This issue is filled with brand new interventions that you-- our blog subscribers-- are seeing before almost everyone else. Even better, we're giving you a wonderful motivational student printable worksheet when you sign up to follow Youth Change on Twitter. Plus, we have new video tutorials to help you solve student motivation problems before they start-- and it's all in this issue.

It Slices! It Dices! It Graduates!
This intervention can be used in dozens of ways. It's a play on the type of glib, hard-to-forget slogans you hear in infomercials. It's a big hit at our workshops. Our inservice will be in Portland, Oregon on October 8-9, 2009 (click) so you can get more strategies like this one at that conference. If you have a bad budget, you can still attend because our blog subscribers can come for just $84, which is half-price. Click here for details. Here's the strategy-- but remember that you don't have to use this method verbally-- it also works really well as a sign, poster, card, name tag, door hanger, t-shirt, or even as a note on your board. Say: "Ask me how to earn $329,000." (That is how much more students will earn if they get a high school dipoma.)

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(2) Next, click here to email us to request your free worksheet.












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HALF OFF WORKSHOP Now Just $84 SOLVE         Budget Problems           and         Kid Problems! Live Workshop w/10 CEUs Now $84 For a limited time, subscribers to this internet magazine (and their colleagues) can register for the Breakthrough Strategies Workshop (click) for just $84, that's half off our $169 basic rate. REGISTER or ORDER: Call 1-800-545-5736, reply to this e-mail, fax 503-982-7910, or click here to register. To order, click here. Rules: To get half off, call 1-800-545-5736 and mention "Subscriber Half Off $169 Workshop," or note in registration/order form Comment box. Must request discount when first register/order, not later; no exceptions. Not valid on previously submitted, partial, or in-process transactions. Can't be combined with other offers. Valid only for $169 registration rate. Not valid for work study, DVD set, or to pay an invoice. Expires 9-25-09.

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Motivation: the Movie
Click here to view our new video tutorials. These videos are packed with ideas to motivate students. These strategies are such big stars that they've got their own movies. This is such a quick, easy way to learn a lot of dynamic student motivational methods in a short time. Even better, for now, these video tutorials are free. You should watch them now because there will be a fee to watch them in the future. We hope you'll give our new movies great reviews.

You Have the Power
Here are some inspiring words to urge your students to finish school. These words could be on a poster on your wall, or they can be used verbally. These words are intended for use with students who are in crisis, using substances, self-destructive, or involved in self-harming behaviors. Say: "The same power that you have to destroy yourself, you have to save yourself." The words are attributed to Les Paul, the legendary musician, who overcame enormous difficulty to reach his dreams. A good follow-up activity: ask students to read about Les Paul's determination.

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It's Your Choice: Twice the Pain or Twice the Gain?
Hopefully you've already been teaching your students that being a high school dropout is like starting their race through life miles behind everyone else. As we've told you in past issues of this blog, dropouts are the last hired and the first fired. When economics are rough like right now, dropouts suffer disproportionately. Here is just one example. The higher the education level, the lower the unemployment rate. That may happen because grads have more education and skills to fall back on. How disproportionate does it get? Dropouts' unemployment is about twice that of peers who graduate-- and just one more of a million reasons to finish school.

There's No "Q" in Classroom
This intervention would work best as a poster on your wall. Write "There's no QUIT in this classroom. How can I help you succeed?" Next, dialogue with students about how you can assist them throughout this school year-- even when they feel like quitting because a task is hard, or they are faced with other kinds of problems. This is a perfect intervention for work refusers. Work refusers tend to be a very hot topic in our live workshops. We spend hours on them. If you can't attend a live inservice course with us, hopefully this intervention will help a bit.

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Get These 2 Back-to-School Worksheets
F R E E ! !

It's back-to-school time. This issue is filled with terrific back-to-school interventions to stop classroom management problems before they start. Plus, to celebrate the new school year, we're giving you 2 back-to-school worksheets when you sign up to follow Youth Change on Twitter.

To get the 2 free worksheets, take these two quick steps:

(1) Click here to follow us; Twitter will send us a notice that you're a follower.

(2) Next, email us to request your free worksheets.

The worksheets are our Posters 149 (click to enlarge) and Poster 126 (click to enlarge.) Or, click here to purchase these items as posters.

The back-to-school interventions included in this issue work so much better than just re-stating the school and classroom rules. These lively devices actually teach kids how to be prepared, motivated students. Best of all, these intervention tools prevent classroom management problems before they ever start.

