The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind

This book is great! Really does keep the drama at a very low level. In forty years of teaching, I have slowly come to these ideas, which are so well articulated and explained in this very readable book. Illustrations are a bit strange (comic drawings illustrating choices, good and bad, that parents make), but are helpful in illustrating concepts. So glad I purchased this book, and I recommend it often!

This is the parenting book which ends the discussion about how we should do parenting. Why? First, because it is solidly based in brain research, unlike parenting opinions of previous generations. Second, because it works. This is how I raised my kids, having studied a lot of earlier brain information while learning about educational approaches. I wish I had had their simple, easy-to-remember language, but I got to the same place by reminding myself to take time to understand what was happening from the kid's point of view. Kids do not set out to be difficult. If they are doing something wrong, it is because they are trying to solve some problem, and they have not figured out an appropriate way to do it. Our job as parents is to appreciate what their problem is, and help them find a more appropriate way to solve it. Life becomes SO SIMPLE. Two basic principles: 1) Reconnect, then Redirect. 2) When, in the heat of the moment, you do not succeed in doing that perfectly -- later when you are able, Repair. And how do you Repair? You Reconnect and, together with your child, Redirect both of you -- by taking time to understand what happened, and each understanding and appreciating what happened for the other person. That's it! It's the only "rule" you need. And it builds a very high quality of relationship between parent and child, which you get to enjoy for the rest of your life. It's a good way to deal with your spouse and among siblings, too. Simple human respect: what does each of us need, and how can we help each other get there? Of course all this has to be done in a developmentally appropriate way; it looks different with toddlers than it does with 10-year-olds than it does with teenagers. But it's simple. It's just kindness and respect. And it works.

This book is exactly what I needed to help my daughter, and really made sense. It explains things scientifically in a way that's easy to understand and logical. I'm happy to say I'm yelling and spanking almost never, and is only been 2 weeks, and I haven't even finished reading it yet!

Remarkably helpful, honest, grounded with a sense of humor. Does not read as nor should be thought of as a self-help book but instead part of a body of literature with roots in current neurobiological and developmental research. It changed the way I approached and looked at my young son, soon-to-be toddler. I was looking for something that offered a fundamental construct to remind me of the best approach to make discipline about learning. This is what this work is all about. Both my partner and I read it (continue to read it) together.

I really loved this book, it really helped me see discipline in a whole new way and helped me to created helpful and productive ways of responding to behaviors from my toddler. It's a bit dr. Wordy in some parts but overall I was able to keep with it! I think it helps give me a good balance of discipline now overall.

Total trash. Other titles could be "How to Avoid Conflict with Your Child", "Hug it Out", "Create a Manipulator", etc. The premise seems to be that the authors assume people will beat thier children over nothing and should instead engage in "talking it out".

As an early childhood professional, I get a lot of questions from family, friends, and of course other teachers and parents about discipline, parenting, and the like. I recommend this book to everyone! I give it to new parents, I go back to it again and again for reference. This book is so practical, so insightful, and so necessary. I feel so much gratitude for these authors and their dedication to charting out a well-researched, sane way to work with children.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It contained a lot of good information to help me become a better parent. I am looking forward to implementing the strategies (thanks for the PDF resource), trying the work book and reading The Whole Brain Child.

It was helpful and so much better than other discipline books! I do wish there was a section on how to handle more "strong-willed" children with this approach. Maybe there is and I missed it! Excellent book.

This book was recommended by a psychiatrist for behavior issues our adopted son is struggling with. My husband is a doctor and I worked with children with behaviors as a professional, so we had already been applying many of the ideas this book presented by using common sense and treating our child with respect. There are some things (like with any modality of behavior modification) that would not have worked for us. Example: there is no way I could have allowed my child to explore a grocery store, if he started to fidget in the cart. We had to put him in the cart and keep him there until he stopped screaming. The grocery cart and the car seat were really the only non-starters of free-exploration. Now I can shop and he is at peace knowing nothing is going to hurt him, there is no way he can run around the store and grab items and bump off of people, he will get rewarded if he stays calm and I can get our grocery shopping finished. I suggest this book for any parent who is questioning themselves, it could help parents out in the sense that most parents struggle and it allows for faults and releases some guilt because partenting is a constant struggle. Most parenting books (IMO) can be reduced to a few sentences: Love your child, stay calm: always the best state of mind to handle any situation (but sometimes we all loose our Sh&% and get over it immediately if you do) and be consistent, surprises should be left for the Holidays. All in all I would stay it was a well written, easy read parenting manual peppered with humor. Yes, I would recommended it, but allow for some modifications in your own parenting style (which this books states as well).

Pros: This book is an easy-read and I really appreciate the use of mindfulness in Siegel's approach to helping children cope with their emotions.

Cons: No research or evidence to back up his conclusions about how to parent. He understands how the brain works (obviously), but he does not seem to know much about human behavior. He completely ignores evidenced-based practices for parenting such as PCIT and suggests that these are a part of what he calls "conventional wisdom" that should be ignored. This is despite the fact that PCIT has ample research evidence behind it's effectiveness and his claims for how to parent are not supported through research. I would refer readers to his other book "The Whole-Brain Child" because it is more relevant to helping a child. The suggestions in No-Drama Discipline are merely philosophies without research support.

Unfortunately, no Drama Discipline was not a very helpful book. The bulk of it was all about the concept of staying calm, which they describe in terms of some vague neuroscience and some odd upper/lower brain division. The major content was in chapter 6. In fact, chapters 1-5 state “we’ll get to that in chapter 6” an inordinate amount of times. However, chapter 6 just wasn’t that useful. I’m a big fan of emotional validation for children and emotion coaching, but they go waaaaayyy too far. They make it seem as though every parent is entirely responsible for 1) every emotion that their child has and 2) solving every emotion that their child has so that the child never, ever, ever feels bad or unhappy, even when a child takes the eggs out of the fridge and smashes them all over the floor. So the big reveal for chapter 6 was how they used the term discipline as an acronym, but essentially all of the letters described a response similar to the following:
“Oh, honey, it must have been so frustrating for you that I left out my work folder, and you felt a need to throw all my papers in it across the room. I’m so sorry that I left my folder in your line of sight. I’ll was wrong to do that, and I’ll never let it happen again. Let’s go see if the papers that you flung all over the room made a fun animal shape where they landed so that we can make an animal sound as we clean them up together! But of course, if you don't want to clean them up, that's fine too.”
Okay, so maybe their suggestions weren’t exactly like that, but in truth, I’m not that far off. What’s worse is that the authors of the book don’t really seem to believe what they’re writing. They often said, “I know this is hard, and it won’t always work.” I realize that they didn’t want to oversell it, but they ended up underselling what was too vague and unrealistic to begin with. This book just didn’t sufficiently offer any tangible recommendations for either connection or discipline. In fact, a better title for it would have been “Parents Should Remove All Emotions While Parenting Since any Parental Emotion Makes You a Very, Very Bad Parent.”

