When Kids Call the Shots: How to Seize Control from Your Darling Bully -- and Enjoy Being a Parent Again - Softcover

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SEAN GROVER, LCSW, has worked in child development and adult psychotherapy for 20 years, and maintains one of the largest private group therapy practices in the U.S. He has been quoted in Newsweek, New York Magazine, NPR, and elsewhere about parent-child relationships.

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If you’ve picked up this book, you’re probably at your tipping point. Behavior that used to seem excusable—he’s just spirited; she’s a little lawyer—has become a huge source of stress in your life.

But parenting doesn’t have to be this hard. When Kids Call the Shots opens your eyes to the root cause of your child's bossy behavior, with a liberating message and perceptive advice that puts your family on a healthier, happier path. With this sanity-saving book, you’ll:

• Recognize the three most common bullying styles that our kids use against us—anxious, defiant, and manipulative—and learn strategies to restore your leadership

• Understand how your own insecurities and personal history have shaped your parenting choices

• Discover the three parenting styles—guilt-prone, anxiety-fueled, and fix-everything—that are most likely to provoke disruptive behavior in children

• See how troubling behaviors are often triggered by conflicts between your child’s personality and your parenting style

• Be alert to the critical “testing” periods in children’s development that fuel conflicts with their parents

• See how increasing self-care and eliminating burnout can strengthen your parental leadership role

• Know exactly what to do when your child acts out

• Reclaim your parent power, and bring back the joys of family life

“Inspired and practical thinking by one of the finest therapists in the field.” —Julie Y. Low, MD, Board-Certified Child & Adolescent NYU Faculty

“Masterful lessons in the delicate art of parenting.” —Marianne Pearl, author of A Mighty Heart and In Search of Hope

“Sage advice that parents will be able to use immediately.” —Jean Kunhardt, MA, LMHC, Director, Soho Parenting

Sean Grover, LCSW, is a psychotherapist with 20 years’ experience working with adults and children, and he maintains one of the largest private group therapy practices in the United States. He has designed award-winning youth programs and has been quoted in Newsweek, New York Magazine, NPR, and elsewhere about parent-child relationships. For information on parenting workshops, articles, and videos, or to contact Sean, visit www.seangrover.com.

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Something’s gone wrong in your relationship with your kid. You can’t put your finger on it. You’re not sure when it happened, you’re not sure how it happened, but you know that you want to make your relationship right again—as soon as possible. There’s only one problem: You haven’t got a clue what to do.

You coach yourself. “Stay optimistic. It’s just a phase. It will pass. Be positive.” You cross your fingers and hope for the best.

But such thoughts offer little comfort. When your relationship with your kid is out of whack, “hope” doesn’t cut it. In fact, nothing in your life feels right. You spend many sleepless nights feeling brokenhearted and lost. I know—I’ve been there.

Parenting is a messy business, filled with unexpected turns and twists. You need new skills to overcome these problems—and fast. Even the most devoted parents can feel flummoxed by their kids.

“I thought I was doing everything right. Why is this happening?”

Rebooting Your Relationship

Seeking professional advice is always a good idea, but before you spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on therapy, behavior modification programs, or medication or submit your child to personality assessments and neurological testing, let’s consider some steps that you can take right now.

Children are complicated, but their needs are not. As we’ll learn in Chapter 2, every child has five basic needs. Meet those five needs, and you’ll be amazed at how quickly your kid’s behavior and mood improve. However, if those essential needs aren’t met, turning around your relationship with your kid could be infinitely more difficult.

Rather than muck up parenting with too much analysis or obsessiveness, let’s keep it simple and stick to basics. Often, the solutions to problems in your relationship are hiding in plain sight. In fact, remedying your situation with your kid could be easier than you think.

For example, for quite a while I had a leak under my kitchen sink. No matter what I did, the leak reappeared. Plumbers told me that the pipes were installed wrong, the drain was off center, the sink had to be moved. Each estimate was for hundreds of dollars that I didn’t want to spend. After all, it was just a tiny drip!

So I went to my local hardware store and spoke to one of the old-timers. Without missing a beat, he said, “Try changing the washers.” He sold me three thirty-five-cent washers. And the pipes never leaked again.

So before you freak out and hire an army of mental health professionals to fix your kid, before you research social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, or psychotherapists (I’ll explain exactly what these folks do in Chapter 7), before you blame yourself or your partner or spend sleepless nights feeling guilty, take a moment and consider this: You don’t need to start all over; you might just need to change the washers.