Teachers, they don’t give you motivation-makers
when you are in college. It takes about 2 minutes
in the classroom to realize that you could have
really used courses on motivating the motionless.
From our popular workshops, books and posters,
here are just a few of our favorite motivation-
makers that you will use everyday. Want more
than just these few great ideas? Visit our
web site http://www.youthchg.com and see
hundreds more methods so good that they can
awaken sleeping students.

• For kids who often complain about where they ended up, you can
  encourage them to “bloom where they are planted.” This is a
  wonderful intervention for foster kids in particular.

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• For kids who can’t imagine ever having a positive future, or any
  future at all, ask them to write a letter to you as though it was the
  year 2045. In the letter, the youth can describe what happened
  to them since they last saw you. For non-writers, they can draw or
  make an audiotape instead of writing, or, you can write for them.
• For kids who are “wrapped in barbed wire,” their apathy and
  harshness hiding a very gentle and vulnerable child, ask them to
  decide which they would rather have: “a bruised heart or a boxed
  heart?”
• When you ask a child what they want to be when they grow up,
  and you hear back, “I don’t care,” instead of confronting
  that, say back: “Well, if you did care…” This potent intervention
  detours beautifully around answers that normally would keep the
  child from even speculating about positive outcomes. The child
  gets to hang onto their discouragement while doing the work that
  you wanted them to do. This unusual intervention works with nearly
  any answer that a child gives you. For example, when the child says
  “I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up,” you can respond
  with “Well, if you did know…”
• For kids who can’t imagine a future that is positive, have them
  make their “Future Homes and Gardens” using art supplies. They
  can draw floor plans or design rooms of their future dream home.
  You may be surprised at the results you get from the most sullen
  and resentful kids.
• For counselors, social workers and mental health workers only
  to use (carefully) to better “open up” very defensive, apathetic
  youth, this next intervention is very powerful. Ask the child to
  make a life line. They make the life line by writing their major
  life events on file cards. Next, they string the cards onto a
  piece of ribbon or string. This is their life line. If you doubt the
  effectiveness of this intervention, make your own life line. If
  you aren’t moved by the experience, you must have had an easy
  life. Only clinicians should use this devices as it must be used
  with extreme care as it can stir up much emotion in some
  children. Avoid this exercise with depressed kids.
  
  
  Want more dynamite motivational methods? Here's a resource that is packed with more motivation-makers. You can try it free! Just click below to sample a page of our Becoming a Motivated and Prepared Student book of surprisingly different handouts. Or, click here to read about this book.
  
  
  
  
  
• For kids that complain that school is boring, I’ll just go on
  welfare, respond, “Yes, you are right. School is boring. Nothing
  like the excitement of the welfare office line.” This intervention
  is not for every kid; use it only with youth who would respond to
  this type of humorous, edgy intervention.
• For kids who view school or job training as a waste of their
  time, have them list their current job skills, then have them determine
  where their skills will fit best: in the current or past century. Teach
  kids that 80% of the jobs that will exist for them are not even known
  yet. These jobs will require computer skills, math skills, writing skills
  etc. Do their skills fit that or jobs from the past?
• For kids who plan to use illegal activities as their source of future
  income, recap local, state and federal law. For example, depending on
  which laws they break, offenders can lose not only the money gained
  by illegal actions, but also their home, possessions and vehicles. Under
  some federal laws, the homes and possessions of relatives and friends
  may be seized even if these items weren’t directly involved in the
  commission of the crime. Illegal activities are not as lucrative as
  your kids tell you. Auto theft generates about $18,000 per year,
  for example, far less than what a typical high school grad earns.
  
  
  For more dynamite, effective resources like these awesome motivation-makers, consult our catalog. Click below to view the catalog online.
  
  
  
  
  
• For kids who insist crime is lucrative, have them guess the likely
  income from crime, then have them guess how much time in jail they
  will face, and the number of years they will have before being
  incarcerated. Then ask the youth to calculate how much they
  really earned. For example, if a youth earned $30,000 per year
  for 2 years before being incarcerated, then was jailed for 2 years,
  that works out to a just $15,000 per year, an amount that is vastly
  less than a high school grad earns. Plus, the grad’s earnings cannot be
  confiscated but the offender’s earnings can.
• For kids who plan to just rely on welfare, advise them to hurry
  and get on it fast before welfare goes away.
  
  

If you are a counselor or teacher who finds that “nothing works”
to manage some students, this article may help. It’s
way past time for you to learn about ODD, Oppositional
Defiant Disorder.

