10 Days to a Less Defiant Child Quotes

“When your child’s behavior disappoints you, you should always try to assume the best. You should assume that your child means well and is behaving as well as possible under the given circumstances (both obvious and hidden from us), together with his level of experience in life.”
― Jeffrey Bernstein, 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child: The Breakthrough Program for Overcoming Your Child's Difficult Behavior

“Please do not fall into the trap of viewing your child’s mistakes as a negative reflection on yourself. You will do yourself and your child a great favor by not taking his mistakes personally.”
― Jeffrey Bernstein, 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child: The Breakthrough Program for Overcoming Your Child's Difficult Behavior

“The child has been locked into a defiant behavior pattern, which the parent does not understand. The child just gets more defiant and the parent responds with frustration, which influences the child to be more defiant. This attitude makes the child feel even more misunderstood, which prompts him to use his defiant behavior to express himself further, and the cycle just intensifies.”
― Jeffrey Bernstein, 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child: The Breakthrough Program for Overcoming Your Child's Difficult Behavior

“Not understanding your defiant child fuels the defiant behaviors. •​Defiant children feel very misunderstood.”
― Jeffrey Bernstein, 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child: The Breakthrough Program for Overcoming Your Child's Difficult Behavior

“I can’t stress enough that understanding your defiant child’s struggles and staying mindful of them will actually reduce your child’s defiance.”
― Jeffrey Bernstein, 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child: The Breakthrough Program for Overcoming Your Child's Difficult Behavior

“It is critical that you don’t criticize. I am convinced that a big reason so many children respond with “fine” or “good” when asked about their day at school is because they are afraid of being criticized.”
― Jeffrey Bernstein, 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child: The Breakthrough Program for Overcoming Your Child's Difficult Behavior

“The more you can begin to see yourself as an emotion coach for your child, the less personally you will be impacted when he is struggling with his own emotions and taking them out on you through bad behaviors.”
― Jeffrey Bernstein, 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child: The Breakthrough Program for Overcoming Your Child's Difficult Behavior

“Accepting your past mistakes and valuing yourself for doing the best you can will lead you to make changes and experience growth as a parent. In the words of Carl Rogers, who was one of the preeminent thinkers in psychology, contributing to education, therapy, and humanistic psychology, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
― Jeffrey Bernstein, 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child: The Breakthrough Program for Overcoming Your Child's Difficult Behavior

“Your defiant child is trying to antagonize you. She’s not doing it because she’s evil, although at times you may wonder if she is. Your child acts this way because she doesn’t know how else to handle her difficult thoughts and feelings. This is the key to understanding why your child is being defiant, and it is crucial that you keep it in mind as you’re dealing with her.”
― Jeffrey Bernstein, 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child: The Breakthrough Program for Overcoming Your Child's Difficult Behavior

“My parents have given me everything I want but the thing that means most is the time they spend with me.”
― Jeffrey Bernstein, 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child: The Breakthrough Program for Overcoming Your Child's Difficult Behavior

“How a family reacts to a child’s behavior and how a child is disciplined also play a big role in the development of defiant behaviors. The”
― Jeffrey Bernstein, 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child: The Breakthrough Program for Overcoming Your Child's Difficult Behavior

“But passively waiting for your child to outgrow his defiant behavior will just make the problem worse and not solve it. It’s our job as parents to help our children learn appropriate behavior, not to enable poor behavior by making excuses for it.”
― Jeffrey Bernstein, 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child: The Breakthrough Program for Overcoming Your Child's Difficult Behavior