A Back-to-School Intervention to Teach
Motivation for School
STAY OR PAY

Teach students that dropouts can afford 1/2 the house, 1/2 the possessions, 1/2 the necessities, 1/2 the fun that grads can afford. Ask students if they would rather "Stay or Pay," meaning would they prefer to "stay" in school or "pay" forever for dropping out.

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50% OFF Almost EVERYTHING! SOLVE         Budget Problems           and         Kid Problems! All Posters Now $4 Most Books Now $7.50 Live Workshop w/10 CEUs Now $84 DVD Workshop w/10 CEUs Now$94 For a limited time, subscribers to this internet magazine (and their colleagues) can register for the Breakthrough Strategies Workshop (click) or order any book or poster (click) for 50% off. REGISTER or ORDER: Call 1-800-545-5736, reply to this e-mail, fax 503-982-7910, or click here to register. To order, click here. Rules: To get 50% off, call 1-800-545-5736 and mention "Subscriber 50% Off," or note in registration/order form Comment box. Must request discount when first register/order, not later; no exceptions. Not valid on previously submitted, partial, or in-process transactions. Can't be combined with other offers. Not valid on ebooks, audio books, work study, or to pay an invoice. Expires 8-07-09.

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A Back-to-School Intervention to Teach
Appropriate Dress
WHAT NEVER TO WEAR TO SCHOOL

Stop hassling with students about their inappropriate attire. Instead of reminding your students about the rules, actually teach them the skills they need to comply with your standards. Ask your class members to generate posters showing What Never to Wear to School, and be sure they include tiny skirts, teeny tank tops, slippers, pajama bottoms, and pants that are way to big. Post their art work on the wall so it becomes a lasting, vivid, concrete reminder of your standards. For the rest of the school year, no student will ever be able to say "But, I didn't know we couldn't wear swim suits to class!" Notice how this intervention can work even when parents don't teach their offspring about appropriate dress for school.

A Back-to-School Intervention to Teach
Discussion Skills
WHAT TO SAY WHEN...

Don't just expect students to figure out the nuances of being in a class discussion-- teach them those skills instead. So, have the students devise responses to situations that they are likely to encounter in classroom discussions. For example, have students identify and memorize what to say when...they don't know what to say; they don't want to participate; they don't understand the question, etc. Post their responses on the wall so students can use the information all year long. You may be surprised how much bad behavior can be avoided using this simple intervention all school year.

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A Back-to-School Intervention to Teach
Appreciation for School
FIND OUT NOW WHAT YOU'LL LEARN LATER

Students often see school as a waste of time. Show them that school is actually their key to survival. To potently convey how difficult life will be without an education, give each student a page of text that is written in a foreign language that is unfamiliar. Offer each student a terrific prize for explaining what the page says. This will really motivate your class members to read the document, but of course, none will be able to. Let your students vent about being very frustrated, feeling angry and incapable of completing the task. After the students have finished venting, note that this experience is similar to what life may be like without education.

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In our professional development workshops, we always ask participants to identify the top cause of school shootings. Bullying is usually named. There is no doubt that bullying is a huge problem in nearly any setting where children and youth congregate, but you won't be able to stop or moderate bullying by focusing on that issue alone. Yet, often that is what happens. When youth professionals focus solely or primarily on bullying, it may be a bit like seeing the forest but not the trees. Or, perhaps another analogy-- one that might resonate especially well with mental health workers-- is that a primary focus on bullying is a lot like just focusing on an alcoholic's liquor consumption while neglecting to address any factors that caused the excessive drinking in the first place. Here is a completely different way of viewing and addressing bullying, one that you may find far more effective than conventional approaches that focus on the symptom of bullying while overlooking the factors that cause and sustain it. Read on to discover the real truth about bulling.

MYTH
To address bullying, use character education or values clarification approaches.

TRUTH
While character education and values clarification approaches can have merit, as a reader of this internet magazine, hopefully you have learned that these methods always fail with about 11-14% of youngsters. Do you remember the information presented in past issues on this topic? If you have been to our workshop, you definitely should know the truth on this topic, because we devote hours to it during class. As any of our workshop past participants should be able to tell you, character ed and values clarification approaches always fail with conduct disordered youth. These are the students we covered in Issues 2 and 3 of this magazine. As you may recall, these youngsters lack a conscience or remorse, so character ed and values clarification simply won't work since those methods require that the child be able to care and have compassion. Since conduct disorders are the most misbehaved students of all, they are also often your bullies. Now, you know why conventional approaches may have limited success reducing bullying. To get better results, switch to methods designed to work with conduct disorders. To review our introduction to controlling conduct disordered students, covered in Issues 1 and 2 of this internet magazine, click here and here.

