Getting Started

This question is asked by many parents who contact us, often at the end of their wits, desperate, worn out from the fighting and yelling and some seeing their marriages falling apart due to stress. Although we have many free resources on our site such as videos, articles, ebooks and audio recordings, there is one book that we recommend as a primer whether your child is adopted, foster, and biological and may have one or more diagnoses – From Fear to Love by Bryan Post.

As one reviewer said about this book, “Honestly, it’s the best parenting handbook I’ve seen for someone with a child that has difficult behaviors… Even if you aren’t into reading, this book is a must have. Each chapter has a  section over-viewing the key concepts of that chapter. If you just go through and read those key concepts, you’ll gain a new understanding of your relationship with your child. If you are thinking of adopting a child, please read this book. If you have adopted a child, please read this book. If you yourself have been adopted, please read this book. If you’re a parent and have nothing to do with adoption in any manner, please read
this book.”

If you are still not sure you want to spend money, visit our YouTube video page to watch From Fear to Love: The Three Pathways of Emotional Expression to get an understanding of what drives your child’s behaviors at http://youtu.be/GeJbReIjlbo. There are also numerous educational videos there, but we recommend How To End Lying http://youtu.be/rHlJEr4ebM0 as an excellent intro to Bryan Post’s love based Family-Centered approach.

There is also a free immediate download on our homepage entitled Why Kids Lie and What You Can Do to End It Now! By Bryan Post. Sign up for this and you will begin receiving a free weekly Parenting Series in your email box, along with Post Parenting Toolbox Series published twice monthly.

If after reviewing these materials, you don’t feel that this method will help you, continue your search. We will always be here for you. We wish the best for you and your family and know that we are always here should you find a need to return to us.

From the Post Office: How Do I Do This Post Stuff? By David Durovy

Based on the number of calls, emails, Facebook questions and comments that we receive, we are constantly trying to come up with ways to offer help to struggling families.

We would love, and I mean really love to offer individual care, answers and a comforting shoulder to lean on to all our struggling parents. The bad news is we don’t have enough shoulders. My friend Steve Bhaerman likes to say, “the bad news is there is no key to the secret of life. The good news is the door has been left unlocked”.

So what does this wisdom really mean? Simply put, the answers are all around you. But you do have to look. Many of the questioners we hear from have not visited our free stuff, read any of our books, not watched or listened to any materials, yet they are desperately in need of help. But often, rather than doing their own homework, hurting parents just want one simple answer to their question which seems to come down to ….How and How Right Now?

We offer many tools, but as someone once said , a fool with a tool is still a fool. I know this to be true from experience. I often try the parenting tool of choice without the wisdom and understanding to really make it work. And it doesn’t. I then assume incorrectly that the tool doesn’t work. So how does one graduate from Fool-dom? Work. Study. Practice. Fail. Learn. Practice. Fail. Learn…etc.

I know of many parents and professionals who devour everything they can get their hands on. Then there are others who we could not pay enough to get them to read, watch, listen to, study, practice, learn, fail etc.

The really good question you might want to ask (yourself) is which one are you? Once you answer that, the next step become clear. Either start reading, watching and listening to what is already available, or figure out what is working, what is not working, do more of what is working and stop doing what is not working. I know there are parents out there who have “tried everything we offer to no avail”.

I doubt it. I don’t doubt that you may believe that you have tried everything, but that you have actually DONE everything. What is often the case is that we have done everything that we can handle from the paradigm that we are in. And when we reach that edge, we call it quits. I see this in my life, in the families of those that I know personally, and in the parents who contact us.

I recall asking Bryan Post this same question after Susan and I first attended a Post Parenting Boot Camp many years ago – How do we actually put all this great stuff into practice, when, even though it looks good on paper, can’t actually get past our own emotional baggage and let go of the old stuff? What the heaven do we do???? And I love this stuff. I read it, listen to it, watch it, study it and still have difficulty. Yikes! What’s a mom and dad to do?

Simple-Read, Listen to, Watch, Study, Practice, Fail, Learn, Practice, Fail, Learn --> Repeat Daily.

I know that there are many reasons why this simple formula won’t work. But there are many more reasons why it will work. Try it. Or rather, don’t try it, live it. Bryan often says to parents who say, “I tried that”, it’s not about trying it, but living it.

‘Choose love’ is not something you try, but something you commit to and work toward and fail daily at. It’s ok. Do what you can, not what you can’t. It will make a difference. I promise.