LIKES: "connect before you correct" is the way that ALL humans should live their lives. We've been using this method of discipline for awhile and I recently watched my 4-year-old replicate it on the playground when a kid tried to shove her out of the way. She calmly stood her ground and said, "I can see that you're in a hurry, but I can't let you touch me like that." This approach to discipline goes FAR beyond just getting your kids to be compliant rule-followers, it helps them to learn emotional self-regulation (naming emotions, initiating their own time-outs when they're overwhelmed, etc.), ways to resolve conflicts and be resilient when things don't go their way.

DISLIKES: when you start disciplining this way, there's this consistent fear in the back of your mind: "Am I spoiling my child?" My parents disciplined me "old-school," and I recognize its shortcomings because none of us were SELF-regulated (though we were compliant whenever an authority figure was watching). The book doesn't help parents who have that "old school" mentality hardwired into our brains, so I've seen other people give up because they think No-Drama doesn't work. I even questioned it because I was so conditioned to snap "time out!" whenever a tantrum started. I also wanted them to explain more on "can't vs. won't" because I'd like to better discern how to respond differently to each.

BOTTOM LINE: Whole-Brain takes some time, especially if you didn't grow up that way... but it's WORTH IT! As a teacher, I consistently notice that children who are disciplined this way (with fidelity!) are better at dealing with disappointment, less violent towards their peers, and are more logical about rules. Discipline is much less stressful and tense for us because it's become a way to connect, learn, and grow.

According to the authors of this new book on mindful, effective ways of dealing with discipline concerns, many common approaches to discipline end up causing distress and disengagement for children rather than actually teaching them or guiding them to act in more positive and productive ways. Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. & Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D. have created what they refer to as a "no-drama" guide to discipline. In this insightful book, the authors point out that the original purpose of discipline is lost when people think of it as punishment or behavior modification. Discipline is really about teaching desirable ways of acting. The initial goal of immediate cooperation is often the focus, without consideration of how the attempt to gain cooperation will affect the longer term goal of helping children develop self-control, thinking skills, responsibility, and a moral or ethical compass that will guide them even when there is no external authority figure to monitor them. The authors believe that discipline needs to be done more intentionally, with the long term goal in mind. They refer to this approach as "whole-brain" since it involves engaging multiple areas of the brain. A developing brain is not helped by responses that invoke fear and distress. It is better to establish connections where communication can occur and emotions can be processed.

Siegel and Bryson encourage caregivers to connect and redirect rather than punitively responding to behaviors. Combining empathic connection with clear, appropriate boundaries, allows for children to calm down and be open to learning and establishing healthy brain connections and neural pathways. This book does not present a specific system or routine of discipline, as it recognizes that different children and circumstances will require varying responses. It does offer a variety of examples and suggestions for handling challenging situations. The book guides readers to first wait for a child to calm down and become receptive before trying to redirect and teach the desired behavior. When children are emotionally agitated they are not ready to listen and use the higher reasoning centers of their brain, so taking time to help a child calm down and feel emotionally and physically safe is critical to being successful with subsequent redirection and efforts to guide and teach. Since adults are themselves often agitated and stressed by child misbehavior, the adult needs to calm down and play his or her part in establishing an empathic connection. The authors also point out that while having consistency with discipline is important, rigidity can be unhealthy, as life calls for us to be flexible at times and think with consideration about real circumstances rather than rigidly applying rules.

The book examines outcomes of this positive approach to discipline which the authors refer to as "mindsight" outcomes. Mindsight is a term coined by Dr. Siegel, meant to represent the ability to perceive one's own mind as well as the minds of others. That ability enables a person to develop a healthy sense of self in addition to having meaningful, compassionate relationships with others. This concept is placed into an equation as "insight + empathy = mindsight." When confonting challenging child behaviors, the authors collect key strategies into the acronym R-E-D-I-R-E-C-T. This stands for reduce words, embrace emotions, describe (don't preach), involve your child in the discipline, reframe a no into a conditional yes, emphasize the positive, creatively approach the situation, teach mindsight tools. Siegel and Bryson encourage readers to not feel bad about their discipline efforts, to recognize that we can all slip into counterproductive reactions. They even share examples of their own missteps with discipline.

This book is a thought provoking follow-up to the authors' previous book, The Whole Brain Child: Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind. These books both integrate modern research about neuroscience and discipline to help parents and other caregivers respond to children in more mindful ways. The ideas presented in this latest book can actually be applied to all of our relationships, as it will help us in many circumstances to be able to calm down, have empathy for another person, and then communicate in a constructive way about our concerns and proposed solutions.

With more and more research showing that punishment-centered discipline, such as spanking and time-outs, doesn’t work, many of us are seeking gentle yet effective ways of teaching our kids appropriate behavior. But what do you do if you aren’t just punishing kids for misbehavior? Authors Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson begin "No-Drama Discipline" by reminding parents that discipline is about teaching; that’s what the word actually means. This amazing book provides parents with a detailed set of guidelines for how to make positive discipline really work, starting with an explanation of how a child’s brain is still growing and changing throughout childhood, which is followed by a discussion of the importance of understanding when your child is in a reactive state (such as when they’re flailing and tantruming) versus when they’re in a receptive state (after you’ve helped them calm down and they’re ready to actually listen). Siegel and Bryson explain why connection is one of the biggest keys to helping kids learn, how you can set limits without being rigid, and the importance of just listening to kids when they need to talk (rather than immediately jumping in with a lecture). The authors stress that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to every situation, but "No-Drama Discipline" will help parents get the tools they need to work with their kids in a positive manner.

Originally written for San Francisco Book Review.

