If every parent in America had a parentwarrior Starter Kit and they followed through with the ideas and strategies, the number of kids needing to be placed out of their homes would go down dramatically. parentwarrior is about preventing the need for such a drastic intervention. And having your kid removed from your home is drastic. But there are times when the family situation is so out of control that out-of-home placement is necessary.

Interestingly enough, in the last few months, I’ve had a number of parents who have written to me asking whether I know of treatment facilities that are using the parentwarrior philosophy. My answer is: none that I am aware of - yet. But there will be. If any form of treatment is going to be successful, parents must be empowered to be the leaders of the family. There is no other way. So flat out, any program that does not do this is a bad program, period!

A few general rules of thumb to evaluate a treatment program:

1. Parents must be dealt with directly, honestly and with the presumption that ultimately they are the experts for their family and they are the ones who are responsible for leading the way.
2. Family treatment needs to start from the very beginning and it needs to be frequent, intense and change-producing.
3. There needs to be staff facilitated multi-family groups where a number of families work together so parents new to treatment can learn from parents who have changed. Seeing new interactions between parents and their children is worth more than a thousand words.
4. Those providing treatment need to be experts at innovative family work and be receiving continuous supervision. Old worn out approaches have already proven to be failures by the time there is out-of-home placement.
5. The actual treatment program for the kids needs to incorporate multiple therapeutic interventions seven days a week aimed at interrupting self-defeating behavior and strategically motivating kids to use their brain in new ways to create solutions. (Their failed solutions are the problem.)
6. There needs to be a comprehensive aftercare plan firmly established before discharge and family work needs to continue with continuity.
7. A program worth its salt will guarantee success in the sense that parents will be fully empowered to run the family and returning to past behavior will not be a possibility; and this happens before the kid is discharged. (Too many programs treat the kid, neglect family work and within a short period of time after discharge, the same negative behavior patterns are the norm again. And the family, insurance company, county, state and federal payors don’t get a refund.)

As an alternative and to save money in the long run, for $1000 a day I’ll come stay at your house and work with the family. Think of it as the Dog Whisperer, Supernanny and Sun Tzu (author of the Art of War) coming for a visit. It will be fun. Change will happen. And I guarantee success.

I continue to hear all these discussions about change. Mostly the talk revolves around people’s belief that they do not have the ability, power or right to change a person or a situation. When did we become so uncertain of our place in the universe? So tentative about influencing the course of events? So insecure about our personal power and our ability to make things happen?

Two years ago, a man told me about a couple of old welding machines that had been sitting idle at a school. I made an inquiry about how I might get them so the kids I work with could learn to weld. The school didn’t want to give them up. But a dialogue started about the machines, vocational training, a skilled workforce, what will kids do if they do not go on to college? Today, in a little town, there is a $150,000 state-of-the-art Welding Center that provides training for high school students, at-risk youth who have dropped out and community residents. All I did was ask a question and be a little persistent; many other dedicated people did the rest.

Three years ago, a program serving at-risk youth and young adults was in jeopardy of being closed down. Most were not optimistic about continued funding. I co-wrote a grant that included a comprehensive mental health piece that was aggressive and incorporated many of the elements of the parentwarrior philosophy. It was funded. Last year, another grant was completed and it was not about survival; it was about expansion. We integrated what we had learned about effective mental health intervention with leadership skill building, vocational training and advanced educational initiatives. This involved more than a question. It was funded. Three years, $1.25 million later, the program is thriving.

The bottomline is that all of us have the power to change our individual lives, our families and the world around us. Sometimes it starts with a question, involves some persistence and then maybe a lot of heavy lifting. But you have to believe you can make a difference or you won’t start. parentwarriors believe that people can change any time they choose. We also believe that we can change others when necessary and be a positive catalyst for situations we find ourselves in. We are aggressive in promoting a different way of thinking, behaving and interacting with the universe - be that inside our own heads, within our families, at work and as we travel through life. Be a catalyst. It’s time…

• Family members share a vision, philosophy, mission and style.

• Family members have responsibilities and the power to carry them out.

• Goals are clear but meeting the goals is left to individual ingenuity.

• Family members are ego-healthy, self-confident and able to make decisions quickly.

• Family members do well under pressure and view stress as an ally.

• The praise of family members is sincere and free flowing.

• Family members are creatively impatient, looking forward to each day as a new learning opportunity.

• The family is proactive - they implement ideas rather than wait for something to happen.

• There is laughter, playfulness and physical activities which complement the hard work and high expectations.

