For the parents of children exhibiting out-of-control behaviors – including aggressive outbursts, running away, excessive risk-taking, inability to follow rules, alcohol or drug abuse and more – daily living can feel like a struggle. Normal parenting techniques can be ineffective in managing the disruptive behaviors, and finding the appropriate professional help is often difficult and expensive.

KET’s HealthThree 60 “The Out of Control Child: Help for Families,” airing Monday, Dec. 7 at 9/8 pm on KET, offers guidance for parents and families of children with extreme behavior problems as well as those whose children have autism or other developmental or intellectual challenges leading to unregulated behaviors.

Host Renee Shaw and guests examine how to determine which actions and behaviors might be considered normal adolescent “acting out,” versus those that do warrant professional help. They also look at what really is at the root of these disruptive behaviors and examine possible solutions for families dealing with them. Additionally, the program spotlights programs and interventions that offer assistance to children with autism in order to help modify their behavior.

Guests H. Otto Kaak, associate director of the University of Kentucky’s Center on Trauma and Children, and Christy Leaver, a social worker with Bluegrass Family Therapy, discuss the importance of establishing secure attachment with parents in a child’s first years of life, and how lack of attachment may later manifest itself in extreme behaviors during adolescence.

Additionally Molly L. Dubuque, an instructor at Spalding University; Lauren Elliot, program director at Bluegrass Center for Autism; and Ashley Ratliff, program director at the Highlands Center for Autism in Prestonsburg discuss the ways that Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) can help children with autism regulate their behavior so that their families can gain a sense of normalcy in their daily lives. Parents Nikki and Foster McCarl share how the approach helped their daughter Emma, after she began attending the Bluegrass Center for Autism.

In another segment, Judge Karen Thomas, a Kentucky district court judge who serves in Campbell County and presides over the Northern Kentucky Teen Court – and who has also served on the board of directors of the National Task Force for Youth Courts – shares her insights about the struggles of the youth she meets in her courtroom and the services and support they need to avoid incarceration.

Finally, Darryl P. Turpin, a principal investigator with Louisville-based social justice firm The Pinwheel Group and chair of the PAL coalition, which works to reduce substance abuse by young people living in Louisville’s central, Seventh Street corridor, shares his thoughts on the common mindset, attitudes and behaviors of young people involved in the juvenile justice system based on his clinical research with young black men in the criminal justice system.

Health Three60 is a KET production, produced by Laura Krueger. The program is funded in part by a grant from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.

KET is Kentucky’s largest classroom, serving more than one million people each week via television, online and mobile. Learn more about Kentucky’s preeminent public media organization on Twitter @KET and facebook.com/KET and at KET.org.

Contact:

Todd Piccirilli
Senior Director, Marketing and Communications
859-258-7242
tpiccirilli@ket.org