I am not even finished with this book yet and it is a game changer. I found this while in desperation to find solutions to tame the terribles of the twos (and to find my own inner peace). Though you may think that these approaches may not work on a young child, you might be amazed to see it work in action. I learned why my child acts like she does, and how it is not her fault, or mine for that matter (easing the parent guilt was a bonus). We saw an improvement over night just taking different approaches when dealing with tantrums, crying fits, and not ideal behavior. Also helps with easing the dynamic of having a older sibling in the mix. Yes, we still have tantrums, and throwing, and hitting, and such, but we are making progress to lessen the length and occurrence day by day. I even feel like I am preparing myself for years ahead as well (anyone else dreading the teenage years?). Maybe not everything in this book will work, but the content is relevant to today's kids and I found myself being very familiar with the scenarios described. All I know is that from reading just over a week, the chaos in our home has eased and my mental state is much less defeated.

And if you are a full time working mom like me, get the audible version (cuz who has time to read a book these days). I listened to it to and from driving to work!

The main concept of the book is to think about discipline differently. The authors advocate not only correcting short term behaviors, but also using your discipline as a tool to teach children to make good choices, to handle their emotions in a healthy manner and eventually need less and less discipline.

Their method, in a very short nutshell, is to ask why a child is misbehaving, what you need to teach them in this moment and how can I teach them what they need to learn.

There is a lengthy discussion of their background and ideas concerning other forms of discipline, such as spanking. There are chapters with strategies for practice as well as lots of stories from real life about their methods.

They believe in connecting with your child and redirecting them into a better behavior. There is a chart you can quickly reference as you're learning.

I think I can learn a lot from their approach. The loss of one star in my review was because it is quite wordy and a little hard to read.

I was excited to be given the opportunity to read this book because I have a young child (< a year). I want to implement a solid approach to discipline from the beginning. You hear people advise time outs or spankings, but neither felt right for my parenting style. Right from the beginning of this book, I learned something I didn't know. The word discipline actually comes from the Latin word "disciplina", which means teaching or giving instructions.

I have always associated discipline with punishment. I never thought about discipline being a means of teaching without punishment. It also goes on to speak of the two goals of discipline. The short term goal is getting cooperation and the long term goal is helping the child develop self control. It's all about connecting with your child and redirecting. It seems simple, but sometimes so hard for parents to do.

I know I've lost my temper with my nieces and nephews when they were misbehaving. I need to change how I interact with them when I'm frustrated with them and my own child. There are illustrations in the book that give you the gist of the approaches. Even without reading the book, and just by looking at the illustrations, you will understand what the book is trying to convey. I also like that there is a refrigerator "cheat sheet" provided in the book that reiterates the steps as a quick reference guide.

I would suggest this book to any new parent that is looking at how they want to approach parenting/discipline. I have not had the chance to implement these ideas yet with my own child because he is only 8 months old. However, after reading this book, I will be even more conscientious of my actions towards him.

Even if you read this book and it doesn't work for you, hopefully it will help change in some ways how you connect with your children during the discipline process. I found myself more educated regarding parenting after reading this.

If disciplining your child keeps yielding you the same results, then I suggest you pick a new approach and start here.

I've read probably all of Siegel's clinical books. When I was offered to review a resource for parents I jumped at the chance. Siegel wrote a fantastic book about mindfulness for therapists, and this book reflects aspects of that philosophy. It's about teaching rather than punitive action, which is not a new concept. However, in an age of helicopter and permissive parents, it provides a welcome breath of fresh air.

In psychology, we have several parenting styles: authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and uninvolved, to name a few. Authoritative is generally regarded as the best; it provides roles and structure, but also provides love and respect - in short, it reflects the lessons Siegel bestows in his book. Piaget once referred to children as "little scientists" - they constantly learn from observation as those around them. This is honestly one of the best books I've read, and I have already started recommending it to clients with children.

Affirms techniques discussed in other parenting books, eg Happiest Toddler, of affirming and understanding and showing empathy when your child loses it. And the techniques do really work: repeat the child's complaint, tell him/her you hear it, affirm that it must be very frustrating. Five to ten minutes in and the tantrum is done. But, it only works up to a certain point and up to a certain age. After a certain point, the conversation becomes interminable of the child repeatedly expressing their complaint and you expressing empathy while not giving in. Refraining from losing your cool or giving in and setting the whole process back to the beginning is a terribly big challenge. Eventually, the biggest trick is to give in to the small stuff and not to the big and to know the difference. These techniques do great at keeping a child emotionally healthy and confident about expressing their needs and knowing they'll be heard. Your child will have drama, but, if you keep your own drama to a minimum, successful parenting can be yours.

One of the most common displine errors parents make, intentionally or not, is just assuming that kids are little adults who don't know any better. There's an ever-increasing body of research out there showing that, in fact, kids' brains are very different. They perceive differently, the process differently, and they react differently.

The gist of this book is that your job, as a parent, is to think first and act second. If your child is breaking rules, you can do a much better job correcting the behavior of you get to why they're doing it first and sort that out, rather than just snapping straight to time-out or time-in or whatever the default punishment is.

Though what this book does better than a lot of other similar books is accepts that this method, like all methods, doesn't always work. You'll still occasionally have a child screaming on the floor of the supermarket, or refusing to get dressed in the morning to get ready for school. There's no sanctimony here, no false promises of perfection, just a better and more informed way to reduce misbehavior.

As with the previous book, I think that this one is useful even if it greatly oversimplifies or overgeneralizes the neuroscience of child brain development. The best thing about this book is that it really helps reframe some of the underlying assumptions about parenting and discipline, and gives concrete tips for how to use discipline in ways that help enhance executive function in the long run, so that children grow into adolescents and then adults who are able to handle their impulses and emotions while making and acting on good choices.

"No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way To Calm The Chaos
And Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind"
Written by Daniel J. Seigal MD & Tina Payne Bryson PhD
(Bantam Books, 2014)
. . . .

Oh, you know who these people are... They're that amazing child-whisperer preschool teacher who magically redirects your kid from a go-nuclear tantrum to fingerpainting with Sally within two seconds, or those maddeningly calm parents in the playground who sit down and "process" everything with their maddeningly calm children, validating their feelings, drawing life lessons, ending up with a hug and healthy self-reflection.

How the heck do they do it? Well, this book lays out the principles of positive reinforcement -- respecting the child as a person, reflecting their feelings, seeing things from their point of view, helping them to walk through the mechanics of self-reflection and empathy. The book is as much about changing behavior in parents and breaking *our* bad habits as it is about training our kids. The text is plainly written and very accessible, also written in a non-judgmental tone (which helps, even though if you're really struggling with not yelling at your kid, you're going to feel guilty anyway, while comparing yourself to all these saintly ideals...)

