Hello, I'm fourteen years old and I'd like to build a stronger relationship with my mother. I've never really had a relationship with her, but when I was little, I'd hug her, kiss her, and tell her I loved her everyday. Today, I hardly even speak to her. Over the past few years, a lot of things have happened to change the way I am, or the way I react to certain situations, but I won't go into detail. I've always been quiet and somewhat of a loner. My mother thinks that I hate her and our family. She thinks I'm depressed and I need therapy. Whenever she tries to communicate with me, we just end up getting into fights because of our disagreements. My current therapist says that I act the way I do because of my Hyperthyroidism. He explained this to my mother, but she completely disregarded it. I have no idea how to come about this, and I think I should just wait until I'm more mature, but maybe it'll be too late. I just want the tension between us two to be gone and for her to be slightly, maybe, just a little more happy.

My 2 year old son use to hit/slap my wife all the time. He use to slap me once in awhile but only becasue I told him no. I noticed that my son has stopped hitting my wife since she has been paying more attention to him. She use to be on the computer for long hours. Did my son hit my wife because she was not paying enough attention to him or neglecting him?

As a parent who has done her best to raise her children the TCS way there is one reoccuring issue that I find the most hard to deal with. Something that I never considered when taking on this philosophy all those years ago. I have a fairly good understanding of TCS, and I agree with the principles... yet I have parenting issues and problems as every parent does... the difference? I have no one who understands the things I struggle with, and the solutions they give are very much un-TCS.

A TCS parent cannot sit amongst a group of mums and talk about how it can be frustrating that your children stay up till 2 - 3am because they are too interested in their computer games... how this messes up the whole day for the mother as the children then sleep till midday and beyond, but are still too young to be left alone. She cant talk about how sometimes she is just sick and tired of talking and reasoning and wants to just be able to say "do it because I say so, and if you dont I will cut your pocket money this week". Her family and friends dont understand, often the attitude comes back "its your bed, now lie in it". A depressed TCS mother cannot seek help for fear of her parenting technique be bought to question.

So if you are thinking of TCS for your children... I would support your decision, I think its the only way to raise your children. Be prepared to have little or no support tho, understand that often the people around you will not only not understand, but may actually revel in your difficulties because it justifies their own disciplinarian methods. Understand that the usual lines of help if you get into serious problems with your own health are closed to you. Do I think its worth it? this isn't really a question for me, I dont think I can be any other way towards my children than I am now, TCS is how I feel about childrearing... but sometimes... I just wish I could call up a friend or go online and find someone right there to hear me cry and rant...

Sorry to ask a question that's probably been asked a hundred times before, but I'm new here.

Suppose a parent comes to the realization they've been parenting all wrong (coercively) and that their very strong, self-assertive child is not responding well to that at all (battle of wills). So the parent reads, thinks, and decides to change.

Bedtime rolls around. Or what would be bedtime. But now the parent has NO idea what to do. Usually she gets the child in bed with a mix of "tactics" and now she doesn't trust any of them. But the child is used to rebelling. So, he stays up. The parent tries to talk to him and reason with him, but his eyes are glued to the TV and he just mutters, "I'm staying up" and completely stops responding after that.

What could the mom do- she doesn't want to be just permissive, but the child gives her no opening to discuss it or come up with some mutually acceptable solution. People seem to say, well a child raised with TCS will reason and discuss with you. But what about a child who hasn't, to this point, been raised that way?