The Total Transformation Program [Audio CD]

James Lehman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0979495105 | ISBN-13: 978-0979495106 | Publication Date: 2004

A series of audio CD's and workbook on parenting; plus 2 jump start CDs to get a parent familiar with the system.

Product Details

• Audio CD: 118 pages
• Publisher: Legacy Parenting Company (2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0979495105
• ISBN-13: 978-0979495106
• Product Dimensions: 14.4 x 11 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #76,016 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

For three decades James Lehman worked with troubled teens, younger children with behavior problems, families and professionals who live with, educate, treat and assist in managing them. In public schools, residential treatment centers, private schools, and numerous outpatient and inpatient settings, James developed an approach to managing children and adolescents that challenges them to learn to solve social problems without hiding behind a facade of disrespectful, obnoxious, or abusive behavior.

James Lehman brought a wealth of personal experience to the arena of child and adolescent therapy, and had good reason to focus on behavioral management, having experienced severe behavioral problems himself as a child and adolescent. Born in 1946, he was abandoned at age 2 by parents unable to take care of him. He was found by Mr. Teddy Lehman, who, with his wife Marguerite, went on to adopt him. James began to exhibit oppositional and defiant behavior at home and in the classroom. There was no such thing as special education then, and as he grew older these behaviors became more severe. Eventually he quit school, left home, lived on the streets in New York City, and drifted into a life of substance abuse and crime, which led to numerous prison sentences. After more than 6 years in various jails and prisons, James was given the opportunity to participate in an accountability focused treatment program.

James Lehman graduated from that treatment program and participated in a period of training to become a staff coordinator - and his career as a counselor, therapist and teacher began. James attended Fordham University for 2 years, moved to New England, and obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Social Work, graduating Summa Cum Laude. As he continued working with children, families and professionals, James was able to attend Boston University and, in 1989, graduated with a Master's Degree in Social Work.

While working at a comprehensive residential treatment center, James began private practice, providing treatment, consultation and training to families, public schools and state agencies. The focus of that work was to provide parents, teachers and case managers with the tools they needed to successfully challenge difficult children to develop the problem solving and self management skills they needed to be successful without relying on disrespectful, obnoxious or abusive behavior.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

390 of 398 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Program Works for the Right Scenario, February 4, 2010

By 

Michedolene Hogan - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

I was pulled into the long list of reviews here and noticed that all of them were one extreme or the other. Some say it was awesome and a must have (very likely paid or compensated reviews) and others state it is the worst and a HUGE waste of their money, but nothing in moderation.

I purchased the Total Transformation for two reasons, one my teen had developed a sudden and situation specific defiant behavior and two I wanted to know if this was a product worth recommending to my online peers (yes as an affiliate) and here's what I found,

The program IS NOT ideal for the type of issues I was battling with my teen, rather it is designed for what we can call chronic behavior problems, meaning your child consistently lies about where they are going or consistently refuses to do their part around the home.

BUT in addition to being a consistent behavior problem your approach has to also be inconsistent. If you are setting appropriate consequences, enforcing them every time, and expecting your child to take responsibility then you don't need this program.

Also I found the program to be very age specific. While it is practical to use with your preteens and teens it's NOT a practical tool for younger kids facing behavior issues. It is written directly to the teen audience and that's it.

I agree that the advertising, and frankly 98% of their affiliates (those who receive compensation if their link makes a sale) focus way too much on the hype, have included too broad a spectrum of areas to use this program with and ineffectively demonstrate the right scenarios to use this program with. Another problem I see with the advertising by the owners, affiliates and other promoters is they elude to the fact that ALL bad behavior is 'defiant' behavior and that's just not true.

I myself am a paid affiliate for the total transformation but here is my honest view:

If your child has a consistent, chronic behavior issue (lasting more than a few months) AND you are inconsistent in your parenting with no clear goals to become consistent this program can work for you.

If your child is younger than 14, has a situation specific behavior problem OR you are consistent in your parenting, or at least have a clear goal of how to become consistent, then this program WILL NOT work for you.

Take a real look at your specific situation, determine if your child meets the age criteria, then the behavior criteria, then determine if you as parents meet the parenting criteria. If not, I suggest you pass the program up and find something more suitable to your needs.

I would recommend looking into a book called It Takes a Parent by Betsy Hart. This is an excellent book to help parents deal with situation problems and the typical bad behavior that you find with most kids today. For those that find they meet the criteria above then I recommend you give it a try.

No matter what the customer service reps tell you, you will know within a couple weeks if this program is going to work for you. If you find it doesn't request your refund and simply refuse to give it a longer try. It's that simple.

Hope this review is helpful and I hope that more people can come in here and offer some input that is not to the extreme. I think those are the reviews that can really benefit the parenting community.

