Customer Reviews

Everything Parent's Guide To The Strong-Willed Child: An Authoritative Guide to Raising a Respectful, Cooperative, And Positive Child (Everything (Parenting))

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is VERY much geared to dealing with older children and even teenagers. I have a 2-year-old and this was not very helpful. The "helping you understand" behavior stuff and how you may contribute to it and all that is appropriate for any age, of course, and some good points were made - for that, and that alone, I gave this the 3 stars. But if you're looking for actual help - meaning what exactly can you do to make things better with a young toddler/preschooler, I'd really suggest looking at some of the other books more geared to that age group. (You'll get the same 'helping you understand the behavior" stuff in those, too.) This one is much better if you're struggling with a willful 7-8+ year old.

Although my 3-year-old son is not as willful as the prototype described in the book, he is demanding and "I want" seems to be his favorite word. I liked 2 other books in this series and enjoyed/learned from them (EPG to Raising Boys, EPG to Positive Discipline), so I purchased this one hoping it could give me some ideas about how to work with the demands.

I have to say that the best thing this book does is to help the parent to realize that willfullness is not a bad thing in itself. As the book says, a willfull child is a strongly self-determined child, and that is not a bad personality trait. This helps put a positive spin on Nathan's "Evenings of Demands!" : ) ... and helps me to view them in a more positive light.

But, the book doesn't just say, "let them be willfull," and leave you hanging. More-or-less, it shows you ways to channel willfullness into positive directions and how to prevent the willfullness from dominating family life.

The prototypical willful child described in the book sounds like a real p-i-a.

This was a real eye opener. There is a positive side to a strong willed child, and this book helped me to find the positives and put things into perspective. The book is well laid out, things are explained in a straight forward manner, and the advice is easy to follow. I now have much better strategies for dealing with my strong willed child, and our lives are so much more pleasant. I could see a difference in my child within two weeks, and my stress levels have reduced too. I have been recommending this book to other mothers I know.