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50% OFF Almost EVERYTHING! SOLVE         Budget Problems           and         Kid Problems! All Posters Now $4 Most Books Now $7.50 Live Workshop w/10 CEUs Now $84 DVD Workshop w/10 CEUs Now$94 For a limited time, subscribers to this internet magazine (and their colleagues) can register for the Breakthrough Strategies Workshop (click) or order any book or poster (click) for 50% off. REGISTER or ORDER: Call 1-800-545-5736, reply to this e-mail, fax 503-982-7910, or click here to register. To order, click here. Rules: To get 50% off, call 1-800-545-5736 and mention "Subscriber 50% Off," or note in registration/order form Comment box. Must request discount when first register/order, not later; no exceptions. Not valid on previously submitted, partial, or in-process transactions. Can't be combined with other offers. Not valid on ebooks, audio books, work study, or to pay an invoice. Expires 6-25-09.

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MYTH
Bullying is the primary cause of school shootings.

TRUTH
The media loves simple, black and white explanations, and this very simplistic sound bite is just not a very accurate or thorough explanation. While some school shooters were partially motivated by being bullied, to zero in on just the bullying misses the point-- and misses the point on how to prevent an incident. A more accurate way of viewing these youngsters who shoot, is to note that they tend to be clinically depressed, and that in addition to the bullying that they may endure, they are very sad and extremely frustrated. Better than viewing them as worn down by the bullying, it is far more accurate to view them as worn down by many things. Let me explain why this distinction is so important. This distinction is critical because it doesn't require an act of bullying to set this child off. Like a pressure cooker, this student is building up to blow. Certainly bullying could be the thing that causes the blow up, but it could be any event that lights the fuse. When you train your attention on seriously depressed youth (who may be bullied a lot, irregularly, or not at all) you can more readily and precisely identify the youth who could some day explode.

Further, there may be other populations of youth who are statistically far more likely to cause an extremely violent incident. However, if three-- not just one-- types of youngsters are at highest risk of violence, that's a more complicated idea, a complex assertion that the popular media may never fully appreciate and disseminate. Although you won't hear it in the media, the bullied child is probably not the youngster at highest risk of extreme violence. If you want to read introductory information on the three students who are at highest risk of serious violence, click over to this article on our website. Want more than headlines? Click here to check out our book, All the Best Answers Conduct Disorders and Anti-Social Youth. It is available as a book, ebook or podcast.

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MYTH
When teaching bullying prevention, keep the focus on the bullying.

TRUTH
While it is fine to focus directly on the bullying, if you stop there, you may be unhappy with the results. To stick with the analogy used earlier, it is like focusing on the amount of liquor consumed rather than helping the alcoholic to understand why he drinks excessively. In addition to teaching that bullying is wrong, there needs to be a greater focus on teaching the skills youngsters need to behave differently. Further, you need to modify the skills of not just the bully, but also the victims and peers. Typically, we do not necessarily provide specific skill instruction to all three of those groups. The bully needs training to learn new peer interaction skills, but so do the victims and bystanders. If you focus solely on one or two of those groups, you may not get the results you sought. Remember, teaching skills does not mean re-stating expectations or rules. Teaching skills means that you creatively and effectively show students the exact skills that they need to be different. So, for example, you might teach the bully some new "Opening Lines" to use when initiating peer contact, perhaps aiding the youngster to stop threatening, and instead say something less aggressive.

Here are other key areas that are often not taught as part of bullying prevention programs: personal space and distance, interacting with peers who are different, managing hands and other body parts, and how to avoid peer set-ups. There are many more critical skill areas that often are overlooked and left unaddressed, including motivating bullies to stop bullying. All unaddressed areas will be an endless source of bullying problems so be sure you cover it all. Skill training doesn't have to be boring. For example, to motivate bullies to be different, you can use innovative, humorous interventions like our popular bullying prevention posters (click.) Poster #100 is shown above.

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It's Spring. That means you may work in The Hormone Zone. Let us help you find a way out. If it is challenging trying to teach and counsel "hormone-poisoned" youth, here are some absolutely terrific interventions to help your teens use their heads instead of their hormones.

