Available from Loving Healing Press May 2009

Got An Angry Kid? Parenting Spike, A Seriously Difficult Child is the result of 20 years of experience training parents to manage seriously out-of-control children. It is a case study of a typically oppositional boy. It shows parents, through the "P.A.C.T." program, "Parenting Angry Children and Teens" that there is abundant reason for hope. If parents follow directions closely, they will probably be rewarded with a much calmer household. P.A.C.T.'s approach is novel: it trains the parent instead of the child, regardless of the child's psychiatric diagnosis. Most parents assume the child should be the target of intervention. But that often fails. What is the alternative when that happens? Train the Parents instead. Most parents, after finishing the program, wished they had done it years ago. Parents are often startled by how well they can manage an oppositional child. They could not be more surprised by how much a child is willing to give up his resistance to parents when they sharply change their approach. Got An Angry Kid? offers a sensible step-by-step program emphasizing tolerance, patience and acceptance. Parents who are worried about their angry and difficult child's future should pay close attention to Got An Angry Kid?

Understanding Spike
Introduction to P.A.C.T. Parenting Angry Children and Teens

Got An Angry Kid features a self-help program called, Parenting Angry Children and Teens. It is directed to parents of out-of-control children. Those children are seemingly unparentable.

Out-of-control means what it says: parents no longer control their child. Unparentable means what it says, too. There is little the parent can do in the name of reward or punishment that works. Got An Angry Kid? introduces Spike and his family. Spike and his family tell the P.A.C.T. story. His family is defined by his out-of-control behavior. Spike may resemble your child. Spike didn't become Spike as a result of some cataclysmic event. He could have. He just didn't. As it happens, his story is benign compared to many. Doesn't really matter. There are lots of ways of making children miserable. Most of them are benign and unintentional. Spike is both worldly and naive. He is, after all, a child. Don't expect him to understand a lot of what goes on around him. He does and he doesn't. He needs his parents to fill in the gaps. But he won't accept them. Spike is miserable. He needs treatment for emotional disturbance. But he won't accept it either. He is miserable both to himself and to those around him. The goal of the book is to get Spike's family to function as a family Spike's parents must change how they interact with their son. Got An Angry Kid? will show parents how to restore control. Spike's misery will seem much less significant.

Spike's parents need to recoup lost respect. But Spike will never give it if he can't learn to value his parents first. Parental attempts to get his respect by asserting themselves on him will keep him fighting. Forget telling him what to do. It's a losing strategy. What to do instead? Back off.

Meet Spike and His Family
A portrait of a dysfunctional American family

Spike is angry, surly, and mean.
His behavior tells us that he feels someone has driven over him with a tank. He feels confused, scared, alone and stupid. He doesn't often use those terms, at least not directly. He acts them out. He fights without a moment's notice. Everything becomes a target. Parents are the handiest. Fighting is easier than thinking. Thinking feels bad. Thinking makes him depressed.

Spike lives with his parents and an idiot sister. His Mom is always saying, "Spike, honey, you shouldn't talk to your mother that way."

Sometimes his Mom cries when he talks bad to her. Sometimes she screams at him.

"For what, 'cause I call her a bitch? Big deal." Spike snips.

And his Dad? "That loser?" Spike snorts, "He gets all puffed up and says, "Spike, I'm warning you...!"

"You should see it. Dad looks ridiculous, all serious and worked up. I laugh myself sick sometimes. His warnings are nothing. I suppose he thinks he can make me sit in a corner. Forget it! I'm not sitting in any fucking corner for him or anyone else. He can kiss my ass."

Spike's disrespect is a clue that his future is in doubt. He will look for rebellion. He may cover his body in tattoos and shout how unique he is. He will insist he needs no one as no one measures up to his uniqueness. He will edge away from the mainstream. He will push away those who might like to know him. He will protest his uniqueness too loudly. Actually, he will fear the rejection he is likely to get.

Yet his choices, without a change in attitude, have disappeared. He won't need to worry about a future. It's been decided for him. He can start practicing a useful career mantra right now.

"You want fries with that, mister?"

Spike's Story

Spike tells us what it's like to be abnormal.
The following is a series of five interviews conducted with Spike by a professor at the local college. ÊHe wanted to interview Spike to get his opinions on what it is like to be an unhappy child for a book he was writing. Spike agreed but only because the guy promised to pay him. Spike doesn't do anything for free. The remarks have been edited for brevity and readability

"They think I'm terrible. 'Course, they're right. I am. They haven't a clue why, though. Probably never will. I do anything I please whenever I want. They're just a bunch of phonies. They say they care, but, if I wait 30 seconds, they are back to the same old thing. They yell a lot. Everything I do is wrong. Then there is all the blame. And nag, nag, nag. I need them to go away...just leave me alone."

"I know how to be good. It isn't a mystery. I haven't been good for a while, but I could get back into it if I wanted. But I don't really want to. They don't like the kids I hang withÉthat's why I hang with them. Just to piss them off. It works too. These other kids aren't so bad. Not really. Well, some of them are. They come from worse places than I do. They hate their parents, too. Mostly for good reason."

"Anyway, we do what we want 'cause nobody can make us do different. The more they try, the more we laugh in their face. Why not? So where were my folks when I needed them? Who knows. Sure weren't in my corner. Parents come first all the time. Know how many times we've moved in the last five years? Six times. You know what it is like to move, make a friend, move again? It sucks. You never know where you are going to wake up."

"My parents don't get along. Mom is always pissed at my Dad."

"Why don't you do something?" she yells.

"Just what exactly did you have in mind?" he yells back.

"Anything. I don't care. If you just weren't so selfishÉ" she says.

Parenting Spike: The Three Basic Goals

1. "Shh-h-h!"

What's The Goal?
No Yelling. You will learn to speak so quietly that you can't be heard in the next room.

What's in The Fine Print?
Yelling is obvious. We all know it when we hear it. But some may say that yelling is a matter of opinion, as in...
"I was just emphasizing,"
Or,
"I was just raising my voice so you could hear me."
Or,
"I just have a naturally loud voice."

The last one is a favorite. That is to say, if it is natural, then it is out of my control and everyone has to live with it. All these rationalizations must go. Otherwise, problems with your Spike will magnify. Many parents yell at their children all the time. When parents are told to stop they often notice that (1) they yell more than they thought they did, (2) everyone ignores them anyway and (3)the only thing they get out of the bargain is exhaustion. Parents do not get the very thing they want most out of yelling: compliance. Parents who yell, get more resistance, more noncompliance, and more anger. There are two times in a child's life when our Spike is most apt to be physically abused: when young and easily overpowered

Every parent is skeptical, initially, about trying to thread themselves through the eye of the P.A.C.T. needle in an effort to transform their child. For one, they get stuck at yelling and confuse it with virtue. It doesn't work. P.A.C.T. looks for the parent who is willing to put this and other reasons aside and get to work.