From Difficult to Delightful in Just 30 Days: How to Improve the Behavior of Your Spirited Child

by Jacob Azerrad

Dr. Azerrad is a national media figure who has appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and other national programs and is regularly quoted in the mainstream press The author's no-nonsense,"Nanny 911"... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0071470395
• ISBN13: 9780071470391
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 236 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Finally! A realistic parenting book for those of us with passionate children.

I really like this book. My son is a total pistol. Darling as he is, he challenges me every moment in ways I don't see any of his peers challenging their parents. It's difficult to know who to turn to when no one I know can relate to having a child who endangers himself by running into the street, for example. Over and over again. He thinks everything is funny and no amount of fear or scolding or "emotional coaching" has done a lick of good. I live in Seattle and the trend here is to help your child identify their feelings by saying things like, "you run because you want your freedom and you want to show mommy how big you are... but you can't run from mommy because it's dangerous..." Doesn't work with my son. It's all just noise to him and he giggles and giggles and drives me mad. Anyhow, this book is good because it discusses the disservice we're doing to our children by not correcting their bad behavior early on. Running into the street and other destructive behaviors must be stopped and if they aren't, there will be consequences for the child in their adult life (if they make it that long). Plus, it has made me realize that there are certain behaviors that I don't have to put up with. It's OK to correct now; not everything is just a stage that we need to live through. My son doesn't have ADHD. He's just full of energy and he thinks he's really funny when he's being defiant. However, I think there is a lot of really valuable information in this book for every parent with a challenging child. Finally, the book isn't negative at all. It helps parents to identify opportunities to praise their children for all the good they do. By taking the emphasis off of the moments when they're driving us mad, and focusing instead on the moments that make us proud, we begin to teach our children. Last note: The author spends a lot of time arguing about the overuse of drugs to control child behavior. While I agree with him, I skipped a lot of that information because it wasn't useful to me at this stage.

Good and unique

The book provides a system for positive reinforcement of good behavior. I agree with the author's basic premise that parent fall into the habit of reinforcing bad behavior via attention to it. Ignore the diatribe against ADHD drugs if you want, I don't think it's all that well-founded, perhaps it's too broad brush. But I would agree with his diatribes against just about every other book every written on child rearing, lots of them teach parents to inavertently reinforce bad behavior. "The Incredible Years" is another good book, available from U of Washington Parenting Training program.

Exceptionally useful and helpful book

In the past 19 years since becoming a grandmother I have read many books so as to help with the grandchildren, who are now from 4 to 19 years old, and this is definitely one of the very best. I learned a lot, and have put it to good use. Heartily recommend it.