On-the-Job Kissy-Face and Coffee Breaks
When kids debate your site's standards regulating romantic contact, inform them that the standards derive from the work world, not your personal preferences. Advise your youngsters that as soon as business work places commonly permit hugging, kissing, etc., you will too. So, in our part of the world, we tell kids that the very instant that our large employers like Nike and Intel, start offering Coffee and Kiss breaks, we'll do it too.

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3   F R E E REGISTRATIONS for Seattle Breakthrough Workshop A bit of good news in the midst of all the bad: Youth Change is giving away three more no-fee registrations (worth $169 each) to our Seattle Breakthrough Strategies to Teach and Counsel Youth Workshop on May 7-8, 2009. Since this magazine is mailed all over the world and not just to Washington State, you have an extremely good chance of winning if you live near Seattle, or can travel there. To get this no-fee workshop slot, just click here and send us the email form that will pop up. We'll randomly select 3 of you to come to the Seattle workshop with no charges of any kind-- and you can send a substitute if you can't attend. Hurry! We'll select the 3 winners by April 30 so email us before then.

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Work a Little, Kiss a Little
Ask students to name all the jobs they can successfully do and gaze longingly into someone's eyes while working; there may be none. Ask your youngsters to guess what happens-- especially in a bad economy-- to people who work a little, kiss a little.

That Other Fire Will Have to Wait
Have your students name the jobs or businesses they may one day wish to do. Ask them to identify the results of kissing, hugging, etc. while working these jobs. For example, what could result from a fire fighter, surgeon or air traffic controller being distracted by romantic activity at work? Have students answer that question humorously by determining what the distracted worker might say when asked to concentrate on work. Elicit silly answers, such as the fire fighter responds with "That other fire will have to wait."

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Stop the Affection Connection
As you can see pictured at left in Poster #41, you can give a clear name to your expectations for social conduct. Inform students that your site is a "No-Cuddle Zone", and follow through on that standard. That very humorous term will be far more effective than more conventional approaches; students will often begin to use the term themselves. To view or purchase Poster #41 or one of our other PDA (Public Display of Affection) posters, click here.

Teach the Rejection of Affection
Work with both partners who are involved in problematic displays of affection, and give them memorable, crystal-clear standards so that it is hard for students to even begin to claim that they forgot the rules. A very quick, hard-to-forget guideline for social contact at your site: Touch only from the elbows to fingertips, and only after asking.

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50% OFF Almost EVERYTHING! SOLVE         Budget Problems           and         Kid Problems! All Posters Now $4 Most Books Now $7.50 Live Workshop w/10 CEUs Now $84 DVD Workshop w/10 CEUs Now$94 For a limited time, subscribers to this internet magazine (and their colleagues) can register for the Breakthrough Strategies Workshop (click) or order any book or poster (click) for 50% off. REGISTER or ORDER: Call 1-800-545-5736, reply to this e-mail, fax 503-982-7910, or click here to register. To order, click here. Rules: To get 50% off, call 1-800-545-5736 and mention "Subscriber 50% Off," or note in registration/order form Comment box. Must request discount when first register/order, not later; no exceptions. Not valid on previously submitted, partial, or in-process transactions. Can't be combined with other offers. Not valid on ebooks, audio books, work study, or to pay an invoice. Expires 5-5-09.

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In Case of Hormone Overdose
Years ago, families reliably taught their offspring what they needed to know about appropriate interpersonal social behavior. Those social skills are not always reliably taught at home any more. You may want to make it your job to teach what the family should have taught. Remember that telling youngsters "what not to do", may not be enough to change the problem social behaviors. Be sure to teach them "what to do" instead. Be sure to cover these social skills that are necessary to stopping public displays of affection: Hand Control, Mouth Control, Distance Control and Clothes Control.

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Like us, you are probably quite tired of the nonstop depressing economic news. You may be worried about keeping your job, coping with furloughs, or have to cut services to your youngsters. While we can't help with the state of the economy, and the terrible impact it is having on you and your students, we can help brighten up your world a little bit. This issue is full of free things that may help you stay committed and energized even when it may feel like things are crumbling around you. Remember: Youth Change Workshops is on your side in good times and bad. NOTE: Free items available only until April 9, 2009.