In college, you probably got very little training
on basic mental health, but if you’ve been counseling or teaching
for more than five minutes, you know that little bit
of training wasn’t enough. Here’s just a quick
peek at what they should have taught you in college
about basic juvenile mental health. Be aware however
that this article gives you just 1% of what you will
need to know in your classroom in order to maintain
control and best assist each challenged student.

WHAT DOES OPPOSITIONAL-DEFIANT MEAN?
“Oppositional-Defiant” is a mental health diagnosis that
describes kids that have consciences but sometimes act
like they don’t. This diagnosis can only be applied by
a mental health professional but will be very important
for any youth worker to know and understand. This
diagnosis is far more hopeful than “conduct disorder,”
which means the child lacks a conscience and a real
capacity for relationships. While the oppositional-
defiant child (ODD) may also appear to have little
conscience or relationship capacity, you may be able to
improve that with the right approach and methods. With
conduct disordered youth, such improvement may not
be possible.

Is this article helpful? Here is a good, fast source of additional information and strategies: BUY The Quickest Kid Fixer-Uppers Volume 1 ebook

**THE 3 AREAS OF HELP FOR ODD YOUTH
The thrust of helping the ODD child must focus on
1) Skill building, plus 2)”Pulling up” that
conscience and 3)Improving their relationship skills.
For skill building, teaching them how to regulate their
anger, actions, peer skills, verbal output, etc. will
be critical. But equally important, this child must
be aided to care about others and to be guided more
by conscience. These are areas we cover extensively in
our live and taped workshops, but here are a few of the
most effective interventions we give especially for ODD
children and teens. These interventions will only focus
on stimulating that conscience or “compensating” for it.
If you want more than the handful of ideas given here,
or, you want to see how to build skills or
relationship capacity, the other two crucial aspects
to concentrate on with ODD kids, then consider coming
to our class or getting some of our books that will
deliver hundreds of the solutions you need.

**STRATEGIES TO STIMULATE THE CONSCIENCE OF ODD KIDS

If you like these powerful, new methods, our live and recorded workshops have 200 more.
Problem-Kid Problem-Solver Workshop
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We have so many interventions that sometimes even some of
our favorite devices can be forgotten. These techniques used
to be regularly included in our popular Breakthrough Strategies
to Teach and Counsel Troubled Youth Workshops
(click here), but not so often now,
though perhaps they should be. So, here are some old but
golden strategies that should be used not forgotten. Want
more solutions like these? Our live and taped classes
deliver 200 more attention-grabbing, ready-to-use
interventions to turnaround troubled youth and children.

• FOR YOUTH WHO DISRUPT THE CLASS OR GROUP
  To teach hand-raising, wave your arms all around and name
  that “windshield wiper arms” or “helicopter arms.” To show
  students correct hand-raising technique, hold your arm in
  the air and still and call it “flagpole arm.” Using these images
  may work better than conventional approaches.
• FOR YOUTH WHO CAN’T IMAGINE EVER CHANGING
  Have the youth create before and after ads, similar to weight
  loss commercials. You can even photocopy weight loss ads from
  magazines and let students insert their own pictures or art work
  that portrays their own personal before and after. This device
  is especially good with withdrawn children who dislike talking.
  
  
  Need more great techniques? Our workshop can help.
  
  Problem-Kid Problem-Solver Workshop
  Coming Soon Near You. Click for information on the workshop, or if you need financial aid.
  
  
• FOR YOUTH WITH LOW SELF-ESTEEM
  Have the kids create a magazine about what they do well over
  the next month. The magazine can feature a picture of the
  student on the cover and highlight successes that the student
  has. Name the magazine “Esteem Magazine,” with a motto of
  “for students who know that Esteem is more than hot air.”
  The magazine may also contain articles on self-worth and lists
  such as “The Top 10 Things People Like About Me.”
• FOR YOUTH WHO THINK SCHOOL IS A WASTE
  Here are the very latest numbers that show once more
  that education pays and pays and pays! These new numbers
  make an old intervention even more profound and even more
  powerful! Use play money to illustrate or put this information
  in a chart on your board, or do both. Follow up by having
  students experience how much money is worth by visiting a
  store, car dealership or reviewing housing classified ads.
  As of January, 2000, drop-outs can expect to earn just
  over $16,000, based on 1998 dollars. High school grads
  earn nearly $23,000 and college grads almost $45,000.
  Ask your kids to pick their salary for the new millennium.
  
