This system is utilized in conjunction with family counseling. All family members must participate and underlying emotional issues are addressed as a part of the counseling process. There are often many reasons why children act out. One must not just implement a behavioral structure without understanding what may be creating the symptoms. Please consult a licensed mental health professional before instituting this system.

Parenting is a complex and difficult process full of endless worry, constant limit setting and, when things go well, incredible joy. As children grow, they enter different developmental stages that require changes in parenting, discipline and privileges. This system is a basic, common sense approach to parenting and discipline that can be highly effective and, when in place, will free parents from the frustration of constantly implementing discipline and allow them to enjoy their children more. Children respond well to consistent, appropriate limits and consequences and are often relieved to know their parents are in control. This system can be adjusted to meet your family's individual values and expectations while helping to create a straight-forward and clear foundation of rules, responsibilities, privileges and consequences.

Parenting Basics:
1.) Overview
The overall goal is to motivate your children to learn the things you have determined are important for their health, well-being and development. You will accomplish this primarily by providing lots of love, appropriate structure and consistent guidance.

2.) Parenting must be consistent.
The quickest way to lose control over your children is to constantly change rules, degrees of consequences and levels of privileges. Your child will be confused by the arbitrary nature of your parenting and will lose respect for you. They will then set their own rules and test limits more frequently. Remember, you are role modeling all kinds of life and social skills through your parenting style, chaos and confusion should not be a part of what you're teaching.

3.) Parents must be united.
Constant disagreements about parenting and differing styles of implementing discipline reinforce a child's manipulative behavior. Playing Dad against Mom to create loopholes in the family rules empowers a child in the wrong way.

4.) No Shaming.
Parenting must be implemented without attacking the child's basic character. Stick with the incident at hand and hold to the rules you have already established. Name calling, dredging up past problems, making global statements about their character and personal integrity can be severely damaging to a child's self-esteem. This will come back to haunt you and them later.

5.) No Hitting.
One of the most damaging things you can do to a child is hit them. Hitting and fear of being hit breeds anger, hurt and contempt. It effectively destroys your relationship with your children. A child must feel safe and protected by parents at almost any age. Hitting violates this basic need, severely damages self-esteem and substantially increases retaliatory acting out behavior and/or depression.


Step 1: House Rules
How do you wish to establish the basic rules your children are to follow in your home? This will include things like how everyone treats each other, household chores, homework time, bedtime, when to come home from school, what time dinner will be, family time, quiet time, etc. You will be establishing the tone and logistics of what you expect from your children and what kind of home-life you intend to develop. The rules should be clear, fair, age appropriate and flexible enough to address occasional fluctuations. House rules should be discussed with children, but parents should make the final decisions on how things will be. Listen to your children's concerns, accept appropriate suggestions, but implement what you determine is in their best interest.

Step 2: Inappropriate Behavior
Make clear what will not be tolerated in your home. Target problem behaviors, but also set general guidelines based on the values you wish to teach your children. Manners, responsibility, helping others, being caring toward each other, how conflicts are to be handled, fairness, bad language, care for personal and other's property, lying or whatever you're concerned about should be clearly communicated and discussed. What you create in your home is, to a great degree, how your children will behave when they're out in the world.

Step 3: Consequences
Develop three levels of consequences for each unacceptable behavior. Start small and increase the severity of the consequences with each recurrence of the same infraction. If your child doesn't do their chores, the first consequence might be having to take on an extra chore. If he or she fails to comply, the next consequence might be having to take on two more chores. If they still don't comply, the third level might be restriction on Saturday while you supervise the completion of all regular and additional chores. The idea is to escalate the consequences until you get the necessary cooperation. Structure consequences around things that are important to your child and convenient for you. You're not the one who is supposed to be getting consequences so don't set things up so that you suffer as a result of your child's inappropriate behavior. This serves two purposes, first, you want your child to see that you are determined to follow through and enforce the house rules. Second, you want the child to see that they are the only one paying the price for their behavior. Be as business-like as you can when implementing consequences. Remember, your children aren't bad, they just did something inappropriate. You give away power to your children when they observe you emotionally out of control so don't over react, don't scream and yell, just inform them of your concern and of the consequences they'll receive and then stick to what you've said and make sure they comply. Bargaining or changing your mind undermines the whole process. Children will test the structure you create, its kind of their job, remain undaunted and stick with your plan. They'll get the idea in due time. If you find that you are consistently having to implement level three consequences, there may be an underlying problem that isn't being addressed. Speak with your therapist about it, don't just continue to escalate the consequences.

