Rating: 
Summary: practical, useful advice
Review: Dr. Dobson has a lot of practical advice. My parents read his books when I was young and applied his advice. It's common sense. My brother and I avoided many of the problems our friends faced because, in part, other parents were more interested in being their childrens' friends than their parents. Look at the breakdown of respect for authority in our society and the dissolution of right and wrong. Everything is "relative" today, and the warm fuzzy culture has a real problem with parents asserting their rightful authority. Our problems as a society will only worsen if this trend continues. Dr. Dobson is an intelligent, practical, Bible-centered voice in this increasingly immoral society.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't confuse this with a good book
Review: Please do not confuse this book with Parenting the Strong-Willed Child by Forehand & Long. Parenting the Strong-Willed Child is an excellent book and one that as a child clinical psychologist specializing in parenting, I have recommended to many families. Forehand & Long's book teaches HUMANE methods, supported by over 30 years of careful, thorough research.
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Summary: Biblical principals interpreted into real life situations
Review: This is an excellent book on parenting! I have found that the suggestions Dr Dobson has made work wonderfully with my 3 year old son. Dr Dobson seems to have a wonderful understanding of children and what makes them tick. I also sense his tremendous love of children. He teaches us to guide the child in a way that they will learn self control. After all, isn't that what it's all about- to learn to control our sinful impulses. He also warns us AGAINST disciplining our children in anger. We should instead be stern disciplinarians while protecting their spirits. (that is their self-esteem and self worth) In closing, Dr Dobson admittedly did not originate the parenting principles of this book, they are from the bible.
Rating: 
Summary: Good book, if you can handle the fundy Christian phrasing
Review: Dobson's books divide people, as you can see from all these reviews. Really, if you're not a fundamentalist Christian, you're probably not going to be comfortable with all his talk about parental authority. I'm one of his fans, and think that 99% of his advice is very good. I disagree with him about the abortion debate and his views on the evils of porn, but on raising children he has a lot of sensible advice. He does not advocate child abuse -- he says that spankings should not be frequent and should be reserved for only the child's worst behavior. He says right in 'Dare to Discipline' that most of the spankings parents administer are a mistake, and the situation would have been handled better differently. I think that most of the people who read his books and accuse him of advocating abuse must have been abused themselves as children, and this has distorted their perspective.The commentator who criticized him for labelling strong-willed children as 'bad' and compliant children as 'good' must be too upset to even read. HE SAYS RIGHT IN THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOK THAT STRONG-WILLED CHILDREN HAVE THE MOST POTENTIAL FOR CREATIVITY AND LEADERSHIP. As someone who is a former strong-willed child and the parent of a strong-willed child, I don't have any problem with his characterization of the strong-willed as having the greatest potential and, at the same time, needing some extra firmness when it comes to parenting style. I recognize my mother's ways of parenting in many of his examples, and I would rate my mother a 98 out of 100 for providing balanced, loving, and firm discipline. My mother rarely spanked. Nearly all of the time she was able to use gentler methods such as time-outs and firm lectures. One of the main reasons that these other methods worked because we knew that if we continued to misbehave, she was not afraid to spank. I am positive that no mother in the world ever loved her children more than my mother did, and this book is about that kind of parenting. The book gives some excellent practical tips on how to handle children, but I have found that the books 'Never Too Soon' and 'Don't Be Afraid To Discipline' by Ruth Peters are my favorites. Ruth Peters is kind of like Dobson without the Christian doctrine and using alternative punishments to spankings. Dobson is better however at describing the love, love, and more love that must accompany parental authority in order to strike the right balance.