  Need more strategies in a hurry? Our recorded workshop can help. You can even earn 1 grad credit and 10 clock hours, plus the course has several hundred reproducible handouts for use with students. Click here for details.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• FOR ABSENT YOUTH
  For kids who are frequently absent, bring in a lot
  of legos or lincoln logs. Ask the students to copy a
  model you create out of the legos. The students
  will easily do it and discuss that with the class.
  Next, begin to make a second model but this
  time, part way through the building process,
  ask some of the students to leave the room, then
  hide several legos inside the model. Recall the
  students and ask them to compare their model
  to yours. Assist the class to notice the poorer
  quality that resulted from the absences then discuss
  if being absent matters.
• FOR YOUTH FACING PEER PRESSURE
  Peer pressure to use drugs and alcohol is nonstop but
  here is a quick device to chip away at the power of the
  pressure. Divide your students into two groups. Give
  one group bags of M&Ms and give the other group
  bags of litter. Allow the students to mingle. The
  students with the litter will try to get others to
  take their bags while the students with the candy will
  want to keep their bags and will not force others to
  take the M&Ms. Relate this phenomena to peer pressure
  to use substances by discussing that people seldom
  need to pressure people to do good things, only bad.
  
  

Teachers, when you received your training to teach, the world probably looked much different. Guns meant water pistols and gangs meant West Side Story.

Here is a test to see if your skills have kept up with
the changes in our kids. If you discover that you are
more prepared to work with Beaver Cleaver than Beavis
and Butthead, then consider coming to our Problem
Student Problem-Solver professional development
training workshop (details below) or
ordering some of our books and tapes. Our resources
can turbo-charge your skills to fit contemporary kids.

Need more great techniques? Our workshop can help.

Problem-Kid Problem-Solver Workshop
Coming Soon Near You. Click for information on the workshop, or if you need financial aid.

If you know a student who utterly lacks motivation
and interest for school, keep reading. Taken from our
Quickest Kid Fixer-Uppers Books
(link below), here are
novel, unexpected ways to turnaround apathetic, bored,
unmotivated, disinterested, at risk, negative students.
Once you’ve used these methods, you may find that
you are finally working with motivated, hopeful,
interested students who recognize the incredible value of school.

Is this article helpful? Here is a good, fast source of additional information and strategies: BUY The Quickest Kid Fixer-Uppers Volume 1 ebook

• If Life Were This Easy: Use this intervention with
  students who think your services are a waste of time.
  To use this intervention, read or show one sentence
  of the following text, one sentence at a time. Allow
  students to laugh and snicker at each sentence
  before revealing the next phrase. This intervention
  works really well, and is fun. Enjoy!
  
  Here’s your new, high-paying job—
  and you can never be fired from it!
  Here’s your new, beautiful spouse, who is always
  cheerful, never sick, and has tons of money!
  Hope you like your new home. It’s your dream house
  and it’s paid for, and will never need repairs!
  Here’s all the possessions you’ve ever wanted, and,
  of course, they are already paid for!
  If life were this easy, you wouldn’t need us!
  
  
• Sign This: Use this intervention with
  students who think your services are useless. This
  device is especially designed for older, harder-
  edged kids, and is not appropriate for younger
  kids and other youth. Please be thoughtful about
  using it as it is very surprising and unusual—but
  powerful and effective. Be sure this device is
  appropriate to your site and community.
  The next time you are having students signing forms,
  and completing paperwork tasks, simply include the
  text from the document below in the stack of papers,
  then put that paper away until another time. The
  next time a student tells you for the “hundredth”
  time that your school or agency is a waste, have
  the child review the following contract they signed.

  This rather wordy document essentially says: “I
  don’t want to be allowed to do anything I like,”
  (or use other similarly surprising content.) When
  the child says that they wouldn’t have signed
  the document if they’d understood it, you can
  respond: “Then maybe we still have something
  to offer you here.”

  The undersigned agrees to never attempt any participation, commitment or interest in any event, sport, past time, etc. that is a favorite or preferred selection. The undersigned wishes to never perform any favored activities including but not limited to use of electronics, telephony, etc. for the next millennium or longer.

  If you like these creative methods, we have so
  much more for you on our web site,
  You should check out our compelling posters (see below)
  that actually can shock students into
  becoming more motivated about
  school.

