Mad River Behavioral Health

You can't. Don't do it. Ok, so we can a little bit, to a point. Some behavioral gestures are so common, like smiling, laughing, etc., that we can safely infer meaning. But, if we go past the basic observation, we can also get our selves into some pretty deep trouble ... pretty quickly ... by over reaching - interpreting more complex behaviors, one's that matter a bit more. We can see that a client is angry, but we cannot know what specifically she is angry about -- even if we observe a conflict in action. The client may have been angry about something that happened early in the day, last week, a few years ago, and / she may be trauma reactive (more on this another time), and then brought her pre-existing condition into a current situation. Note: We all bring our pre-existing condition into current situations. The problem with interpreting behavior is ... it requires us to become psychics, to read minds. We can observe a behavior, but we cannot know what it m...

No, not swear words. There are certain words we use to describe children and their behavior that are counter-productive; one of the most destructive of which is the word "manipulative". Bad words!  Bad!  Words matter.  To keep one's head straight, it's important to think about and describe behaviors in a constructive manner that makes success more likely.   Using the wrong words makes success less likely. Have you ever had a phone call from someone trying to sell you something, during which you felt like you were being manipulated? If yes, what did you do?   I hang up, cut the call  off   . Bam!  Discussion over. Problem solved. As parents and mental health professionals, the last thing we ever want to do during our work with a child is to "hang up on them".  We can take breaks , this is sensible, but we never want to cut the conversation off.   Try this.  Re-conceptualize "manipulative" behavio...

Copyright All rights reserved by  Ken Little - New Hampshire “Good Judgement comes from experience, 90% of which is based on bad judgement.” (source unknown) This wisdom was taped to the kitchen cupboard in my family's kitchen throughout my adolescent years. I’m convinced it was my mother’s survival mantra; her daily reassurance that all would be well in the future, that all of the mistakes I made were guiding me toward developing good judgment. It worked and I did, but to be perfectly honest, my survival was not assured by any stretch of the imagination. Things could very easily have turned out differently, very badly in fact. Things did turn out badly for many young people growing up at the same time.  Too many of my peers during high school and in the years shortly after died, but many more were impacted by lasting and often debilitating injuries, for example: skiing dangerously, jumping off cliffs into quarries, driving dangerously, and using drugs...

Consequences are not what we think they are.   Consequences are simply the variety of results or outcomes that naturally occur in the wake of a behavior. For example, you step out onto thin ice and fall through.  The consequences of which could be that you get wet, get cold, drown, swim, laugh and have fun, etc. You may be rescued by a stranger -- fall in love, get married, have children, and so on. The variety of natural outcomes can be all negative, all positive, or a mixture.  Consequences can be experienced immediately following the behavior (fall through ice - get wet) or be experienced many years later (rescued by stranger - have children).   Smoking cigarettes can have immediate positive consequences (calming) and negative long-term consequences (cancer). As the responsible adults working to manage behavioral situations, we typically have little or no control over the consequences that occur and no control over how they are perceived by th...

It's never too late or too soon. Wherever you are in your parenting journey, whether with newborn child or young adult, begin teaching problem solving skills, thinking skills, and verbal reasoning skills. Problem Solving, Thinking, & Verbal Reasoning There are other important skills (like, how to do laundry, dishes, math, and weak-side layups), but these are the Big Three. All are skills. All are taught, coached, encouraged, trained, and ... practiced, practiced, practiced to mastery over time. Please keep in mind that skills are increased gradually, incrementally over time only through repetitive practice. Practice to mastery is the only path to skill development, the only path forward. We will work toward developing these skills (problem-solving, thinking, verbal reasoning) by practicing on a regular basis the * Collaborative & Proactive Solutions (CPS) process developed by Dr. Ross Greene. This process can and should be practiced during all routine problems and mor...

Win-win or no deal is borrowed from Stephen R. Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This is a fantastic resource that I strongly recommend. I've incorporated Covey's idea into the collaborative process developed by Ross W. Greene and described in The Explosive Child , another resource I strongly recommend. More about Dr. Greene's approach can be found at his " Lives in the Balance " web site. I strongly encourage you to study these resources thoroughly. Think Win-Win, Whenever Possible We are working toward a parent-child collaborative process; outcomes that are mutually agreeable are preferred whenever possible. Win-lose and lose-win outcomes are not sustainable solutions.  These types of inequitable outcomes will contribute to growing mistrust and resentment; increasing frustration, anger, hostility — ever acting-out behavior. Avoid Win-Lose and Lose-Win outcomes as much as possible. Remember “No Deal”. Rather than accept a win-lose or l...

When you arrive home from work ... your family should be happy to see you. Contemplate this. Part of my professional perspective has been informed by my personal parenting adventures, or more accurately - misadventures.  (Ask me about the popcorn incident some day.)  It's truly amazing what one can learn by living fully immersed within the situation one teaches about. Just briefly, my wife died when our two sons, Jake and Braden, were 4 and 5 years old.  She had been struggling with cancer for quite a while and as she became more and more debilitated, I took over more and more of what had been a beautiful shared parenting partnership. I won't go into the gruesome details, but ... my transition into single parenthood was not a fluid, seamless process.  There were some very real struggles for me as I adapted to the solo role.  Sometimes, these struggles spilled out onto the boys.  It wasn't pretty.  The first lesson I learned was how to regr...