• The family has regular get-togethers where members share what they are doing and take pride in accomplishments.

• Family members plan ahead and anticipate how their actions will affect others.

• The family is not afraid of conflict and tension but requires members to offer solutions along with complaints.

• Family members are encouraged to take risks and try new things. They are not afraid to fail.

• Family members are passionate about who they are, what they do and family growth.

• Family members seek criticism from those whose opinions they come to trust. They strategically ignore feedback that does not fit.

• The family views itself as an experimental laboratory, constantly evolving and fostering human development.

• The family knows well who to align with, what resources are needed and whom to avoid.

• The family has a bias towards being different, always striving to find and fulfill its potential.

• The family embraces change and creates an environment where all family members can be transformed.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”

“Enlightenment consists not merely in seeing the luminous shapes and visions, but in making the darkness visible. The latter procedure is more difficult, and therefore, unpopular.”

“True teachers use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own.”

I am not going to collaborate with the kids about how I will teach them the essential building blocks of life. We are not equals. I know more. My job is not to justify my methods. It is to guide, teach, nurture, challenge, provoke, test-to do what I determine is necessary so they can master the essentials and be fully prepared for now and what lies ahead.

I decide what and how. The building blocks are not up for debate, negotiation or discussion. I am maneuvering them, call it what you will. Maybe it is brainwashing.

It could be creating that momentary loss of mental balance (confusion), a sudden uncertainty and then inserting the seeds of change that grow and spread and act as a good virus.

It could be leading them on a life skills scavenger hunt (curiosity) offering mysterious clues, wrapped in chocolate, metaphors, stories and the like, that hold the ingredients for a new way.

They accuse me of mind games and manipulation. Seems reasonable. And then we are off on another round of strategic bantering, awakening more brain cells that will be needed to seize fast-passing opportunities and avoid the sharp pronged dangers that lurk in seemingly innocent places.

This is a dance I must lead and abdicating that responsibility, no matter what the explanation, is a crime.

There are some professionals out there (you know who you are or your colleagues do) who work with kids, parents, families and they have no passion, purpose, vision or competence. They might run organizations, work for counties, states, not-for-profits, sovereign nations, for-profits, foundations, educational institutions and federal government entities. They are simply going through the motions. But it is not harmless. Those who do not care, who are lazy, those who do bad work leave their clients, participants, customers, members, constituents worse off then they found them and it is wrong. Whether it is unions or seniority or tenure or lack of accountability or fear of repercussions or affiliation with the powerful or burn out or simply not giving a damn that causes this, it sets everything back and harms kids and families, sometimes irreparably.

Here are a few examples:

Those who run programs for at-risk youth who do not directly address mental health, alcohol/drug and family issues.

The founders of a well known web site who allow pregnant teens to continuously post comments that normalize getting pregnant without any confrontation from responsible adults.

Those who provide therapy, counseling, mentoring, advice giving without supervision and honest, challenging peer review.

Those claiming to do family work without actually working with the whole family.

Those who allow their organizations, that serve kids, parents and families, to sink to mediocrity and do lousy work without ever speaking out.

Those who fail to do adequate prevention work and then complain there is not enough funding for all the crises that result.

Those who design treatment programs that charge thousands of dollars without any guarantee of a successful outcome.

Those who intentionally create rigid systems by using endless policies and procedures to construct barriers that insulate staff from interacting with clients.

Those who tell completely dysfunctional people whatever they want to hear so they don’t have to have conflict with them or ever do any of the heavy lifting of change.

Those who conveniently believe that because their organization does “good works”, it necessarily means they are doing good work.

In the ideal world, or some progressive organizations, these people would be told to get better or get out. In the real world, they often get away with doing bad work, most everyone is silent and we are all worse off.

No more could haves, should haves, might of, if only, etc. All that mental trickery and wishful thinking produces paralysis. It does you no good and leaves your kids leaderless which then becomes part of the problem. It is about now, forward. Until they (or you) are dead, change is possible. I work with a number of parents who are still trying to get it right with their late teen, twenty-something kids who are back home because life knocked the crap out of them the first time out of the nest. The time to question assumptions, become aware of what keeps you stuck, experiment with new ways of raising your kids is now - in the present. The kids can recover from your mistakes but you need to own them, stop making them and do something entirely different. And with all due respect, if the 7 year-old or 16 year-old is running the show, you have made mistakes. Once and for all, you need to stop actions that have failed to get results. You need to declare your independence from the past, suck it up, switch gears, abandon what does not work, risk uncharted territory and run the family.