I'm watching the Dog Whisperer and I have to say, this show really gives me hope as a parent. Do you know why? At the beginning of the program, they show these dogs with all these issues - barking, biting, misbehavior of all types. And these dogs just seem so out of control and completely hopeless, you wonder how Cesar is ever going to be able to get them under control.

But sure enough, Cesar comes on the scene and with a few simple techniques, the dog just turns around and starts behaving totally differently, literally in minutes. Yes, I know this is Hollywood and they script the show. I'm sure they don't show the failures, or the ones that don't fit the pattern of the show. I'm not that naive, but you can tell that there is an element of truth in his methods.

Obviously kids are much more complicated than dogs, but it's been shown time and time again that some simple techniques work for kids, dogs, inmates, just about any person or animal you can think of.

The key seems to be respect, discipline, a genuine caring, and a sense of purpose or accomplishment. I saw the same thing a couple of weeks ago with inmates who were raising dogs in prison to be used as service dogs. It was a great program for the dogs, but you could tell it was doing wonders for the inmates. Shows like Wife Swap and Nanny 911 - it's really interesting to see how the kids respond totally differently to someone with a different philosophy and a completely different parenting approach.

You just wonder if they took some of these kids that are trouble, in juvenile hall or whatever and approached sort of like a kid whisperer and gave them that respect and interest, and had the expectation that they could do the right thing and could make the positive changes, I think you'd see a big difference in them in a short time.

So, if you have a kid who is showing some problem behavior, how can you approach them differently and get a different response? How can you stop butting heads with them and get a dialogue going? I dunno - maybe you need to go and watch some episodes of the Dog Whisperer. I think Cesar has the secret!




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