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If parents do not instill confidence in their teens, they will seek approval from other sources. In Alex's situation, her father was not plugged into her life, so she sought the attention of males outside of her family. This caused her to have poor judgment and become sexually active. Dr. Phil explains to Marty, "You, as her father, did not instill in her enough confidence in her dealings with men that she can tell herself, 'I don't have to do this to be accepted.'" He says that when Alex became sexually active she gained a sense of power. He explains Alex's thinking, "'This is something that I have that they want, and that's currency and I control it. If I'm willing to offer that, then I'm in control.'"
It's inconvenient for you to stick around enforcing a time-out that keeps lengthening due to your child's misbehavior, but as a parent, you need to let your child know what the consequences of his actions are. Your child may fall down, yell, hit his head on the wall, urinate, or do a number of things in an effort to get out of the time-out. When your child calms down, let him know the time-out will begin again until he can complete it in its entirety. Your child will soon realize that he needs to begin behaving when a time-out is called.
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