Difficult children are not like other children. There is a reason all of the commonly-used approaches do not work with these children. Often, the parenting techniques are good; however, they are being applied to children that are unable to respond to these techniques.

If you are living with a difficult child, you should know that it is not your fault. Your child will not respond to the same techniques as other children because they do not learn in the same way.

If you have tried everything and nothing seems to work, we can help.

In most cases, we work with families who have been through multiple professionals before calling us. The child has never followed through on the advice given, or the situation or behaviors have not changed. The family may develop a pattern of volatility, with the parents simply adjusting to unacceptable behavior on the part of the child. This could include physical aggression, screaming and swearing at parents, truancy, destroying property, as well as other extreme behaviors.

If you are the parent of a difficult child, in the past you may have been made to feel as though it is somehow your fault. We have worked with enough difficult children to understand that this is not the case. Many parents of difficult children could be classified as victims of domestic violence. Sadly, they are the victims in the situation and yet are still blamed by many social service professionals.

Many parents concede that a difficult child seems like a "broken" child.

Difficult children do not function like "normal" children. Parents come to us after they have tried everything else and nothing seems to be working. Understandably, their frustration is high and they are ready to give up. That's why they think their child is broken. We understand, and we offer techniques that actually work with these children. We know that some children seem broken, and we know that they are too valuable to be "thrown away" or sent back into a system that has not worked for them.

Your difficult child may have spent time in a hospital or residential home setting. We often find that children who do well in those settings can revert back to old behaviors when placed back in the home (in many cases, within a matter of hours). This makes sense. Children do well in a therapeutic setting because of the requirements of their stay. They are often restrained, physically or chemically, and there is a large staff of strangers in place to make sure they behave. Often, difficult children will behave well just so they can get out of the hospital setting. Medical professionals often assume that the behavior has changed because they felt the child has been prescribed with the correct combination of drugs, when in actuality the setting and circumstance is what was responsible for the behavioral change.

We have found, over the course of many years of working with difficult children, that medication has a limited role in helping change behavior. Medications are designed to assist therapeutic techniques, not replace them. We have also noted that traditional therapy often takes far too long, focusing on the underlying psychological issues and not the behavior itself. It can also be a struggle to get difficult children to go to therapy. The traditional techniques offered by therapists, such as reward systems, stickers, money (allowance), loss of privileges have a very limited role. These techniques often have little or no effect in creating lasting change. In many families these changes may last for only a few days at best.

We have worked with a wide range of ages, since our clinical focus is behavioral management. However, we specialize in children under the age of 18. Children that are developmentally delayed may be eligible for service until the age of 21 years old. In special circumstances, those age limits are waived.