In just thirty days, you can get children to behave the way you want them to. Whether their misbehavior is as minor as letting the dishes pile up and the trash overflow or as traumatic as a drug habit and stealing, Back in Control will enable you to set and enforce rules that your kids will obey. Back in Control is based on a highly successful program that has helped thousands of parents regain control over their children. Without compromising your values away or kicking the kids out of the house, it offers you the simplest, most effective method of childhood discipline to date. It presents a three-step formula that is perfect for virtually any adult wanting to control children's misbehavior. Instead of getting caught up in children's arguments and manipulations, Back in Control shows parents how to reestablish their rightful place as bosses of the family. Teachers are able to devote more time to teaching than to disciplining students. Probation officers and social workers working with parents, in addition to managing their caseloads more effectively, are able to permanently stop children from abusing drugs or alcohol, stealing, running away from home, and being truant. Children themselves learn that there are some rules they must obey, whether they want to or not, and they will grow up believing that they can succeed in doing what is required of them. Power belongs to those who use it. And if you don't, your children will. If your children's problem behavior is out of hand, it's time you got Back in Control. Gregory Bodenhamer, author of Back In Control , is a nationally renowned expert on parenting difficult children. A former probation officer, Bodenhamer is a consultant and trainer for schools, police departments, and court agencies. He was also the director of the Back in Control Center in Portland, Oregon, a parenting program geared toward parenting in these tough times. Chapter 1 Arthur, Ken, and Emma ARTHUR -- THE CHORE HATER Jean, forty-five and divorced, should have been in good spirits. They'd had the closing on the house she just sold; there was money in the bank -- she would be able to pay her bills up to date for the first time in weeks; and her seventeen-year-old daughter, Melinda, had just been awarded a scholarship from the University of California. But Jean was tense, irritable, and on the verge of anger -- and, as it turned out, with justification. As she suspected, her fourteen-year-old-son, Arthur, hadn't done any of his daily chores. The dishes were still in the sink from last night, his room was a mess, the living room floor that he was supposed to have vacuumed was covered with litter and food droppings, and Arthur, ignoring it all, was watching television and eating cookies. Jean restrained herself with great effort and attempted to use what she had read in several parenting books: "Arthur, it makes me very angry when you don't follow through and do the things you've agreed to do. Last week you complained about all the yard work you had to do and said if Melinda would trade housework with you, you would do the dishes everyday and the floor at least three times a week. So far you haven't done anything." Arthur looked up at his mom, said, "As soon as this program is over, I'll get busy," and went back to watching reruns of "Happy Days." Jean, not wanting to be unreasonable, let Arthur finish out "Happy Days" while she went to change her clothes. Twenty minutes later she returned to find Arthur watching "LaVerne and Shirley." The floor had not been vacuumed, no dishes had been done, and his room was still a mess. Her resolve to be reasonable and trusting was overcome by a wave of anger and resentment. "Dammit, I can't count on you to do anything. You won't even follow through with your own agreements. You can see what a filthy mess this house is but you aren't willing to do a thing. Your sister and I have to do everything. I work hard day after day to do my share around here, and Melinda more than does her part. And what do you do? Nothing! Nothing but watch television." Arthur stood up and threw his bag of cookies on the floor "Living with you is like living in a prison. You think you're a damn warden. Everything has to be your way, when you want it. You don't care about me or what I want." "If you don't like it here, you can get out any time you please." Arthur, taking his mother at her word, left the house in a huff and spent the evening at a friend's house watching television. His mother and Melinda worked in angry silence vacuuming the floor and doing the dishes. The next morning, Jean enrolled her family in a Back In Control workshop. KEN -- THE DOPE DEALER Ken liked dope. He liked to smoke it, he liked to snort it, and he really liked the money he earned from selling it. The kids at his high school knew him as a dealer you could always "score" from. His room was like a small showroom for drugs. He had posters on the wall glorifying its use, s