The authors of the New York Times bestseller Whale Done! offer five simple and effective principles for coping with any parenting challenge.   Most parents feel frustrated with their children from time to time, but killer whale trainer-in-training Amy Sheldrake has a unique perspective. She marvels at the complex behaviors her superiors are able to coax out of these enormous beasts, while she and her husband struggle to make their beloved—and much smaller—son Josh obey what seem like the simplest rules.   What does training killer whales have to do with raising children? As this engrossing and unique parenting fable shows, more than you’d think. In their New York Times bestseller Whale Done! , Ken Blanchard and his coauthors—including two veteran marine mammal trainers—showed how positive training concepts used at places like SeaWorld could be adapted to the workplace. In this new book they apply these same principles to parenting. Once Amy and Matt get the hang of the five Whale Done principles, they see a dramatic difference in overcoming challenges like following bedtime routines, dealing with tantrums, introducing new foods, sharing, avoiding overuse of the word no, learning to care for a pet, and instituting time-outs.   Whale Done is much more than a set of techniques; it is a way of looking at people and seeing the best that is in them. Great leaders, saints, and sages have developed this skill. Since most of us are less advanced than those paragons, this book can serve as a guide for how to bring out the best in our children. “When we instituted a Whale Done-based program at Schaeffer Elementary we saw suspensions go down 95 percent, and math and reading proficiency improved dramatically. These principles work—kids really respond!” —Cynthia Zurchin, Principal, Schaeffer Elementary School, Pittsburgh “We long to be better parents who, with our kids, make a better world, and Whale Done Parenting helps us do just that. If you want to raise good kids and see more smiling and less scolding in your household, read this book!” —Naomi Cramer Overton, President, Mothers of Preschoolers International Jim Ballard is an educator, corporate trainer, and writer. Ken Blanchard is the author of several bestselling books, including the blockbuster international bestseller The One Minute Manager®. He is Chief Spiritual Officer of the Ken Blanchard Companies. Thad Lacinak is founder and co-owner of a behavioral consulting company, Precision Behavior. Chuck Tompkins is Corporate Curator of Zoological Operations for Busch Entertainment Corporation. Redirecting Your Thinking about Parenting AS A PARENT, have you ever had a child throw a tantrum or refuse to go to bed on time, eat good foods, or share toys? Do you find yourself scolding or yelling at your child and overusing the word no? Have you despaired of training your child to use the potty? Do you struggle with getting a child to do homework or chores? Do you deal with teasing, fighting, or poor manners? Do you need better methods for setting limits and handling time-outs and discipline? Parenting can be trying. As challenges pile up, it’s easy for a mom or dad to get into a rut and become locked into a negative, downward spiral that makes the relationship unpleasant for both parent and child. At such times it’s difficult even to imagine that there might be a better way. But that better way is precisely what this book offers. Simply put, it’s a way to feel good as a parent—good about yourself, good about your relationship with your child, and good about life at home again. Whale Done Parenting contains a formula that is positive and based on principles that are scientifically validated. Most important of all, it works! This is a book about bringing to the parenting of children the behavioral principles that have succeeded spectacularly in marine mammal training. The principle is a familiar one: Accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. It’s actually simple, but it is anything but easy. Much of the book focuses on children up to the age of five, but later chapters explain how the same techniques can be applied to older children, including teenagers. Indeed, the Whale Done approach works with people of all ages because it is based on universal principles of behavioral science. Most new parents model their approach on what their own parents did. In some cases this turns out okay; more often these parents perpetuate the negative aspects of parenting they remember. The results can be disastrous. The principles and techniques presented in Whale Done Parenting are taken not from memories of childhood or armchair speculation, but from solid behavioral science principles. As we described in the first book, Whale Done!, modern marine mammal training is based on positive reinforcement. It wasn’t always so. In the early 1970s animal training was a different world. At that time, there was very little science in the approaches animal t