By Barbara Probst; 273 pages. Subtitle: A New Approach to Raising a Challenging Child.
Labels really don't have all that much to do with this helpful, upbeat behavior-management guide to working with your child's traits and temperament. The book's advice will be useful if your child has a diagnosis, if you've decided against getting one, or if the unique mix that is your child defies categorization altogether.
- Offers practical positive behavior management techniques
- Considers the way a child's natural traits and temperament affect behavior
- Looks at how parents' traits and temperament can clash with their kids'
- Text and design are reader-friendly
- Includes questionnaire and answer sheets for figuring out why your child acts that way
- Case studies often make parents look like the bad guy
- Title is misleading; very little of the book is about labels
- If you're pro-label, the content depicting diagnosis as bad may rile you
- A lot of the author's solutions sound easier said than done
- Chapter 1: When the Labels Don't Fit
- Chapter 2: Discovering Your Child's Essential Nature: Temperament Questionnaire
- Chapter 3: Respecting Your Child's Inner World
Chapter 4: Making Sense of Your Child's Behavior - Chapter 5: Changing the Way You Think and Talk
- Chapter 6: Changing the Way You Respond
Chapter 7: Meeting Your Child's Needs - Chapter 8: The "Big Five": Tackling Common Problems
- Chapter 9: Stepping In: Knowing When and How to Help
- Chapter 10: Stepping Back: Taking Care of Yourself
- Chapter 11: When You Need More: Finding Resources and Support
- Chapter 12: Putting It All Together - 10 Principles for Raising a Challenging Child
Temperament Questionnaire Answer Sheets
That makes me a little ticked at the title, which seems to be more of a marketing ploy than an honest depiction of the book's content. Probst's suggestions will be just as effective for kids who have labels that fit as those who do not. I think the author would agree that the problem is not so much labels themselves, but the idea that a label is the end of a process rather than the beginning. Having a diagnosis does not mean you can't look at your child's traits in a positive way, or do behavior analysis, or love your child as a whole complex person. The text acknowledges that more than the sell copy does.
Regardless of your feelings about labels, then, this book has much to offer about studying your child, celebrating positive traits, reinterpreting negative traits, and taking your own traits into account. There are practical techniques and exercises, and a quiz for figuring out your child's particular profile. Whether it will transform your child to a degree where you can "step back from the madness of diagnosis" is questionable, but it should keep your family from being labeled "dysfunctional."
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