Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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

Those are just some of the highlights of 10 Days. There is so much more good advice that a simple book review can not cover. If you are struggling with parenting, if you have battles with your children, or if you just want to learn how to be a better parent, I strongly recommend this book 10 Days.

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!

My 8 year old son is a defiant child. I've known it since he was born. I was always envious when I saw other parents with their children that seemed calm and happy. We lived our lives in constant stress, always ready for the next "scene" when my son would say something rude or hit his sister or even hit or push me. My husband and I wanted so desperately to be happy, but we just couldn't get through to our son.

I cried many times as I read through this book because it describes exactly so many situations that we live through on a day to day basis. I always thought I was alone in this and it would be a lifelong struggle to try to raise a kind, responsible boy... a struggle that I wasn't sure I would be successful at.

I am not yet through the entire book, but I feel compelled to write a review because it has changed my life. From the first day that we started implementing the author's suggestions, my son improved. After a week now, we are a different family. We are happy most of the time. There is no more screaming and little crying. We are talking! The book has not only taught me about my son, but also has helped me to reflect on my own choices, thoughts, and actions (which is perhaps the most difficult aspect of all) and has taught me a lot about myself.

The book gives excellent explanations and examples without being preachy or long-winded. I highly recommend this book to anyone dealing with a defiant child.

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.

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.

This book should be called 10 days to better parenting because I believe it can help all parents, not just those with "defiant" kids. When our normal punishments of time-outs and losing allowance were no longer effective with our 5-year-old son, I read this book. Within a couple of days, my son's behavior improved and so did my relationship with him. I would recommend it to all parents!!!!

Dr. Jeffrey Bernstein's book offers a surefire plan to transform the most egocentric, rebellious child into a sociocentric, cooperative cherub in an amazing 10 days! It is set apart from many other "formula" books on child behavior modification because it teaches skills that parents, teachers, and others can acquire to change their counter-productive conduct, including yelling and threatening, that doesn't diffuse but provokes and promotes defiance in children, with or without special needs. This guide details ways to disengage defiant and aggressive traits in children, especially through listening, understanding, and disciplining, and to re-program their mindsets with core, group-oriented standards and values, one day at a time in less than two weeks. Dr. Bernstein also gives invaluable advice on many tough situations -- what to do if school personnel are not on board, how to handle dilemmas if the other parent is not supportive, and when to consider additional interventions, including tutoring, if a child has any of the described diagnosed conditions or problems in the book. The book is easy to read and review, with synopses, and to intermittently pick up. It's hard to put it down.

My twelve year old son was being a terror and I was feeling so desperate prior to reading this book. This book helped me so much that I just have to share the wonderful results I've had. Many self-help books are heavy on jargon and light on tools and strategies but not this one. Dr. Bernstein really understands how defiant kids are hurting underneath their disruptive behaviors. He shows parents and teachers what to do to turn things around. Not only will you lower the defiance and power struggles, but you will also build your relationship with your child. I bought the book a few months ago. Now I am buying a second copy for a friend. What a true gift to be able to share!

Well I am AMAIZED!! I was literally at my wits end with my 10 yr old. He has been defiant for all of his 10 years and getting worse by the day. It actually really steamrolled into total chaos this past school year and after reading Jeffery's book I know at least some of why. One piece of advice I will give parents of defiant children is DO NOT LET THE TEACHERS SUCKER YOU INTO PUNISHING YOUR CHILD AT HOME FOR THINGS HE DID AT SCHOOL AND ALREADY RECEIVED PUNISHMENT FOR. This is definitely a key factor in why our defiant child's behavior escalated out of control. The key to this book is total support of both parents. In our case both my husband and I are reading the book together, so we are literally on the same page in regards to our parenting. The biggest challenge we will face is `training' his teachers and other school staff persons to relate to him so they don't trigger his `defiant' behaviors. We are only on day 4 of reading in the book, but we are already seeing results. We aren't naive'. We can say this is truly going to be a lot of work and most definitely `team work' in order to help our child get out of this place of negativity as well as help ourselves out of our negative patterns of unsuccessful parenting techniques with this very challenging child. I only wish that Jeffrey would have written this book 20 years ago when we were raising our first defiant child!! In final comment, this book has inspired both myself and my husband to buy his book for couples "Why Can't You Read My Mind" It has truly been an eye opener for our `toxic thoughts' and how we communicate with one another. Thank you Jeffrey!!

A CHALLENGE to Jeffrey Bernstein -- Why don't you teach these technique's to 'trainers' willing to travel to schools to help our kids? That would be a worthwhile addition!
10 Days to a Less Defiant Child: The Breakthrough Program for Overcoming Your Child's Difficult Behavior
Why Can't You Read My Mind? Overcoming the 9 Toxic Thought Patterns that Get in the Way of a Loving Relationship