Education consultant and parenting coach Joseph Driessen says it's understandable when parents give in to anger, frustration and even depression when dealing with difficult children. But he says over reacting, or responding by being either authoritarian or overly permissive are not the way forward. He shares his toolkit for breaking the cycle, and starting afresh in a new way.

Education consultant and parenting coach Joseph Driessen says it's understandable when parents give in to anger, frustration and even depression when dealing with difficult children.

But he says over-reacting or responding by being either authoritarian or overly permissive is not the way forward.

He shares his toolkit for breaking the cycle, which he calls "five steps of healing a child's sort of malfunctioning behavior", with Kathryn Ryan.

Listen to the full interview with Joseph Driessen

To get out of a destructive, reinforcing cycle, Driessen suggests taking a much more deliberative approach to parenting a child with behavior difficulties.

"I'm proposing that to get out of these cycles the parent becomes much more deliberate and actually starts to realise, OK things are not going so well so what can I do?"

The first step is to reflect, he says.

"Take time out from the situation and reflect by yourself, or ideally with another adult - your partner, your wife or husband, or your friend or anybody, not taking advice, just being allowed to talk about it."

Research shows that parents who have outside support are in a much better position to take charge of their relationship with their child, Driessen says.

A parent might reflect that they need help, that they need to upskill, he says.

"The research shows that, for example, parents who go to a positive parenting course make a major shift in their parenting insights."

Next, he says, is to be objective and be on the child's side.

"Now that sounds really weird, you know the child is 'really naughty and difficult' but actually most research shows that a child is difficult because they can't help it.

"The cognitive or emotional demands on them are outside of their capacity to cope and actually their misbehavior is basically a cry for help."

Having decided to help, he says, it's important parents don't blame themselves.

"Make a resolution to yourself that you are part of the problem, that your responses have not been quite good enough, that it's not your fault, but you've got to recognize, well let's not continue like this, let's make a change.

"Once you've made that decision then you go - so what am I going to do?"…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details