Mad River Behavioral Health

Parenting Is: Continuous Quality Improvement The very best response to the vast majority of children’s misbehavior is a simple, quiet conversation moderated by reason, wisdom, and compassion; a conversation that guides the child quietly and gently to a better, more helpful place in life.   Raising children is a long, gradual process.  It takes years and years of patient and persistent effort. Gentle guidance is the primary choice in parenting.  Sometimes a planned system of positive and negative consequences makes sense.  This is not a system of rewards and punishment, so to speak, but a well crafted system of inductive consequences; constructive and instructive consequences that gradually teach better behavior, better problem solving skill, and better decision-making skill. Arbitrary and / or harsh consequences should be avoided.  They are far more likely to inflame the situation and create resentment within the child which will obscure any learning benefit...

  Our Little Thought Gremlins  Most of your thoughts emerge into your awareness from your subconscious.   You felt it happen when you read that statement.  You had  some sort of instant reaction.  Perhaps it was barely perceptible or maybe it was a quite strong thought.   • “That’s bunk!”  • “Hmmm, that’s interesting.” What was your first thought?   Where did it come from? It wasn’t there. You read the statement.  Suddenly, it was there in the blink of an eye.  This happens in simple, unimportant scenarios like this, but it also happens in your personal relationships, your parental relationships, your work relationships, your random interactions with strangers, even with your self.  Watch what thought leaps instantly into your head the next time you spill your coffee on your nice shirt.  “I am such a dingus!”   A person cuts you off on the highway. A thought or series of thoughts jumps immediately into your awareness....

  The kindnesses you have shared with others over the years of your lifetime have left in people tiny packages, like little gifts of warm love on a cold winter night. K. H. Little Consulting Services Kenneth H. Little, MA cell: (603) 726-1006 kenlittle-nh.com  

Have you ever felt limited by the belief that your abilities are fixed? That you're either born with certain talents or you are not? This fixed mindset can hold you back from reaching your full potential. But what if I told you that you can change your brain? That you can cultivate a growth mindset, where you believe that your abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work? How to Cultivate a Growth Mindset Embrace Challenges: Actively seek out new challenges and step outside your comfort zone.   Focus on Effort: Celebrate your hard work and acknowledge the progress you've made. Learn from Mistakes: View mistakes as learning opportunities. Analyze what went wrong and how you can do things differently next time.     Seek and Value Feedback: Actively solicit feedback from others and use it to improve.   Find Inspiration in Others: Celebrate the successes of others and use them as motivation for your own growth.o   Practice Self-Compassion: Be kind to ...

  Face, Confront, Overcome.  Some people practice avoiding difficulties. This is understandable. Difficulties can really suck. However, the skill refined by practicing avoiding difficulty is … avoiding difficulty.  The skill we really want to practice is navigating and overcoming difficulty.  When this skill is strengthened, we can be more selective in choosing which difficulties to take on to our best advantage and which difficulties to circumnavigate*.  It becomes a choice. Having the skill set empowers us to choose. Not having the skill set leaves us with no option but to avoid difficulty.  *Circumnavigating is not the same as avoiding. There are many ways to deal with an obstacle to continue our journey. Avoiding dealing with the obstacle isn’t one of them.  K. H. Little Consulting Services Kenneth H. Little, MA cell: (603) 726-1006 kenlittle-nh.com

 Critical feedback elevates performance.  It is our professional responsibility to practice and improve accepting critical feedback.  *** The better we get at receiving critical feedback the more value we gain from it and the better our performance becomes.  —> Accepting even harsh critical feedback is a professional skill set.  Practice to mastery leads to improvement. The more you practicing accepting critical feedback the better you will get at receiving critical feedback.  This is our professional responsibility to our own professional development.  #NewHampshire #Feedback

  I use to work inside this horribly depressed, angry, agitated company.  Ironically, it was a mental health facility.  *** I’ve never seen so many employees return from meetings with a particularly abusive senior manager crying. This is super duper HR fail. It is a super senior management team fail. It is a super leadership fail. And, it is a super big board of directors fail. But it was not just this one toxic senior manager.  It was the organization as a whole. I’ve never seen so much inter-personnel animosity. I’ve never seen so much wide-spread demoralization anywhere, at any company I’ve ever worked at over my decades of work experience.  This was quite simply the worst place I have ever worked.  The senior manager, although super abusive and toxic, wasn’t responsible for the wide-spread demoralization and hostility throughout the company. He certainly was injecting a ton more yuck into the company, but he didn’t touch all of its moving parts. There w...