack of it and make you own decision about what to do.  If you and your partner can’t make it work, then do what you need to do.  But, please think of the kids as you make those choices.

If the decision to dissolve the relationship is determined to be the healthiest for all parties involved then there are several considerations to keep in mind.  However, one emerges as paramount in determining the eventual adjustment of the children involved.  This one factor is the most important element to consider during the divorce and following the divorce.  If this one dynamic can be kept in mind and some practices followed conscientiously, research shows that the children will typically adjust pretty well.  If not, they often won’t.  One factor, it turns out, is more important than all the rest in helping kids through the devastation of divorce.

And the surprising part of this is that this one ideal is within the grasp of every single person who participates in divorce.  It isn’t anything that can’t be done by some or that costs money to purchase.  It is available to anyone and every single person.  But, it isn’t easy.  In fact, it is hard.  In very fact, it may be one of the more difficult things to do during and after a divorce.  And yet, if the people going through the divorce and putting their lives together following a divorce will really think of their children for a while, it isn’t nearly so difficult.  It’s not difficult at all.  I know.  I’ve done it.  But you have to put the kids first.

So what is it?!?!?  Calm down, here it is.  Well, actually, I just said it.  You have to put the kids first.  Specifically, here’s what I mean.  According to years of good sound research and lots of lots of good old experience, the principle is this.

You have to be willing to not just allow, but encourage the children to have a good, healthy relationship with the other parent.

Now, that sounds so simple, right?  Uh huh, sure.  This is the person you just split everything with and may have been fighting in court.  This is the person that you’ve spent years arguing with and trying to get them to see it your way.  This is the person that you can’t understand for anything.  This may even be the person that cheated on you and broke your heart and your sacred trust.  He or she may have slept with your best friend!  This is the person that may feel more like an enemy than someone you want your kids to be close to.  And now I’m asking you to encourage your kids to love and be close to them?  Yes.  I am.  And, not only that.  I’m telling you that your kids’ lives may depend on it.

However, and please hear this as loudly and clearly as I can possibly state this, I am not talking about parents that are dangerous, abusive, criminal, or that would pose significant threats to the health or welfare of the children.  Is that clear?  Um… probably not.  And the reason I say “not” is that when you hate someone, you think that they are the most evil, despicable person in the world.  But, if they really are bad, then keep the kids away.  If the person has truly abused you or the kids then that parent should not be with you or them.  If there is domestic violence, gross neglect, sexual abuse of any kind, physical abuse or repeated patterns of dangerous emotional and mental abuse that have not responded to change efforts, then, under the recommendations of professionals, the children may need to not have a relationship with other parent.

Most of the time, in divorce, this is not the case.  Most of the time, children end up being used as pawns in the chess match between jealous parents trying to get back at the other parent.  Children end up being treated as property being harbored or stolen from the other without a care for what the kids need.  It is this behavior that tears the kids’ lives apart for years on end and that is so difficult to heal.  Please. Don’t do it.

The crazy thing is that it’s all pretty simple.  Just don’t talk smack about the other parent!  That’s what your girlfriends and buddies are for!  Don’t keep the kids from the other parent.  Don’t say things that would demean the other parents practices in their home.  Just watch what you say, when it comes to the other parent.  Practice the “Thumper principle”.  You remember it, right?  “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”  When the kids come back from the other parent’s house talking about how fun it was and you want to scream, just smile and nod.  Scream later to someone else.  I said it was simple, not easy.

This single most important factor is so very important that even governments have recognized it and several states have passed laws requiring divorce applicants to take classes teaching this simple fact.  In these states, before a divorce case can be heard and a divorce granted, the parents must enroll in and successfully complete a course designed to impress upon them the importance of not pitting children against the other parent.  So, if state governments (not all) have even recognized it, clearly, it must be an issue worth attention!

There you have it.  The single most important factor in helping children adjust to divorce.  Divorce isn’t pretty for anyone, but the most devastating effects are felt by children.  Most of the time, they feel it more than anyone and are the most helpless in all stages of the divorce.  However, exercising caution and care in how we talk about and deal with the kids around the other parent can make all the difference in helping the kids successfully make it through this extremely difficult time.