What kind of family manager have you been up until now?

Are you working on a day-to-day basis at managing your family?

Are you creating a family environment that brings out the best in your child?

Do you have the skills necessary to give your child the best chance to succeed in the world?

Do you have a plan and an objective in mind for what successful parenting is and will yield in your child's life?

Have you created an environment that generates feelings of safety, security, belongingness, self-confidence and strength for the child or children in your charge?

Is your family nurturing your child's individuality and acting to ensure that he or she will become the unique and authentic person God intended?

The top three problems for blended families are discipline, resolving conflict and division of responsibility.

To Do List:

1. Put your family on Project Status meaning you must consciously decide to actively, purposefully work on improving yur family situation each and every day. (Spend more time, help your child achieve their goals, and make a commit for the long haul)

2. Commit to discover and bring out the authenticity of every family member and find his unique skills, abilities, interests, and talents. "An authentic child is a joyful child, and because they have such a positive spirit, they're seldom oppositional. They have self-respect, as well as respect for others. They're responsible and they're accountable in age-appropriate ways." Open the door of experience for your child: music, art, literature, science, leadership, travel, and sports. Humm, sounds like Home school. Catch your kid doing something right. Never, overprogram or overschedule your child's time with too many activities. Dr. Phil bring out a good point, but he does challenge the fact that public education over schedules and over tasks children with too much homework. The end result of too much active is increased stress, escapism, and discontentment. A child needs to discover their own interests, intrinsic motivations, and performance incentives.

3. Create a sense of security and peace in your family. Safety and peace requirements: keep correction private, stop being a right fighter, if you have a disagreement let your child see a resolution, eliminate verbal abuse, actively support one another every day, don't delay correction of destructive behavior and response with unyieldingness, respect each others roles and contributions. "53% of parents indicate significant resentment in making sacrifices as a parent", be a clear authority figure, make decisions for your family, and never play favorites.

4. Promote a rhythm in your family life. "This is where we're from, this what we stand for and this is what we can do together." Children need this rhythm in their lives, and it is unsettling to them when they don't have it. Create a predictable pace of family life. Play games and do activities as a family. Reinforce family values. Create a sense of your families' identity. Establish standards of conduct. Be accountable for your choices. Stand up for your family and everyone in it.

5. Establish meaningful rituals and traditions; plan purposeful celebrations; worship together; create special dinnertime rituals; tell family stories.

6. Be active in your communication. Talk about things that don't matter. Your child will be more receptive and open up communication in a safe environment.

Parent Styles: Authoritarian/Rebellious. Both the Authoritarian parent and Rebellious child crave power and control. Rebellious children seek power in different ways, including misbehavior, catastrophizing, and attention getting. These children feel important when they are in control and being noticed. They like to draw parents into battle; doing so makes them feel powerful and influential over them. Rebellious children tend to be combative toward their parents and their authority. An Authoritative parent and a rebellious child, the struggles take on confrontational qualities. Do: 1. avoid angry exchanges 2. take time to listen and make sure your child is heard 3. Deal with the misbehavior calmly 4. Move toward-equalitarian-style parenting. 5. Give instructions with attention to timing and place. 6. Learn how to compromise and move toward mutual respect and cooperation and shared decision-making.

Parent/Styles: Equalitarian/Rebellious. Expect to have trouble communicating with your rebellious child, who just does not seem to want to listen. A rebellious child does not want to share in power and this apparent selfishness on the part of your child can frustrate you. Do: 1. no overreact 2. Let your child disagree with you on a topic 3. Let your rebellious child take a leadership role in appropriate family activities. 4. Include your child in establishing clear rules about appropriate behavior and consequences.

Parent/Styles: Permissive/Rebellious. The styles work because both parent and child are sympathetic toward each other. They support each other and take an interest in what the other is doing. Generally, a parent that is strong on support, is weak on control.

Before, i purchased this book, i saw the rating is 4.5 stars, i thought the book would be a good one. However, after purchasing the book and read through it, i regret of purchasing this book. And the reason I regret of purchasing this book, because it's not as interest as i thought it would be. Doctor Phil writes too much of nonesense before he even tell you the step to correct the problems. But even when he shows the step to correct the problem, it's nothing interesting to learn neither. I almost given up reading this book many time. The book really is boring. I don't find it exciting as i would expected it.
In addition, I like to purchase Dr. Phil book, because i liked his show. I thought the book should be as good as i watched the show. But it turned out opposite. I would not buy another book from Dr. Phil. I grade this book a C or lower, average or below average. I would not recommend this book to anyone. It's not worth the money.

We had a bump in the road with our 13-year-old daughter this summer when we found out she'd been drinking at parties. We were shocked as we have a strong, healthy family and we thought this was insurance against this kind of behavior, plus our older son (who is now in college) successfully went through high school without doing this. I ordered 3 parenting books to help us navigate this challenge in the best possible way for her. When I started reading "Family First" I felt better about my parenting skills after just a few pages and I couldn't put it down until I finished it a week later. It helped me to relax and realize that all parents make mistakes and it's never too late to turn things around with your children.

The concepts are easy to grasp and there are exercises to help the reader get a good handle on how their own upbringing is now affecting their parenting style. I also loved the tests to determine parenting style and the child's personality type. I started laughing when I took the test for my daughter-my husband and I both scored it separately and we each gave her 37 out 40 points on the rebellious personality type (I prefer to call this the leader). This was so enlightening and what followed was practical advice to help us relate to her personality style in a way that minimizes conflict but still maintains authority. The rebellious (leader) personality likes to be in charge and this explains how to get them involved in decision making without letting them run the show. We also realized that our kids have different personalities and therefore we need to parent her differently than we did our son.

Dr. Phil does give examples of how these techniques have helped families who have lost complete control of their kids. In my opinion, this book alone might not be enough to help families with serious challenges or deeply troubled children. But Dr. Phil does say a few times that as parents, we need to be willing to do whatever it takes to have a healthy family, including getting professional help if it's needed.

I also ordered the book "Get Out of My Life: But first can you drive me and Cheryl to the Mall" which I am now half way through. It is saying many of the same things about the way that teenagers think and act. I highly recommend Dr. Phil's book to any parent who wants help navigating the often choppy waters of the teenagers journey.