Why Is My Child in Charge?

Solve toddler challenges with eight key mindshifts that will help you parent with clarity, calmness, and self-control. In Why is My Child in Charge?, Claire Lerner shows how making critical mindshifts--seeing children's behaviors through a new lens--empowers parents to solve their most vexing childrearing challenges. Using real life stories, Lerner unpacks the individualized process she guides parents through to settle common challenges, such as throwing tantrums in public, delaying bedtime for hours, refusing to participate in family mealtimes, and resisting potty training. Lerner then provides readers with a roadmap for how to recognize the root cause of their child's behavior and how to create and implement an action plan tailored to the unique needs of each child and family. Why is My Child in Charge? is like having a child development specialist in your home. It shows how parents can develop proven, practical strategies that translate into adaptable, happy kids and calm, connected, in-control parents.

Claire Lerner, MSW, is a licensed clinical social worker and child development specialist. She has been a practicing clinician for more than 35 years, provides training and consultation to preschools and pediatric residents at Children's National Medical Center, and served as the Director of Parenting Resources at ZERO TO THREE for 18 years. She is the author of Why Is My Child In Charge? A Roadmap to Ending Power Struggles, Increasing Cooperation, and Finding Joy in Parenting Young Children and Big Reactors: Practical Strategies for Parenting Highly Sensitive Children. Claire is the mother of two very spirited children and lives in Bethany Beach, Delaware. Learn more at lernerchilddevelopment.com.

Acknowledgments Foreword by Tovah P. Klein Introduction 1. The Eight Faulty Mindsets 2. Cooperation 3. Tantrums 4. Physical Aggression 5. Sleep 6. Potty Learning 7. Mealtime 8. Your Job Appendix Bibliography Index About the Author