Change Your Child's Behavior by Changing Yours

A new approach for dealing with the most common—and seemingly intractable—battles of will between parents and children. Authoritative and sound, but lighthearted and guilt-free, all of the authors' suggestions work toward building a child's self-esteem.

Two simple but powerful ideas stand behind this book's advice for coping with children's behavior problems: you can change your child's behavior by changing the way you react to theirs; and you must accept that much of what unnerves parents is actually appropriate to the various stages of a child's development.

Change Your Child's Behavior by Changing Yours tackles thirteen particularly difficult situations that prompt most tugs-of-wills, including conflicts involving bedtime, dressing, eating, going places, shopping, and sibling rivalry. Each chapter opens with a section called "Sound Familiar?" that describes a scenario parents will quickly recognize. Authors Chernofsky and Gage then identify the development stage that is prompting the distressing behavior, help parents to relate the child's behavior in a somewhat parallel situation, and offer strategies for coping with and changing the situation for the better.