...reach for this book first. It is the perfect emergency handbook for out of control kids and their parents. With very little fanfare, MacKenzie shows you have to regain control over your children without screaming, threatening or inflicting bodily harm. He shows you how to set firm limits and let your children test those limits and learn your new boundaries.
The truly amazing thing about his method is, it works! It is humane, rationale, devoid of all the squishy politically correct nouveau-parenting verbiage, and smacks of common sense. I tried it on my kids, who are at times utterly impossible, and after about a week, they started listening to me the first time instead of the twentieth. This is the one that I am shoving under my hubby's nose to save him from his shouting matches with the kids. And when he's not reading it, I keep thumbing through it to remind myself of the things in it I need to remember. Bad parent habits are not easy to kick. Keep this book on your night-table, and take a dose of it every night at bedtime-- then watch your family's sanity grow.