The text is boosted by a lot of cartoons illustrating examples of positive communication, making the book easy to scan or refer back to (if you've lost your zen mojo and want a refresher) A lot of their advice will be familiar to parents who have looked into specialized courses such as Communication Works, etc., but laid out in a simple, easily understood format, and it won't cost you hundreds of dollars in therapy time. One criticism is that this narrative doesn't encompass or address really, really difficult kids - children with neurological conditions such as ODD, etc. The assumption is that these techniques will work on all children, and while I think calm parenting is always helpful, it's not always a silver bullet. Still, this is all good advice, and the presentation is very good... Definitely worth checking out! (DJ Joe Sixpack, ReadThatAgain children's book reviews)

My sister reads a lot of parenting books looking for nuggets of advice that will work for her and her kids. I appreciate that these authors understand and emphasize the fact that there's no one size fits all solution, and that even for the same child, your approach will need to vary based on the circumstances.

The basis of this approach to discipline is two fold: first to distinguish discipline as different from punishment, reframing it as teaching. Second, to help give your child higher order thinking skills and the ability to self moderate when the big feelings threaten to take over.

My sister says she plans to put many of their suggestions into place and see how they help - they're appealing when you read about them and raising kids who can and do think is her aim!

She also appreciated the reminders and acknowledgment that you won't parent perfectly all the time, and that even those can be made into teaching moments, as well as the emphasis on setting boundaries and the understanding that sometimes, you just have to put the hard "no" into play.

I worry a little that it will be easy to come across as patronizing with some of their methods, but perhaps that's just the difficulty of translating examples into the written form.

I really enjoyed listening to this book, and it was a great reminder to help the child to learn to integrate between the rational and feeling parts of the brain. I also liked the emphasis on the parents staying calm, and because they stressed that SO much, I'm hoping that some of it will stick with me when I raise our little one (on the way). Both of those are already obvious to me, but it's so good to have more encouragement to do so, and specific examples of how and why. I had a few issues with this book; one is that the authors share brain science and their applications to child-rearing in such a way as to say that what they know now is 100% more certain that what parents knew in the past because of science, but they seriously never (to my recollection) admit that science is always in flux and a work in progress and open to multiple interpretations. You can also learn point A in science, and that doesn't automatically prove points B &C. You might also find that one child-rearing strategy does work super well, based on research, but perhaps your research into the downsides of that strategy isn't flushed out yet or done well, so you still don't have the full story. As a biology major and later a licensed family therapist, it seemed misleading to the general non-science educated public to imply that every thing they say in their book is absolute truth because of science. The newer the science is, the less likely that is to be true. I love science and research!!!! But I also like it when people show two sides of the story, including the story about the scientific research! I did absolutely enjoy hearing the authors' perspective and experience, but (as I guess most authors or reporters are these days), I didn't see "the other side of the story" and I always find myself missing that these days.

I'm also definitely not convinced that not disciplining your child in the traditional, more strict way is the best approach. I'm reading lots of books on both sides of the issue, and feel that the non-discipline group has some questions to answer for. Yes, these authors do make it clear repeatedly that you must set boundaries and there must be consequences, so they do a really good job of that (some authors don't). But they still tell you not to discipline, so that certainly limits the consequences that you set. Ideally, consequences are natural, but we're raising kids so we have to sometimes teach them lessons WAY before they would actually catch up with them (i.e., brushing their teeth and teeth decay). In real life, you WILL suffer non-natural consequences if you don't follow the rules. It's not just that you'll potentially die if you get into a car accident while not wearing a seatbelt, but you might also be disciplined by a police officer with a ticket. It's not just that your company might not make a profit and go out of business if you don't do your job well, you might also be disciplined in your annual review with a demotion. Is it really THAT horrible to discipline strictly, and have the authors truly demonstrated that it's a better alternative not to? I don't think so. Wish I had the book in front of me to make sure I'm quoting them correctly, but it was an audiobook that had to be returned yesterday; on the other hand, I just finished this yesterday, so it's fresh in my mind.

Qualms aside, the focus on staying calm, connecting with your child before getting into the boundaries/reflection etc., and the reflection phases (when they work!) were all really strong, and I liked this book overall.

As a parenting author and psychologist working with parents for more than 3 decades, I am pretty familiar with what's "out there" for parents. I have to say, however, that Daniel Siegel's new book makes an outstanding contribution to the field. His approach is gentle, practical and doable and extremely emotionally intelligent. Anyone who follows the guidance offered within these pages will be well on the way to establishing a healthy relationship with his or her child. Siegel shows how everyday misbehavior can be redirected without fuss on the part of the parent or the child. His instructions for connecting preempt drama and negativity, replacing negative emotion with true education and love. He shows how common ways of mishandling misbehavior tend to worsen the youngster's behavior and attitude, and harm the parent-child relationship - but he does so in a respectful, even kind way, so that the parent never feels guilty, inadequate or "bad." In fact, he understands PARENTS just as well as he understands kids. The book teaches through pictures, making every point so clear that anyone - even one's spouse! - can easily grasp and apply it. I highly recommend this book! Sarah Chana Radcliffe, author, "Raise Your Kids without Raising Your Voice."

I’m a developmental play therapist and I recommend this to all my clients and friends. The book is evidence-based, and offers a relationship building and effective way to discipline/teach your children. There have been countless studies done on the negative and unproductive effects of spanking (or any physical discipline) and “time-outs” and this book offers very effective alternatives. It focuses on intentionality and relationship building and fixing the real issues, not just putting a band-aid over the behavior. They give very practical, real-life examples and solutions. I really like the questions prompted in this book. When we experience negative behavior, one of Dr.Siegels recommendations is to ask, “why did my child act this way?” “What lesson do I want to teach in this moment?” And “how can I best teach this lesson?” I am a parent myself to a young toddler and I have already been able to implement strategies with my own son. I truly believe this is one of the best books on disciple that you can buy. Also, his other book, “The Whole Brain Child” is another must-read! One of my favorite quotes from the book: "Even when we say no to our children's behavior, we always want to say yes to their emotions, and to the way they experience things."

I needed this book so very much. This is a new way to think about discipline. It is about teaching. I had all the best intentions when I had my first child but he was very strong willed. I read books and I thought things over but eventually I always seemed to fall back into the bad habits of the ways in which I was raised. It is so easy to just do what you know in a knee jerk response kind of way. I was also very tired when the next child was born that there was no intentional anything at times and only just survival due to a parent and grandparents dealing with cancer. This book has been a great help in our continued efforts to be better parents and better teachers with our youngest. We are both tired of the drama and just want to have a peaceful household as we are both older and hopefully with the help of this book also wiser.