3   F R E E
REGISTRATIONS
for SEATTLE BREAKTHROUGH WORKSHOP
We are giving away three $169 registrations to our Seattle Breakthrough Strategies to Teach and Counsel Youth Workshop on May 7-8, 2009. Since this magazine is mailed all over the world and not just to the Washington State region, you may have an extremely good chance of winning if you live near Seattle, or can find a way to get there. To get this no-fee workshop slot, just click here and send us the email form that will pop up. We will randomly select 3 of you to come to the Seattle workshop with no charges of any kind to attend, and you can send a substitute if you can't personally attend. Hurry! We'll select the 3 winners on April 8 so email us before then.

F R E E
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT FIXES
PODCAST
If you want fast, concise solutions for your worst classroom management problems, sign up for our weekly 5 Minute Classroom Management Fixes podcast (click). There is no charge and you will be able to listen and solve your worst classroom behavior management problems right away by listening on your iPod, MP3 player or computer.

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50% OFF Almost EVERYTHING! SOLVE         Budget Problems           and         Kid Problems! All Posters Now $4 Most Books Now $7.50 Live Workshop w/10 CEUs Now $84 DVD Workshop w/10 CEUs Now$94 For a limited time, subscribers to this internet magazine (and their colleagues) can register for the Breakthrough Strategies Workshop (click) or order any book or poster (click) for 50% off. REGISTER or ORDER: Call 1-800-545-5736, reply to this e-mail, fax 503-982-7910, or click here to register. To order, click here. Rules: To get 50% off, call 1-800-545-5736 and mention "Subscriber 50% Off," or note in registration/order form Comment box. Must request discount when first register/order, not later; no exceptions. Not valid on previously submitted, partial, or in-process transactions. Can't be combined with other offers. Not valid on ebooks, audio books, work study, or to pay an invoice. Expires 4-15-09.

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F R E E
MOTIVATIONAL
PRINTABLE WORKSHEET
Here is a very timely printable worksheet. If there is anything good to come out of the rough economic times, perhaps it is that a diploma is an easier "sell" than ever before. When bosses have 700 applicants for a single job, name one legitimate, legal reason why they would hire a dropout or uneducated person over a high school graduate?

Click here to view and get this printable worksheet without charge. The worksheets is a PDF and you should have no problem opening and printing it. We regret that we can't offer tech assistance for no-fee items so consult your site tech support for help if you have problems. We also sell this item as Poster 149; click to view this worksheet as a poster. The printable shows a laptop screen that says "Will Work for Electricity." The caption says "Meet the Competition. Any job you can do without a diploma, a computer can do better."

Obviously, this printable makes a compelling discussion-starter. For an interesting discussion focus, ask students to name all the problems that human employees can generate that a computer doesn't. For example, computers don't arrive late or take bathroom breaks ever. Make sure that your students notice that computers don't ever make excuses.

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F R E E
AUDIO BOOK
OF INTERVENTIONS
If you click here, you can try out one of our audio books at no charge and listen while you jog or drive to work. We are giving you our Forgotten Favorite Strategies, one of three audio books in Our All the Best Answers for the Worst Kid Problems series of audio books. You're getting the entire $15 book at no charge. You can now get the best solutions on your iPod, MP3 player, or computer. We're sure that you will like this audio book so much, that you will want to get our other audio book offerings in the series: Maximum-Strength Motivation-Makers and Conduct Disorders and Anti-Social Youth (click for details). The books just $15 each and are packed with solutions for unmanageable and unmotivated children and youth. They're also available as ebooks and paperback books (click).

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The Obama administration has already begun questioning whether contemporary teacher professional development training sufficiently prepares teachers to best educate contemporary students. As one of the nation's premier providers of innovative teacher professional development, we share that concern. At our workshops, teachers often express dismay that their training did not adequately prepare them to win the race for the top. We also hear a lot of comments that educator training prepares teachers for a world where guns meant water pistols and gangs meant West Side Story. Many of our course participants say that conventional teacher training is stuck in the past, with an all-consuming focus on content, testing and theory. Since practical training takes a back seat to the theoretical, many teachers are left feeling unprepared to manage today's students who present significantly greater behavioral, emotional, familial and social problems than youngsters in the past. If teachers can't manage these huge contemporary roadblocks to learning, then training on content, testing and theory is somewhat wasted. A teacher fighting a losing battle to stay in charge of an out-of-control classroom isn't able to effectively teach content-- never mind test students on what they've learned.

Practical answers geared to work with today's students can help. If you have attended our professional development course or closely followed this internet magazine, you may find that you do have the answers you need to win our 21st century race for the top. Here's a quiz to test your readiness for the 21st century classroom.