140 of 145 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Really Really Disappointed - Don't Waste Your Money, November 17, 2009

By 

Blessed Mama - See all my reviews

Our Little One had a lot to deal with in a short amount of time. She was adopted at 14 months and when she was 4 I was diagnosed with cancer and underwent 2 years of treatments. Shortly before this diagnosis, our family had moved away from the only home she could actually remember, to another home, country and province. She lost almost everything that was familiar to her and the only mama she consciously knew was ill. That is a huge burden for anyone. Naturally, she started acting out once I was out of the woods and healing. We tried the total transformation and found it did not work well. We had been consistently implementing age appropriate common sense techniques along with behavior = consequence type parenting methods, complete with tons of love, affection, praise, etc. So, the repetition, disengaging during disrespectful incidents, etc. was nothing new to us. Both her daddy and myself are tenacious and consistent as the day is long and don't take our job of parenting lightly. We were not at all satisfied with this product. When we tried to return it, we too, received the run around. We were told it takes longer than 30 days to see results (but the refund policy is only for 30 days - imagine that). We tried this program consistently for well over 4 months. It was an absolute failure and to make matters worse, the customer service representatives, who were so beautifully helpful on the phone prior to purchasing this product, when I had questions about it, were just plain rude. Every time I attempted to say something or ask a question, I was interrupted, talked over, talked down to and just in general belittled. If you are going to stand behind your product then really stand behind it and practice the virtues you espouse. I personally don't find it respectful at all to be interrupted while I am speaking. I would correct my daughter for doing that, and TT recommends consequences for disrespect. However, the folks working there are disrespectful to their customers. They follow the absolute hard and fast rules of their 30 day money back guarantee policy, but not necessarily the spirit of a money back guarantee. When a customer service rep says give it a little more time, if you're not happy after 2 more months of applying the recommendations call us back and we will refund your money, but then they don't. Well, shame on me for not getting it in writing and shame on them for lying.

229 of 245 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sound Parenting Techniques, May 19, 2008

By 

M. M. Siegfried "martijwis" (wisconsin) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

As a retired special education teacher/therapist, I bought the Total Transformation Program to review its content and perhaps give it to my son and daughter-in-law. I have listened to the CD's and been impressed with the amount of very sound discipline advice that would be applicable for parents with smaller children (e.g., 4-10), preteens, and teens.
Some of the more useful parenting concepts and descriptions of HOW to implement them included:
1. Assume (parental) control--give simple directions and follow up (if necessary)with simple questions and matter of fact repetition of the directions such as "What are you supposed to be doing?" "Go do it" "My responsibility is to make dinner. Your responsibility is to do your homework" Give simple directions without speeches, lenghthy explanations, pleading, reasoning--easier said than done for most parents, but parents need to be more aware of their own overreactions and retrain themselves to be brief, firm, and consistent.
2. Disconnect when disrespect occurs--cut off communication at point of disrespect through specific actions--walking away, stating in simple terms how the behavior is not living up to your expectations and what you're going to do about it in the short term--e.g., leave the room.
3. Don't try to reason with child excessively or over-explain. This can give the rebellious child an excessive feeling of power and control over the parent. Specific scripts and examples are given about ways to talk in a brief, calm, authoratative (NOT unreasonable or authoratARIAN)tone with a clear message.
4. Lessen overstimulation--have friends/siblings leave the area, turn off TV or game before briefly stating what expectations are for this instance. Many parents let background noise and images from TV, computer, games, friends, music stay on when trying to discipline the child--these influences and/or audiences can escalate the negative behavior of the child.
5. Give positive feedback when appropriate and build the positive relationship with the child while setting strong boundaries for disrepect and other misbehavior and using the positive times together as teaching moments also.
The program contains much practical content on ways for the parents to change THEMSELVES, which will impact their children's reactions OVER TIME. It is NOT a "quick fix" in all regards--there IS NO such thing--but parents should start to see very positive results relatively soon IF they stick with it. As the saying goes, "It may get worse before it gets better" if children sense that things are changing--again, once children learn the PARENTS are consistent in acting differently, they will respond and act diffently too.
This program, as with most programs/books of its kind, would be most effective in a preventative way--that is, with younger children just starting to escalate conflicts with parents and others but, with LOTS of practice and consistency by the parents, will also be effective with older children and teens.
This program will require quite a bit of study and practice by parents but it will be, in my opinion, time and effort well spent. In the long run, it will SAVE parents much time and aggravation to become more aware of and learn better skills to be more firm, detached, clear, and consistent. This program is thought-provoking and clear in its examples and scripts. Some of its content should be obvious to many and yet, this program serves to increase parents' awareness of when they fall into ineffective patterns so that they can change their parenting results through consistent practice of these vital skills.
The "tough yet fairminded, East Coast" dialect of the author's voice on the CD's is itself empowering that parents can learn and USE these wise, "common sense" (which maybe we never pondered much previously) "street-smart" if you will, parenting skills. The program would also be very helpful for teachers or others working with youth.