A perfect book for parenting and in general to understand how our brain works and the interconnections between its "logical side" and the "emotional side". This book is full of some useful concepts and recommended actions which one can take while dealing with kids. However, I found the model to be useful in all situations and am consciously trying to apply this method of thinking and dealing with situations in life.

The No Drama Connection Cycle consists of:
Communicate Comfort -> Validate -> Listen ->Reflect ->Communicate Comfort and so on.
This is an excellent approach to deal with toddlers/kids especially when they are old enough to communicate back'n forth.

Personally, i learned that i have to change myself first in order to be able to use this approach, i.e. as a parent always try to "respond" instead of "react" to the situations. Overall, it is all about your own EQ and slowly improving that of your kids.

This book is full of good, simple, accessible ideas for parents and teachers. I so appreciate that the word "discipline" is redefined to mean teaching; that clears up a lot of confusion about that sometimes perplexing subject. The emphasis on connecting with others ("connect and redirect") runs through the book, with a very convincing argument for calmly listening to children when they are upset, followed by step by step instructions for doing so. This emphasis on loving connection adds a warm, caring tone to the narrative. The authors' concept of "upstairs" and "downstairs" brain seems very valuable in teaching children to calm themselves, and transition from reactivity to receptivity. I really appreciate the emphasis placed on teaching children empathy as well as insight into their own feelings and thoughts, referred to here as "mindsight."

The main downside to this method is that it is very challenging for the parent in the most heated moments. However, the authors deal with this by providing a brief summary ("Connect and Redirect Refrigerator Sheet") and other useful resources at the end of the book, including "Twenty Discipline Mistakes Even the Best Parents Make" and an excerpt from their earlier book, "The Wholebrain Child." They also reassure us that it is okay and perhaps even beneficial for kids to deal with occasional imperfect behavior by parents and others. The authors even include examples of their own less successful moments ("When a Parenting Expert Loses It").

Some parents may find some of the ideas in this book a bit extreme. For example, it is hard to imagine some people I know apologizing to their children and asking for their forgiveness after a tense interaction. However, there is lots of material in the book that is just good common sense. Well worth a look, whether one succeeds with all of the aspects of "No-Drama Discipline" or just a selection of them.

Right now we're having some discipline issues with our daughter: she doesn't want to take a bath, go to bed, eat meals, etc... I felt this book would be a good resource to help us with her and I was right.

The approach is rather different but something I'm used to as a teacher: focus on the positive, create a deep connection, redirect all the energy, and avoid physical punishment as well as time-outs. Again, it's used in classrooms nationwide.

The book is well written, easy to grasp and conventional. Very easy to understand. I suggest it for parents AND teachers!

No Drama Discipline is a very insightful and easy to follow guide to change the way that you discipline your child. The entire premise is that we must look at discipline in a different way and move away from it being a punishing moment to a learning and cooperative experience. The initial part of the book has a bit of fluff but once you move past that the concepts are clear. The premise of disciplining without punishment sounds instinctive but I have found it is far from what is practiced. I have only begun to "discipline" in the method that is taught so it is hard to say if it works any better but nonetheless this book is a very easy to read and easy to follow guide that will change your perspective of how to discipline your kids.

The best part of this book is the cartoon illustrations and to be quite serious, I wish they had just made it a graphic novel! It would have been a much more approachable and efficient read that way. A lot of the dead weight in the book is neurobabble that is dumbed down to the point of being almost misleading. The brain is so complex, we barely understand it, and it's important for pop science writers not to overstate what we think we know, as it can lead people into thinking more rigidly about complex human behavior problems than they ought.

Two major points of frustration for me regarding their method of discipline: one, it seems impractical in how to apply it to many real life situations. When approaching a major issue, you have time to think through all the problem-solving steps they want you to do. But in the chaos of daily life with multiple children, there are many moments with no such luxury. There has to be a "shorthand" for those moments, without rolling through a mental file of neuropsychiatric factoids and trying to see inside your child's skull.

The second was that some of the "Goofus vs Gallant" examples they give are non-parallel. The "bad guy" parent is shown responding to a more difficult or unpleasant situation than the "good guy" which leaves you wondering "how would I handle this in the 'good' way if my child was not responsive to it?"

Long term results remain to be seen. My general lesson from the book was to parent more purposefully. To really consider my words and to approach each situation with thought and patience instead of haste. I liked the great number of examples in the book, laid out with backstory and images. It is almost like getting to practice the methods before taking them live with your own children. Having practiced some of the methods I have found us to have more calm exchanges in general, but your mileage may vary on this front as every child is not the same. It can be challenging trying so hard to phrase and word everything all the time in a way that is best suited to the child, but it is worth it when there is chaos in the home.

In a world where assessment is the chief concern in schools, where succeeding is everything, Dr. Daniel J. Siegel, MD and Dr. Tina Bryson, PhD explore the best approach in child-rearing a child with strict but purposeful discipline. They examine the brain and how it interprts the signals and motivations it receives from the world around us. Whatever the issue is on a particular day (a tantrum or a desire to be lazy, etc.), parents are advised how to approach the situation and how to connect with the child on an intellectual level. Reasoning is always the best answer to everything and these two writers show that it can be done with children for the benefit of both the parents and the children.

As an educator, I found this book to bring up interesting motivational points that I have now tried to incorporate into the classroom.

This book is IT! It's helped me as a parent immensely. My son's counselor recommended it and it has transformed how I parent. It's a work in progress, but made possible by the important concepts of building your relationship with your child and helping them develop into strong and healthy adults, no power struggles! I've recommended this to all my friends and family.

I believe that spanking and other forms of corporal punishment do not work as discipline methods for any age and that parents should understand that discipline needs to be about teaching instead of punishment. Think of academic “disciplines” and you can see it is educationally based. The authors make this point near the beginning of the book. I also have never believed that anyone can or should DEMAND respect; if we want our children to respect us, we must first respect them. To me, that means understanding their developmental stages and physiological and psychological workings. The authors’ description of the lower or animal brain reminds me of the fight or flight response and I have seen children with looks of fright and wishing of flight when they are yelled at and punished instead of disciplined. I have to admit that I have used Time Outs with my daughter because I don’t believe in physical punishment and did not know what else to do. This book explains why Time Outs do not work well and how connecting to your child instead of “abandoning” him or her is the best way to discipline.

