Posted 4 weeks ago
Q: I have six-month- and thirty-two-month-old boys. The older one—well-mannered, easy going, very affectionate—attends a preschool program three mornings a week. This is his second year there. ...
Read MorePosted on 12/21/2021
Q: Whenever—and I most definitely mean every single time—I ask my six-year-old daughter to do something, she becomes very disrespectful. She stomps her foot, yells at me that I make her do...
Read MorePosted on 11/16/2021
Q: My almost four-year-old daughter is generally well-behaved except for screaming and running away from me when we leave a store, the library, etc. before she’s ready to go. She pulls away from...
Read MorePosted on 5/18/2021
No small number of today’s parents view their children through psychological lenses, especially when it comes to misbehavior. Instead of regarding a given misbehavior as simply an error that needs...
Read MorePosted on 3/23/2021
Q: My three-year-old is prone to ear infections. When he has one, his behavior deteriorates considerably. He becomes disobedient and given to angry outbursts. When his ears are clear, he’s...
Read MorePosted on 1/19/2021
Making children happy became a parenting goal in the early 1970s. The paradox, as everyone with a modicum of commonsense knows, is that the more effort parents put into making a child happy, the...
Read MorePosted on 1/5/2021
Q: I teach 3- and 4-year-olds in a childcare center in Australia. I always have a few difficult children in any group and the book in which you describe Alpha Speech [The Well-Behaved Child] has...
Read MorePosted on 12/14/2020
Q: Our 14-year-old daughter desperately wants to begin wearing makeup, which all, and I mean all, of her classmates are allowed to do. We have held off not only because of our beliefs but also...
Read MorePosted on 10/27/2020
Living with an emotionally dramatic child is no fun. They throw wet blankets over nearly every family gathering or outing. Little is right in their lives and attempts to cheer them up generally...
Read MorePosted on 1/15/2020
Q: Our ten-year-old granddaughter lives with us. We have custody of her but her father, our son, is now asking us for visitation privileges. I probably don’t need to tell you that both he and his...
Read MorePosted 1 week ago
Okay so I’m ready to administer a discipline plan for my daughter. My questions are; 1. How much is too much? I’m ready to take a lot of her favorite things away. But, what about life...
Read MorePosted 1 week ago
Our older two boys, 5 and 7, go crazy at bedtime. They are silly, which is fine, but in being silly they make messes and are often disrespectful. After going to bed, we can hear them laughing and...
Read MorePosted 1 week ago
Our 9yo girls currently rule the roost. They speak to us flippantly, complain constantly, whine and pester after receiving a "no" answer, expect others to fetch/carry for them, ignore directives...
Read MorePosted 3 weeks ago
How much to say of what we know? We randomly review our 15 year old daughter's school laptop. We just did so for the first time this school year a few days ago. We found screenshots of messages...
Read MorePosted 3 weeks ago
This may be a complicated question: I have a question about my and my husband's parenting styles. I come from a conservative background, my parents were old school and traditional. Lots of...
Read MorePosted 4 weeks ago
We have an 8-year-old son who throws violent tantrums. He has always been “a handful” so these fits aren’t anything new, they’re less frequent but much more destructive. In the past, we had a...
Read MorePosted 4 weeks ago
I just got your book, "The Well Behaved Child," and today I began using tickets (and Alpha speech) for my just 5-year-old son who is very loving and sweet but would be considered a "high...
Read MorePosted on 12/15/2021
Hello. My husband and I have two kids, one 20-month old boy and one 2-month old girl. The younger one is an easy baby and the older one likes his baby sister (exhibited by kissing her all the...
Read MorePosted on 12/10/2021
Our third son is turning 3 in about a week. He has started saying "no" when we tell him to do something, and then runs away when we try to discipline him. We have been resorting to spanking...
Read MorePosted on 12/7/2021
I am at my wits end. I am doing my best to do the ticket system with my children. My 4 year old daughter has maybe made it 1 day, at least until bedtime, without losing all of her tickets since we...
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