For readers who have children a common concern is what to do with children’s behavior problems. Of course, there’s no one size fits all solution to the problem but over the years we’ve been repeatedly impressed with the effectiveness of the solutions to be found in a series of books by psychologist Kevin Leman entitled Have a New Kid by Friday, Have a New Teen by Friday, and Have a New Husband by Friday.
Jonathan finally decided to get serious about his kid’s bad behavior when he got hit by a crayon right next to his eye, while he was entertaining business guests at his home. Although his kid’s behavior had been disrupting his home life for several months, he was reluctant to do anything about it because of some guilt he felt about his recent decision to divorce his wife. But the thrown crayon made him realize that he had to do something. Fortunately, we had been talking about this problem for several weeks and he’d already purchased the book Have a New Kid by Friday.
So is just a matter of finishing the book and then implementing its recommendations. He came in today and told me that his child’s behavior improved in less than four days.
It was hard work for the first week because he had to stop trying to always be the “fun daddy.” And as luck would have it the straw that broke the camel’s back took place just before Christmas so he had to cut back on some of his planned Christmas activities with his child. That was hard. But in a short period of time he began enjoying his time with his child more, his child’s behavior was much better, and the result was the classic “win-win.”
He was particularly pleased because the intervention work even though he has split custody with his ex-wife and she was not at all interested in following the same recommendations or even reading the book.
Over the years this has been effective in helping so many of the patients that I’ve seen that it’s earned its place in a short list of books I strongly recommend.