I find the content of this book truly exceptional and am trying to reinvent my discipline approach to connect with my child by getting below her physical level, communicating comfort, validating her emotions, really listening, and reflecting back what she says. No yelling, or anger, or punishment, or drama takes place. The parent practices a comforting communication that leads to the parent figuring out why the child acted that way, asking what lesson the parent wants to teach at that moment, and how can the parent best teach that lesson. Meanwhile, the child is developing his or her “upstairs” brain instead of staying in the emotional lower brain.

Why did I not give this the full five stars? The authors have extremely valuable information but I found that too much repetition took place. To me, stating anything more than three times is excessive and I found much of the content very repetitive beyond what was clarifying or of instructional value. I loved the illustrations and the telling of parent/child stories of incidences of misbehavior that clarified what the parent did right and wrong. My three year old daughter came and looked over my shoulder as I was looking at one illustration of not good and good ways to handle a problem. She gave her own interpretation of the wrong and right – she said the parent was mad in the wrong way picture and sad in the right way. Even she can provide a summation of the no drama discipline!

Another minor negative I found was the repeated use of split infinitives. According to the Purdue OWL, “Split infinitives occur when additional words are included between to and the verb in an infinitive. Many readers find a single adverb splitting the infinitive to be acceptable, but this practice should be avoided in formal writing.” The examples they provide are “I needed to quickly gather my personal possessions. (acceptable in informal contexts)
I needed to gather my personal possessions quickly. (revised for formal contexts)”

I know that is nit-picky, but I consider the information in this book to be so valuable, that I want it to be presented in the best way possible.

One thing I wanted as I was reading was some kind of quick review or summary, and was delighted to find a “refrigerator sheet” in the back part of the book. This sheet and the next three very short chapters provide the best way to clarify and review the material as well as reinforce it through a short repetition. Earlier multiple repetitions slowed down my reading – I wanted to learn more, not the same thing over and over.

What I see as flaws in the book are not the discipline the authors describe, but how the information is presented. I think an editor can adjust some of the wording to ensure it is a quicker and simpler read to reach more parents. I wish every high school could make this book a requirement for graduation so that future children can be disciplined with love and connection instead of being punished!

This was a good book on discipline. Basically is talks about being more aware when you discipline your child and think ore about having a positive interaction with the to teach them to make the right decisions instead of merely punishing them. It's about forming good connections. It gets a little into brain research and forming connections, which I think was a little bit of a waste of space - it's okay to say that this is based on research about the brain - but I'd rather a paragraph about that and then focusing more on the concrete things you can do to help your child's behavior. Still it gave some good information for you to be a more aware parent as you guide their behavior.

No-Drama Discipline is an interesting read on a non-standard way to handle issues with kids. Siegel defines discipline as "teaching" instead of "punishing" and it's from that rubric that the book unfolds. "...every time our children misbehave, they give us a...better sense of what they need help learning. Children often act out because they haven't yet developed skills in a particular area." Just as you wouldn't punish a kid for not being able to hit a target without practice, they posit you should help a child develop emotional coping skills to better handle difficult emotions and situations.

The authors invite the reader to do some inward musing.
1. Do I have a discipline philosophy
2. Is what I'm doing working
3. Do I feel good about what I'm doing
4. Do my kids feel good about it
5. Do I feel good about the messages I'm sending
6. Does my approach lead to my kids apologizing in a sincere manner

The book helps walk through this and two other questions. It emphasizes connection with your kids. I am the parent of a precocious and strong-willed 3 year old. I can attest to the impact that connection before redirection can have in a child's life. It's nice to be able to know that your child is doing the right thing because they want to, not because they are afraid of punishment or retribution. This form of discipline takes a lot of practice and conscious effort on the part of adults because it does involve tamping down what may be (at least for me) a natural angry response and forming messages that help kids understand.

I wish the book spent more time talking through some examples that didn't work out as planned - the kids kept ignoring the parent, for example, or how to approach older kids who might be wary of the shift in discipline approaches. It's also a little repetitive and doesn't spend enough time on the 1-2-3 discipline method (different from the one seen in blogs of late) . It includes 1 - definition, 2 - principles, and 3 - desired outcomes.

This book is a godsend. It has a radical approach of how to discipline your child. It focuses on focusing on positive reinforcement, and creating a deep connection with your kid, and redirecting excess energy, as part of the discipline process, rather than using timeouts or spanking. There is lots of science and real facts behind the insights.

The book is very well written, the concepts are eloquently conveyed, and the ideas are crisp and very insightful.

Highly recommended for any parent.

Kids may not come with instruction manuals, but this is the only guide to discipline and behavior that you're ever likely to need. It takes a very positive approach, and bypasses punishment for punishment's sake, replacing it with instructive discipline that will have both short- and long-term benefits for both the child and everyone else. I particularly liked the science behind the approach, and the fact that the book was well written and not hard to read. Good stuff here, and very practical.

For many years now, I would have told you that my absolute top two parenting book recommendations would be Between Parent and Child by Dr. Haim Ginott and Parent Effectiveness Training by Thomas Gordon. They are both fantastic books about moving away from punishments and rewards and instead working with your children, with advice and techniques included, something many parents feel is lacking in gentle discipline books.

After reading No Drama Discipline by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson, I have to amend that. No Drama Discipline is now my number one recommendation to parents wanting to understand what is going on with their children and how to change their way of thinking when it comes to parenting.

The authors go into enough depth about how your child's brain works to explain while managing to write in a conversational manner which appeals to tired, frustrated parents. The book is a fast read, with enough information in early chapters to help parents begin changing how they interact with their children right away. Real life examples will appeal to many parents, helping them both to understand how to use techniques while offering hope to those attempting to make drastic changes in the way they parent.

This is a game changing book and one I highly recommend, not only to parents looking for something better, but also to parents who have been working to parent gentle from the beginning. This is also a good book to share with your parenting partner. Order your own copy and keep it handy. It might just change the way you view parenting.

There are so many great ideas and scenarios in this book, and it really lays out the idea of No-Drama Discipline with clarity. As a parent I am always interested to see what is out there as far as parenting books and this was one of the best I have read. There is so much to their stating that discipline is TEACHING not PUNISHING, then from there they help you understand ways to parent and correct behavior without using aggression or guilt.