Step 4: Privileges & Rewards
As your children mature, they must be given new rules and new responsibilities. Privileges are your way of showing your trust in your children and assisting their development. When your child consistently compiles with rules and shows age appropriate maturity, this is the time to expand their freedoms and allow for more personal choices. Rewards, on the other hand, are for a job well done. Use them sparingly so as not to create an atmosphere of bribing. If your child does something extra or special, that's the time for additional praise and small rewards. Again, structure the rewards to what's important to your child. An extra 30 minutes of phone privilege is like gold to a teenager. An extra 30 minutes of video games is real treasure to a 10 year old. One of the biggest privileges you will ever give your child is a driver's license and use of a car. What do you wish to see them accomplish before you hand them the keys to a deadly weapon and that level freedom? Privileges and rewards are the payoff for mature, responsible and appropriate behavior and values. They are essential to the whole system and, when properly implemented, teach a child the value of things like, hard work, honesty, caring and self-control. They'll need all of those attributes and more to be happy and successful out in the world.

Conclusion
This system helps parents determine and establish some of the most fundamental life skills a child will need. Raising children is a tremendous responsibility. One is, essentially, preparing the next generation to succeed or fail as they progress through the many stages of life. Providing a loving environment and healthy structure for them to learn, grow, fail, succeed, test and develop is both the most challenging and rewarding thing many of us will ever do. Having a flexible and time-tested plan for certain parts of this enormous undertaking can make a great difference.

Below is an example of a completed Multi-Level Behavioral System for an adolescent male.

House Rules
1.) Minimum of 1 hour of homework per school night to be done between       4-10pm 2.) Room cleaned 1x per week and completed by Saturday 6pm 3.) Yard mowed 1x per week by Sunday 6pm 4.) No phone calls after 9:30pm - No more than 60 minutes on the phone       per night 5.) Weekday curfew 9pm - Weekend curfew 12am 6.) No friends over without a parent present 7.) Prearrange all outings and activities with time, place and phone number 8.) Must be home at 6pm for dinner 9.) Weekly Allowance of $15.00
Inappropriate Behavior
1.) Verbal Abuse and Bad Language 2.) Physically intimidating younger siblings 3.) Failure or refusal to do chores 4.) Failure to complete homework assignments 5.) Failure to comply with curfew 6.) Failure to inform parents of activities or changes in plans 7.) Defiant behavior toward parents 8.) Truancy 9.) Lying
Consquences Level I
Verbal Abuse or Bad Language Defiant Behavior Chores Not Completed Abuse of Phone Missed Curfew Friends in House without Permission Failure to Inform of Activities or Location Lying Truancy Miscellaneous	No phone for 2 nights 1 Weekend Night Restriction 1 Extra Chore Loss of Phone for One Night Next Day Restriction 2 Day Restriction 1 Day Restriction 1 Weekend Day Restriction 1 Week Restriction Loss of TV, Stereo, Computer, Video Games
Level II
Verbal Abuse or Bad Language Defiant Behavior Chores Not Completed Abuse of Phone Missed Curfew Friends in House without Permission Failure to Inform of Activities or Location Lying Truancy Miscellaneous	No phone for 4 nights 2 Weekend Night Restriction 2 Extra Chores and Restriction Until Completed Loss of Phone for Two Nights Two Day Restriction 4 Day Restriction 2 Day Restriction 2 Weekend Days Restriction 2 Week Restriction More Chores, Loss of TV, Stereo, Computer, Room Time, Video Games
Level III
Verbal Abuse or Bad Language Defiant Behavior Chores Not Completed Abuse of Phone Missed Curfew Friends in House without Permission Failure to Inform of Activities or Location Lying Truancy Miscellaneous	No phone for One Week One Week Restriction One Weekend of Supervised Chores and Restriction Until Completed Loss of Phone for One Week One Weekend Restriction One Week Restriction 2 Weekday Day and One Weekend Restriction 1 Week Restriction 1 Month Restriction More Chores, Loss of TV, Stereo, Computer, Room Time, Video Games
Privileges and Rewards
Later Curfew Extended Phone Time Less Checking In Additional Allowance More Special Activities Later Bedtime Special Purchases More Freedom After School More Control Over Room Décor Selected Friends Over Without Supervision Greater Travel Radius More TV, Stereo, Video, Computer Time More Control Over Hair and Clothing Styles