Your Defiant Child

Eight Steps to Better Behavior

By: Russell A. Barkley PhD, Christine M. Benton

Narrated by: Pam Ward

Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

Discover a way to end constant power struggles with your defiant, oppositional, "impossible" five-to-12-year-old, with the help of leading child psychologist Russell A. Barkley. Dr. Barkley's approach is research based, practical, and doable - and leads to lasting behavior change.

Vivid, realistic stories illustrate what the techniques look like in action. Step by step, learn how you can:

• Harness the power of positive attention and praise
• Use rewards and incentives effectively
• Stay calm and consistent - even on the worst of days
• Establish a time-out system that works
• Target behavioral issues at home, in school, and in public places

Thoroughly revised to include the latest resources and 15 years' worth of research advances, the second edition also reflects Dr. Barkley's ongoing experiences with parents and kids.

©2013 The Guilford Press (P)2017 Tantor

Great source and starting point!

I have learned alot about myself and my child. I cant wait to start implementing the strategies and seeing the changes in my son.

Clear cut game plan for this ADHD mom of 2

I'm an adult with ADHD (diagnosed at 30), and I have 2 sons (1 with diagnosed ADHD, the other with suspected ADHD/ODD). This book was immensely helpful in making me understand just how important consistency is with my children. My struggle, however, is exactly that: consistency. This book laid out an easy to understand plan while also making me realize I cannot possibly expect compliance from my children if I'm unmedicated, because medication is what gets/keeps me on track.

I listen to most books at 1.5x speed and this one was easy to understand and follow, even being sped up. Highly recommend for any parent struggling with defiance in their family.

It worked

My daughter is diagnosed as ADHD with high impulsivity and oppositional defiance disorder. She is challenging and relentless. She also suffers from low self esteem due to constantly being in trouble. Her child psychologist recommended this book when I asked her to help us discipline without yelling, arguing and making her feel bad.
This book has helped her dad and I so much. Rewarding good behavior instead of focusing on the negative behavior has made a big change in my daughter. We started this in 2017. Her self esteem has improved. The fighting back has lessened. There is less resistance from her. We don’t use the reward systems too much now in 2019 but we do make a point of praising the good stuff she does. It has helped.

Reasonable content if you can stand the narration

I have to start with the narration, as it overshadowed my listen. Barkley is a man, that's a biological fact. I saw videos of him. It was not easy for me to hear a woman reading for him, when all the book is written in the first person (I, my). But that's only the beginning; the narrator is obviously not a native English speaker. She has a very heavy Eastern-European accent. I am also not a native English speaker; so I don't narrate English books. This was very disturbing and difficult. I listened to the end anyway.

Now to the content - as long as it was the theory, it was highly interesting and I learned a lot. Actually, the book is worth it if only for the theoretical parts. However, most of the book was a very structured plan with strict rules, instructions, and FAQ. We will not implement this plan as designed with our kids. I don't think it is reasonable or needed with their level of defiance, or in our culture (we are Israelis and live in Israel). We will have to craft our own plan, relying more on the theory than on the specific plan detailed in the book. I wish the book would have contained more instructions to modify the plan for different situations and cultures.

A bit of a struggle to get through

I was really looking forward to this book since I work with special education kids, but after a strong start in part one, I found it really difficult to get through part two and eventually stopped.