I received this book through the the store Vine Review program. My 4 1/2 year old daughter is very headstrong and difficult to effectively discipline, so this book caught my attention. I was expecting a boring book, but I was surprised that it is fairly easy to read and follow. There are a lot of examples in the book, along with images. The approach seems very similar to what is used in daycares and schools, which is to focus on the positive aspects, and redirect the child.

This book was one of the first “parenting” book I felt confident the authors were not feeding me a load of sawdust. It’s based off of scientific research and written in such a way that counselors, teachers, parents, and adults alike can appreciate learning how they as children or their own children operate from the inside.

This is an interesting book about changing the way we discipline to a teaching method instead of a punishment method. Continuing Siegel's research on working the the whole brain, discipline is focused on connecting and redirecting. You make an emotional connection with the child, redirect to a safe emotional state and then decide if there needs to be further discussion or if it is time to just move forward. While this book does incorporate scientific research, it is an easy to understand layout of what the research states, how it is used, and what it means for you moving forward. I greatly appreciated the assurances that not even they do this method perfectly. There will always be times where we drop back into habits that were formed when we were children. Siegel provides lessons learned and how to talk to children based upon raising his own children. Overall, I found that this was a very interesting and helpful approach to teaching instead of punishing.

Fantastic guide to inner workings of child’s brain and developmental abilities and limits. A really great guide to discipline for those that follow attachment parenting!!!! Loved the insight and way they presented the approaches

Great book with great ideas on how to connect emotionally with toddlers. I find myself saying “no” or reacting quickly with a “stop it” towards my son. This book talks about how to connect with kids and ask them questions to find out the why behind why they misbehaved.

Great read for anyone who wants to better understand healthy parent-child relationships. I don’t have a kid, but I’m greatly interested in child development and this was really fascinating and detailed in breaking down destructive discipline patterns and how to counteract and avoid them. Recommended!

As parents of four grown children now raising an ADD 12 y/o grandson, the Whole Brain Child and No Drama Discipline are invaluable. I worked as a psychologist and found every word to be great insight.

“Steve Jobs gave a small private presentation about the iTunes Music Store to some independent record label people. My favorite line of the day was when people kept raising their hand saying, "Does it do [x]?", "Do you plan to add [y]?". Finally Jobs said, "Wait wait — put your hands down. Listen: I know you have a thousand ideas for all the cool features iTunes could have. So do we. But we don't want a thousand features. That would be ugly. Innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It's about saying NO to all but the most crucial features.” (quote from Derek Sivers)

Daniel Seigel and Tina Payne Bryson are innovators in the world of self-help books for parents and have intelligently, and elegantly, expanded on their parenting philosophy introduced in their prior collaboration, The Whole Brain Child. The authors demonstrated respect for simplicity in the presentation of their book. They kept what could be a runaway discourse on brain structures and neuroscience research to a wonderfully engaging argument for closely examining your own parenting philosophy.

I was eager to read this book since Siegel and Bryson made such an incredible team in The Whole Child Brain. In No-Drama Discipline, the authors expand on their philosophy that discipline is teaching, not punishment. I've read most of Siegel's clinical books for therapists, which are brilliant and pioneering in themselves; But it's his work with Bryson that I've found to be especially engaging, down-to-earth, and readable for the average person.

No Drama Discipline invites you to treat your child as the amazing, complex, developing person he/she is. This is a huge leap for many parents to learn and put these techniques into practice. It was for me. But what I appreciate about Siegel and Bryson's leadership in this book is what seems to be their implicit faith in the plasticity of their own methods; Even though they give very helpful examples (I loved the illustrations and "Connect and Redirect Refrigerator Sheet"), it's impossible to explain every possible situation in which their methods can be tested. I'm glad they didn't try.

My first response to their table of contents was to jump to the last section of the book which contained the author's stories of either "flipping their own lid" (Dan) or dealing with a kid that responds to absolutely none of the methods that the book teaches (Tina). None of the No Drama Discipline techniques fits perfectly into all real-world situations. The authors acknowledged these limitations and exceptions had the courage to say basically, "it's not all-or-nothing."

There will be some readers that will have wanted to see the authors write an encyclopedia for every possible situation a parent encounters related to disciplining a child. In fact, I appreciated the Siegel and Bryson's use of repetition of their concepts through the book and considered this far better than many other self-help books that overload the reader with complexity. What you get instead from No Drama Discipline is a curated selection of some of the best "pillar concepts" on which some of the most successful professional family and child therapies are based.

I will highly recommend this book to the couples in my own private practice.

I've been listening to the Audible version of this book for the past week, and I can honestly say it has made an immediate improvement on my relationships not only with my two children, but also my husband. The book captures the true purpose and heart behind discipline, teaching us as parents to be investigators into a children's behavior and approach them from a spirit of empathy in order to show them how to do so in their future lives. As I listen, I find myself applying it's lessons not only to my interactions with my children, but also all of my friendships and especially my marriage. Rather than reacting quickly out of anger or frustration, I find myself being more patient, taking deep breath's, and remembering to connect and empathize before teaching. This book is a life changer. I'm so grateful I came across it while my children are still young because it will shape my parenting for the next several decades.

The valuable object of No Drama Discipline is teaching parents that discipline itself should be regarded as teaching rather than punishing. This is for the good and is a valuable lesson to parents.

The indulgence of the book is the repetition. We get the author's arguments the first time and continued repetition weakens the book.

The former far outweighs the latter, and this is indeed an important book for today's parents.

I loved the real life examples and how intuitive and implementable their methods were. Perfect blend of theory and examples and illustrations helped me learn and really made a different for my family - I highly recommend this book

I didn't find this book to be a revaluation of new ideas or insights, rather it was more a nicely defined reminder or those things you already know about what works best in parenting, sensible reminders on why these practices work. It had some cute cartoon pictures that help demonstrate the different types go parenting strategies.

It would useful to give at a baby shower to a new parent. Also a gift to someone as a reminder of those parenting skills you know but may not be using, or not using as often as you should.

No-Drama Discipline:The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind by Daniel J. Siegel is a good primer for any parent. I agree with just about every idea, and I reared a child with much the same style many years ago.
Children need to feel valued and respected and wanted and loved--even when they are acting out; understanding how to see what is happening before it spirals out of control is key.
Read the book for examples and tips to employ No Drama Discipline~

Gives ways to discipline that prevent or defuse blowups and tantrums. Helps you connect with your child, rather than fight with them, in order to teach good behavior and maintain a healthy relationship.

