Part 2: How The Total Transformation Program Is Changing Our Life

How The Total Transformation Program Is Changing Our Life

Recently I shared part 1 of my series on How The Total Transformation Program is changing our family. Today I would like to share some more personal details about ways that this program has helped.

Once we discovered what ineffective parenting skills we had been using (they were not bad, just not affective), we immediately put threw those parenting skills out, or at least really tried hard to do so. It wasn’t easy to retrain our brains to think a different way, but we kept thinking about how much we wanted to reach and help our son, so it was worth it!

We as parents stopped attending every battle we were invited to by our son. Our son is very stubborn (did I mention very?!) Although I’m not quite sure where he gets his stubbornness, hopefully my mom doesn’t chime in (HAHAHA). He is also a slick talker and, buddy, in seconds he can have me engaged in a battle with words! He doesn’t yell or scream. He tries to justify his actions or uses a play on words and I get sucked RIGHT in. The first thing I had to do was stop this.
We learned how important it was for us to control our own emotions. Obviously we already knew this, but this program reiterated this and explained this so well. In fact, the program gives us names for our parenting styles/issues as well. Remember in my last post I told you how thankful I was for learning the “names” of my sons struggles? Well the tables were turned when mom and dad learned the “problems” they needed to correct. 🙂
We have learned that telling our son, “This is what we expect and if it doesn’t happen there is THIS consequence” and sticking to it really does work.
We have learned that we have to WHATEVER it takes to make sure that our child knows we are the parents and we are in control, NOT them. Now, with that said, we need to do this by controlling our temper and following the steps in the program or it just won’t work.
Our son had a habit of hiding his school work and saying he was done. We home school and he knew I would get busy and be working with his brothers, so I might not get to check it until that night. So for that moment he had gained control. He won. When I would find out, I start lecturing him on how important it was for him to finish his school work and to not hide it. This was something that regularly occurred so I regularly told him this was the same thing as lying and being sneaky. However, the issue continued. I would give him extra assignments and other things that preoccupied his time, but nothing seemed to really get through to him….that is until The Total Transformation Program. My son is VERY smart and and there are just some subjects in school he could care less about. With this program, though, we have had a break through! He has had at the time of posting this 3 consistent weeks of school that are good! He has completed all assignments that I have asked him to complete.
My oldest can tell you the rules my husband and I have laid out. He can point out when his brothers would break them. However, when it came to him following the rules there appeared to be a disconnect. In the lessons we learned, regardless of a diagnoses of bi-polar, ADHD, Aspergers, ODD, etc., these kids still have to learn to function in society. Now we have always tried to raise the boys to follow the rules, to obey, to especially follow the Bible teachings we personally hold so important. For my oldest, this seemed to truly be a struggle. I can say that the more lessons we do and the more we learn in this program that I am seeing changes each day. When we first started the program, he tested the waters. They DO warn about this in the program though. It may get worse for a bit but don’t give up! We didn’t and I can say that it does get better! I honestly took a break from school those days because his behaviors were so bad. I figured we would make them up since we home school year round. I dedicated as much time as I could with 3 boys to this program. I am so impressed with how well he is doing!

On a recent nature hike with Trail Life USA 🙂

He is in blue on the right. Having a blast camping out with his friends and brothers:)

We haven’t finished the whole program and we still have a ways to go. However, for the first time in a really long time I feel like we have hope. Hope of not just getting our son to obey and comply, but actually reaching his heart.

In Christ,

Laura