10 Days to a Less Defiant Child: The Breakthrough Program for Overcoming Your Child's Difficult Behavior

by Jeffrey Bernstein

Book Overview

The bestselling, powerful guide to help parents regain control over a defiant child or teenager, now revised and updated. Occasional clashes between parents and kids are not uncommon, but when... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1569243018
• ISBN13: 9781569243015
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong Books
• Length: 287 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Review of 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child:The Breakthrough Program

Have you ever been frustrated with your relationship to your child? Have you ever thought that your child is just being defiant? Maybe you have tried severe punishments and scolding that don't lead to a change in future behavior as you had hoped. Most parents, like my-self experience a children's defiance from time to time, and some experience that defiance 24/7. Bernstein's book "10 Days to a Less Defiant Child" (I will call "10 Days" from now on) gives parents and teachers new insights and tools in art of raising children. Though Bernstein does not assume the role of telling the parent what specific morals to teach, he offers some tools and some understanding of emotional intelligence that will allow parents to lead and teach rather than the typical chaos that many parents experience. Here are some of the Key Points of 10 Days: o Bernstein stresses the importance of learning to listen correctly. When children's feelings are not validated, that in itself many times it causes anger, resentment, and unmet expectations. o Yelling he says, is counter productive and can easily become a downward spiral. This is for two reasons. The first is that for a calm house to exist there has to be calmness. The second stems from the parenting goal itself to teach children to control their emotions and anger. Yelling itself is a loss of emotional control, and regardless of the message, it teaches children to release their emotions in similar outbursts. o One of answers to alleviating the dreaded power struggles is to learn to be calm and firm. The call to calm means that we are to keep our emotions in check while at the same time being firm, not negotiating or vacillating on the consequences. When your emotions are in check, your child has not gotten to you, and you are still engaged. Calm and firm is a key factor in raising any child including defiant child. o Positive reinforcement is not only good to teach the child and encourage good behavior, but it also helps us to see the positive in our child. Positive reinforcements include: validations, praise, rewards, the feeling of importance, and the feeling of power. This advise is given with the caveat that the child must not think himself or herself equal to the parents. This is because the child who thinks of themselves as an equal to parents easily sets their own expectations which fosters unrealistic expectations and conflict. After all, they think, they should be able to make the rules just like mom and dad. The book is broken down simply into the 10 days or 10 chapters. Here are the chapters: Day 1 Grasping Why Your Child Acts Defiant Day 2 Understanding Your Defiance Child Day 3 Sidestepping the Yelling Trap Day 4 Avoiding Power Struggles. Day 5 Reinforcing the Positive Changes in Your Child. Day 6 Dependable Discipline Day 7 Rallying Family Support Day 8 Lessening Defiance at school Day 9 Overcoming Stubborn Obstacles Day 10 Reducing Defiance for the Long Run

Deceptive Title?

In my experience, it only took about two to three days to see real results. To be sure, other parents may have more difficult situations. This book is really valuable because it organizes and presents the information in a way that is easy to understand and implement. It addresses the fundamental issues regarding communication and helps a parent gain an appreciation of the child's need to assume their own individuality. The book is not about ensuring absolute obedience; in fact, such a goal is likely to result in defiant behavior. However, if what you ultimately hope to achieve is a solid and mostly harmonious relationship with your children, you should be well served by the advice in this book. You might not end up being able to force your teen-age daughter to wear pink polka-dot corduroy knickers with dark green taffeta tops (or force her not to wear them), but you probably will be able to get her to arrive at school on time and not scream at you when you ask how the homework is coming along. Furthermore, it is better to have a child who perceives you as an understanding ally in life than one who thinks you are another source of frustration or pain. By discussing how to avoid unconstructive behavior on your part, the book's guidance goes a long way to teaching skills that allow you to influence the important aspects of growing up in a positive way.

Calm + Firm = Our Harmonious Home

This valuable book helped my wife and I really understand what was really going on when our two children become defiant. Each day of Dr. Bernstein's 10 Day program gave us ready to use tools to deal with the difficult behaviors of our seven year old daughter and four year old son. While our children don't have Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Dr. Bernstein's emphasis on us being calm, firm, and non-controlling with our children when they don't act so wonderful, has produced wonderful results. The less we overreact, the less our kids act out. We have recommended this book to friends and family and they are also getting encouraging great results with children of all ages. If you really use the methods in this book, you will find yourself with a more harmonious home.

Full of Empathy

This is the only book that didn't make me beat up on myself! We have had a child who from the first year gave us a run for the money. Love is just not enough when a child challenges just about everything you say AND do. I have read so many books and always wound up feeling like a bad parent. This book is so full of empathy and understanding for the parent it does what we have always needed -- someone who could really help us help our child and make our family life less emotionally draining and more fun. I wholeheartedly recommend this book for any and every parent who needs and wants help. Dr. Bernstein understands that a parent who beats up on themselves can't help anyone and by helping the parent help themselves, it seems to automatically translate to the child! This book really helped us tease out the differences between opposition and depression, antisocial behavior and anxiety. This is a great compendium of information and any and every parent will find something that will make a BIG difference in their child's life and family life!

A very helpful book

This book is very helpful if you are dealing with a child with oppositionality and defiant behavior. Parenting children with these types of behaviors can be draining and it is easy to lose sight of how to respond. In our house we had a litigator-in-training who could give you 10 reasons why any request I made of her was stupid! It is very easy to develop "battle fatigue" and become a less effective parent, which only does the child a disservice in the long run when they interact with the real world. The best part about this book is that the steps are easy to follow and while they can be done at your own pace, they are designed to move the process along fairly quickly. The book contains helpful insights and practical advice to help you have a more peaceful house. If you are reluctant to read this because you are afraid it will highlight all of the things you should have been doing all along, I assure you that is not the tone of this book.