Authors explain why the way parents discipline is so important as well as effective methods that will reduce drama and shape brain development to help children learn to use their "upper" brain, giving them skills and mechanisms that will aid them for life.

Some of my neighbors have kids who lack discipline. So, I bought 5 copies of this book and gave them to the kids' parents. In few weeks, I will know this book's impact on those kids behaviour. I will update this review then.

I think this is the worst book. It’s assuming that parents don’t have a clue about unconditional love. Very insulting. Parents don’t need reminder to connect with their own children. That is natural. Parents need help knowing how to handle outbursts, spoiled behavior, assaultive mean behaviors and other normal misbehaviors that young kids do to test their environment. If you sit and connect with them for every bad behavior, you are teaching them neediness. Reward good behavior, distract from bad behavior when possible and discipline when necessary. It’s pretty simple.

Great strategies for actually "doing" gentle effective parenting. I like the brain science behind the principles. Making parenting scientifically researched based gives even more empowerment to focus on a gentle (not permissive!) Approach

This is such a great parenting book. Great examples to help reader understand. Includes drawing cartoons to display examples. Gives parents hope of changing current parenting to something even better. Love the handouts at the end

Unrealistic. I have a 4 and 6 year old and majority of their suggestions is comical. It's as if their making your child to be your equal. This would make a great marital book, or "how to keep friends" book or "how to make up with your neurotic sibling". I agree with communication and staying calm is absolutely nessesary. But this book takes it too far, makes parents out to be chumps, the minute a teen/preteen recieves this treatment they will only manipulate the situation to their benefit, and feed mom whatever crap she wants to hear, and turn around and continue bad behavior. There zero consequences for bad behavior here is laughable. Example; My kid sits on the floor when I'm in a rush to leave and he refuses to move! the book would suggest that we TALK about why he FEEEELS like sitting, crying, and taring off his shoes to throw them across the room. they ACTUALLY want me to dialoug with a preschooler for why he's acting a fool, when really he himself, and his underdeveloped 4 yr old mind probably doesn't know why either who just feeeeels like doing it and whose just not in the mood to listen. But no, I have to reeeason with him when he's being unreasonable. again he's 4! ....NOPE! When we got home I reminded why he's going on time out, i put him on time out (after he stopped crying, is when i start the timer!) And after 15 minutes of time out... THENNN i talked and communicated, and reasoned AFTER the punishment (after receiving consequences for his actions is when he was ready to listen) and you know what? He doesn't sit on the floor anymore when I need to leave!! There I just wrote the next best seller on discipline. You can have it here for free! Just watch "jo the supernanny" on youtube, that show saved my life. I just was curious about this book cuz it popped up in my audables and got a free book to listen to, glad I didn't buy it!!! Just wanted to add a review cuz it's that stupid

You lost me right at the first example. Rewarding a child who wants attention, hits you to get attention, and you giving them attention as a result isn't good parenting. It's rewarding hitting and teaching them to repeat the stimulus in order to get the desired effect. I can't read any more of this because I'm shocked at this terrible terrible terrible example.

This has been painful display of coddling and validating bad behavior that the child is somehow never responsible for exhibiting... We don't believe in spanking because "children have the right to never feel pain" or we don't believe in time out because "it makes children feel rejected". Um... thats the point. Maybe I'm off base here but our job as parents is to prepare them to navigate through life and successfully handle as many situations as possible in a controlled environment before we release them into one that is controlled by the justice system. Like it or not, pain is natures way of communicating bad decisions can or will cause you harm. Hints the old saying, "pain retains". Timeout is rejection of bad behavior and if they do not correct it they will not participate. As adults they will not participate in what is called "society" when a jury of their peers places them in the longest timeout of their lives. I don't believe spanking should be anyone's immediate go-to response, obviously there is an appropriate escalation of force but ruling out physical force when all else fails is why we have a generation of mental midgets that grow up to think that just because its illegal to get punched in the face, they can say whatever they want and be as disrespectful as they want anyone they like. Again, the world does not emulate these sugar coated theories. Just because you accept your child's bad behavior because you see it through the nebulous lens of a loving parent, does not mean others will too. You may be able to press charges or sue somebody as I'm sure the people that like this book are well versed in doing, but thats assuming they live through getting their ass kicked. I'm reminded of a recent video I watched of a man robbing a Starbucks and getting his ass kicked by a customer in the store, the mother was defending him on the news because he just needed money and the customer had no right to hurt him like that. She probably co-authored this book. Read all the books you want or can but by no means should you take them as gospel. Particularly not this one. There are some good methods of communication here and as long as the child responds well to them then by all means, carry on. There is no one method that will work for every child. Read it if you like, but if you care more about producing a quality human being than raising your BFF, toss a few of these communication tools in your toolbox and move on.

Not impressed.

My wife and I have three boys, ages 8, 5, and 1, and I am more of a traditional "tough love" type while my wife is more of a Super Nanny type.

We are always open to trying different approaches and we download this book via Audible.

I began listening and from the get-go, my BS meter shot straight up and hasn't come down much and I'm now on chapter 7 and I'm surprised I have made it this far.

The "no drama" approach actually is the "MORE drama" approach! No time outs? No consequences for actions? No punishment? Come on!!!

And then they have the audacity to encourage negotiating and having intellectual conversation with your kids? Give me a flipping break!

From what I have gotten, this "no drama" approach to disciplining kids offers more of a false sense of security for the real world. In the real world, bad choices lead to consequences! According to this book there are no consequences for actions. Not the case in the real world.

What I also get from this book, kids can do whatever they want and nothing bad will happen to them and they can still keep all privileges.

Sorry but I cannot recommend this book. Stick to Super Nanny.

Behavioral brain integration is definitely something worth acknowledging and attending to in some regards (admittedly, there are some valid and worthy concepts in this read). That said, there is not enough positive information to balance out the misguided TRAGEDY that this book is. The level of coddling suggested in "No-drama discipline" is REPULSIVE at best. If you're interested in raising a manipulative, spoiled, entitled, generally maladjusted person, this is a great book! However, if you want to raise a truly functional, healthy, respectful, well-adjusted, confident, strong, self-sufficient, self-regulated person, DO NOT SUBSCRIBE TO THE METHODOLOGIES HEREIN.

Thought this was a book about beating mercelesly the behinds of my children instead it's a book about mind games with my child I was expecting an edge of my seat ride through the terror filled cold sweaty sleepless nights of a wiped buttox....lol I didn't even get this and have no idea what it was about the wife got it and put in in the cubby:)