引言

        当我成为父母时，我想要找一本能够总结出可以一步一步跟着做的书，这本书要含括了我（作为一名心理学专业的毕业生）所读过所有关于教养孩子的最好方法。

        我能够找到关于孩子身体健康方面精确的指导书，但是，在儿童的社会与情感发展领域，我所能找到的都是一些信息量很大的书，这需要读者阅读几百页才能从中把最有用的教育方法找出来。

        我的第一个孩子出生后，我开始自己的教育培训事业。我开发出一个工作坊，为父母提供我成为父母后一直在寻找的东西。那时候，我就把它叫“什么成就了伟大的父母”。工作坊把最好的教育方法简介而精确地交给大家。这些教育方法来自研究和临床经验，它们能够帮助父母重塑孩子的问题行为，创造家人间的强大连接，并且引导孩子成长为快乐、友好而且有责任心的成年人。到现今，已经有成千上万的父母参加过这些工作坊，现在也依然在进行着。

这些工作坊的灵感还有另外一个来源。作为一名心理学家，我为各种各样的家庭做辅导，有的苦苦寻求解决孩子的权力之争，又或习惯性的苦恼问题，有的家庭关系已经恶化到需要寻求专业帮助的地步了。

        为这些家庭作辅导的经理让我开始思考一个更大的问题：假如我可以在他们刚刚为人父母时就为他们提供一些信息，以帮助他们不出问题，让他们拥有快乐的家庭生活，并且让孩子茁壮成长，那么，我应该告诉他们什么呢？工作坊，以及这本书，就是基于这个问题而来的答案。

        这本书有什么特别之处？

        当我开始开发工作坊的时候，我创造了一份只有一页的讲义，把它叫做“伟大父母所做的10件事”，里面总结了工作坊里所教的十个关键方法。参加工作坊的父母很乐意跟朋友和假如分享这份讲义，因此它得到了广泛的传播。我曾经接收到从全国各地发来的电子邮件，他们感谢我对他们的启发和提醒，并且说他们把这张讲义贴到了冰箱上（方便每天看）。

        这本书的版式来源于我所接收到的许多家长要求，他们希望我总结出更多行动导向的好方法。我在每个教养方法后面附加了一些真实的案例，以及实践提示，这也是我再工作坊中所做的。

        许多教子书都需要你读几百页才能找出里面的亮点和有用的方法，但这本书与之相反，它更像是一本实践手册，简要而易读，专注于有用的策略，让你能够立刻运用。

        因此，我称之为“简单策略”，因为它们是以直接而精简（但足以指导行动）的方式呈现出来的。但是，简单的方法运用起来并不容易。虽然每个策略都经过精雕细琢，以使它们易懂易学，但是要在实际生活中改变之前一贯的做法是很难的。意愿和练习是改变的关键。

        在此书中，你将会学到我在工作坊和个人辅导中所教的所有知识和技巧，包括给出提示、转换语言、调整认知、同理心、重来的机会、合理的警告、制止行动、社会实验、（避免）以奖励做交换条件、情绪教练、快乐习惯，等等。此外，还包括如何把这些效果显著的方法结合起来使用，以创造出你想要的家庭生活。你将会学到如何以不唠叨、不吼叫的方式来管理孩子的问题行为（比如哭闹和推拉）。你将学会帮助孩子成为有责任心、能管理自己生活的人。

        这本书里的策略对于各个年龄段的儿童都适用。即便如此，这些理念、方法和例子主要是用于10岁以内孩子的教育，因为我的目标是帮助家长为创造一个孩子能够茁壮成长的快乐家庭打下坚实的基础。但是，晚开始总比不开始要好。对于孩子较大的的父母来说，教育孩子可能更加困难，但是却仍值得努力。我们总是在不断地建立跟孩子的关系，不论他们是两岁还是二十二岁。

        为什么写实践手册呢？作为心理学家，我发现我大部分的病人——事实上，我认识的大部分人，包括我自己——常常认同某些建议，例如“强化你的核心肌肉，以保护你的腰”，或者“为了把投资风险最小化，要分散投资”，但是他们总是没能将这些理念转化为实践。因为在很多情况下，他们不知道如何去做。他们对自己说：“是的，这是个好主意，我想要这样做，可是我到底应该如何实行呢？”

        类似地，在我做家庭辅导时，我发现父母们想要运用我教的原则，但可能不知道如何去操作。因此，这本书里的每个策略都以一个特别的环节结尾（“试试这个”），以给你能够在家里使用的具体点子。这里面包括了循序渐进的指导和生活中要说什么和做什么的真实案例。

Introduction

WHEN I BECAME a parent, I wanted to find a book that would summarize, with an eye toward action steps, all the parenting “best practices” I had read about as a psychology graduate student.