  
  Unusual Posters
  Teach Classroom Behavior and Motivation
  
  
  

Get surprising, all-new tools to solve youth
problems at our revamped web site,
The brand new site is
packed with hundreds of the most powerful,
effective, must-have, problem-kid
problem-solvers. Be sure to get all of these
awesome tips and tricks to turnaround
troubled youth:

• Instant Answers: Our new Solve It Now! page,
  allows you to immediately obtain answers
  to specific youth problems. If you need solutions,
  but don’t want to wait, visit
  it and get great strategies;click here.
  Areas covered: motivation, violence, and bad attitudes.
• Locate Solutions Fast: Tired of hunting for
  better ways to manage problem youth? Visit our new
  Search Page by clicking here.
  It lets you quickly search our entire site to instantly
  get the information you seek. This search engine
  allows you to pinpoint the answers you need, and
  immediately click right to them.
  
  
  If you like our ideas misbehaved students, check out this resource? It's the book that can help solve it all. It's our Anti-Social Youth and Conduct Disorders book (click for details.) If you want to be securely in charge of your group, and best prepared to ensure safety at your site, you need this book. It just might be the best $15 you've spent in your life. What kind of a year will it be without this must-have resource for managing unmanageable kids? Let us help you stop the problems now.
  
  
• Help is Here: All our tools to solve
  your worst youth problems are now in one
  part of our site, The Solution Center (click here.)
  Now, you won’t have to miss a single must-have tool. You
  will find strategy-filled Newsletters on ADD,
  motivation and apathy. You will also find our
  brand-new interventions, so new that the internet
  may be one of the few places you can find them.
  Our All-Time Favorite Interventions, and Answers
  to Your Questions About Problem Youth, are all
  now easy to find in the Solution Center. Be sure
  to add the Solution Center to your “Favorites” so
  that you can turn to it whenever you need it.
  Here’s a Peek at the Instant Answers Now on Our Site!
  

  * Happy New School Year! For students who may be sour about returning to school, host a Happy New School Year Party similar to a Happy New Year Party. Students can make Happy New School Year Resolutions.

  * Punctuality Makers! To teach the importance of coming to school on time, ask students to name all the jobs and businesses they can do and show up whenever they want, or never show at all. (There are none.)

  
  Unusual Posters
  Teach Classroom Behavior and Motivation! Click here.
  
  

  * Attitude Busters! Use this intervention only with youth who would appreciate a humorous response like this. This intervention is not appropriate for every youth. When a child announces that they finally completed a task they had been repeatedly asked to do, such as arriving on time, say with a sly grin, “Thank you for doing what you are supposed to do!” Many children will reward you with a big grin.

  * Make School Matter! To teach students that even math matters, ask students to count the number of times that they use math, from counting the number of minutes left in class, to calculating their grades, to determining if they have enough money for lunch. Ask students to determine how long they can last without math, then once they start counting the minutes, note that they can’t even go one second without needing math!

  
  Is this article helpful? Here is a good, fast source of additional information and strategies: BUY The Quickest Kid Fixer-Uppers Volume 1 ebook
  
  

You may have read this headline in your local newspaper this week: “Dropout Rate Getting Worse.” The article noted that despite all the advancements made in our society, we still do not know how to ensure that we fully educate all of our young.

The new studies show that fewer than half of the 9th graders in many of the nation’s largest cities, ever graduate. The studies clearly show that the dropout rate isn’t dropping. And, in particular, the dropout rate isn’t dropping for poor and minority students.

Amazingly, though so many lament the rising dropout rate, our schools continue to lack formal plans—or any plans—to teach students motivation. Most schools have no game plan to ensure that students understand that school will be utterly essential to surviving and thriving in the new millennium. Schools expect youth and children to act as though school is important, but they never teach them to believe that.

Years ago, families ensured that their offspring recognized the value of school. Many contemporary families may fail to instill that outlook, or the family may actually convey to the child that school is not important. Since many families are not motivating their children to be involved, interested students, youth professionals, like teachers and counselors may need to provide this training. Otherwise, it is likely the dropout rate will continue to not drop, but only worsen.

Here are some attention-grabbing strategies to convince even the most apathetic student that they must stay in school. They are taken from one of my most popular books, “All the Best Answers for the Worst Kid Problems: Maximum-Strength Motivation-Makers.” For details on this book, click below.

Do you need dynamite, more effective ways to motivate students and prevent school failure? Here's your solution. Our Maximum-Strength Motivation-Makers book has so many unique, innovative ways to get students to discover the value of school. This book actually convinces children and teens that school is important, and helps them to develop the behaviors they need to succeed in school. What kind of year will it be without this problem-stopping resource?.