I was able to find concise guidebooks for children’s physical health, but in the broad area of children’s social and emotional development, the best offerings were informative but required reading hundreds of pages in order to extract the most useful ideas, or they were overly focused in their subject matter.

After my first child was born and I started a private practice, I developed a workshop for parents that offered exactly what I had been looking for when I became a parent. Also called “What Great Parents Do,” the workshop presents simply and concisely the best practices—synthesized from research and clinical experience—that help parents reshape kids’ challenging behavior, create strong family bonds, and guide children toward becoming happy, kind, and responsible adults. By now, thousands of parents have attended these workshops, and they continue to this day.

The workshops were also inspired by another source. As a psychologist, I work with a variety of families, ranging from those seeking help to curb power struggles or habitual whining to those whose relationships with each other have deteriorated to such an extent that they need professional help.

Working with these families raised a broader question for me: If I could give parents critical information early in their parenting life that would help them get and stay on track to having a happy family life and raising kids who thrive, what would I tell them? The workshops, and now this book, are based on my answer to that question.

What Makes This Book Different

When I originally developed the workshop, I also created a simple one-page handout, called “10 Things Great Parents Do,” summarizing ten of the key ideas presented in the workshop. Parents were welcome to share this handout with friends and family, and it has since traveled far and wide. I’ve received e-mails from across the country written by parents thanking me for the insights and reminders and telling me the handout is now posted on their refrigerator.

The format of this book was inspired by the many requests I’ve received for more action-oriented summaries of parenting best practices. I’ve also included real examples and practical tips for each parenting practice (aka strategy) in the book, just as I do in the live workshops.

In contrast to the many parenting books that you must read or skim hundreds of pages in order to extract the highlights and useful ideas, this book is intended to be more like a practical manual: concise and easy to read, with a focus on useful strategies you can implement right away.

For that reason, I call these “simple strategies” because they are presented in a straightforward and pared down way while still giving you enough information to translate them into action. But simple is not always easy: Although each strategy has been crafted to be easily understood, actually doing something in a different way than how we have done it in the past can be difficult. Intention and practice are key (see #2).

In this book, you will learn all the information and techniques that I teach in my workshops and private practice: previews, power sharing, pivoting, reframing, empathy, replays, fair warning, stopping the action, social experiments, reward economies, emotion coaching, happiness habits, and more—plus how to combine them in powerful ways to create the family life you want. You will learn how to manage challenging behavior like whining and procrastinating without nagging or yelling, and how to help your children become responsible stewards of their own lives.

The strategies in this book apply to children of all ages. That said, my goal here is to help parents build a strong foundation for a happy family life with thriving kids, so the ideas, approaches, and examples presented here are primarily directed at children’s first ten years. But it’s never too late to start (see #75). For parents of older children, it may be more challenging but well worth the effort. We are always building relationships with our children, whether they are two or twenty-two years old.

Why a practical manual? As a psychologist, I have found that most of my patients—indeed, most of the people I know, including myself—agree in principle with advice such as, “To protect your lower back, strengthen your core muscles” or “To minimize investment risk, diversify your portfolio,” but aren’t always able to put those ideas into practice because, in many cases, they don’t yet know how. They think to themselves, “Yes, good idea, I want to do that, but exactly how do I do it?”

Similarly, in my work with families, I have found that parents want to use the principles I teach, but may not know exactly how to implement them. For this reason, each strategy in the book ends with a special section (“Try This”) to give you specific ideas for how to use it in your family, including step-by-step guidance and real-life examples of what to say and do.