Rating:
Summary: Not to be read quickly
Review: I have read this book over and over again. I have three boys ages .. 12, 13, and 16 and I can tell you as a single mother that I had a lot of fears of my boys getting bigger then I and taking advantage. In a world where moral decline is so acceptable, where parents are encouraged by police to let their children drink at home so they don't become a police problem. In a world where our children can drive cars, and play games that can physically endanger others but us as parents are responsible and those teens are JUST PLAYING HARMLESS GAMES.and in this day in age where pregnany and MULTIPLE abortions are seen as common place I was crying out for something that said YOUR CHILDREN DO NOT HAVE TO END UP THIS WAY. I found it in this book. My 16 year old boy, is not sexually active, he is not on drugs, he is not drinking, he is not running out of my house cause I have no control. None of the boys are. The small minded of those who have written poor reports on this book have taken what Mr Dobsen has written to the extreme, they focused on the negative, they allowed their preconcieved notions to mandate how they viewed the information in this book. I have NEVER used a belt or a rod on my children. I have set boundries however with productive disapline. Mr Dobsen advises that IFyou hit you do NOT do it with your hand as then the child fears you, as typically they never know it is comming if you just backhand them out of the blue.he merely is giving guidlines as to IF you choose this particular method EVER in your child rearing years you do so PRODUCTIVLY. And he does state that there maybe a time that you find it reasonable to do so, that maybe if we as parents were not so afraid of it..sparing the rod and spoiling the children is a phrase then maybe our lives as parents of these children would be more balanced. I do not hit my boys, it is part of the book that SO FAR I have not had to resort to, however the book did give me much more positive ways of dealing with strong willed children. My 16 year old is ADHD and NON DRUGGED. There fore my pride in him and what he accomplishes with firm guidence BEAMS
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Summary: Why does this man dislike children so much?
Review: I think James Dobson would do better spending time dealing with his dislike of children then writing this kind of non-sense. For those Christians who are interested in a true Christian perspective on parenting, any book by William and Martha Sears is highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A horrible book
Review: This author shows no understanding of strong willed children (or any child for that matter). This book gives the exact wrong advice for dealing with our wonderful, gifted, and strong willed children. A wonderful reference for those who want to have a loving relationship with their strong willed children is Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka. Dobson's book is just one more piece of trash to be thrown away.
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Summary: An answer to all your child discipline questions.
Review: We have three beautiful children 2,4, and 6. My wife and I always ask the questions: Are we raising are children correctly? How come it takes screaming to get the kids to do something? Why does the simplest task seem like a production? Dr. Dobson has the answers, we've been using his approach for over 2 month now and are family has become closer. It doesn't take 30 minutes to get them to bed anymore, we setup bedtime rules and the kids follow those rules. Why, because we follow through with our threats, you must follow through. We have set up lots of rules in the past but know are rules are followed. Simple rules: No Hitting, No name calling, listen to your mother and father, bedtime is 8pm. Its a great book with great stories and the stories hit home.
Rating:
Summary: Not for parents who want a more civilized tomorrow.
Review: The reviewer from Blue Point, NY was right on the money! Since when is being strong-willed such a character fault? Also dangerous is James Dobson's advice to hit "defiant" children with a willow switch! Since when does that instill a conscience in kids? If those conservative fanatics want to rant about "immorality", it's hitting kids to "bend" their will into compliance with parent's orders. It's also a bad message when he says that kids should have a "healthy" fear of their parents. No, it won't make kids more moral; it will only make kids sneakier. Kids who fear their parents' punishment are NOT better behaved; they are sneakier. Kids have a concience developed by learning empathy and seeing others' points of view, not by living in fear of punishment by adults. 95% of kids do not want to displease their parents; often a firm lecture is enough for them. That will go a longer way because once that conscience is there, children will not even THINK of doing that wrong thing even when no authority figures are in sight. Also disturbing is that James divides kids into "strong-willed", namely "defiant" & "bad" kids who can't be trusted and "deserve" to be hit and "compliant" kids who are "good" and never give parents any trouble. To James, any child who questions adult authority is "defiant" and needs to be toed in line. Another "finding" that is faulty is that he goes on to claim that "strong-willed" teenagers are more prone to cave in to peer pressure. WRONG! It's the overly complaint kid who wants to please everyone and has no backbone who's likely to be complaint with her peers and cave in. It's with the overly complaint that things "just happen" to. The strong-willed individual has a firm self-direction & a strong inner "voice" that tells her right from wrong and will have a health defiance against negative peer pressure and as an adult, negative influences in our culture. One other thing...I guess James favors boys when he uses the generic "he" pronoun instead of alternating the way most authors do.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent suggestions for every parent.
Review: While not every suggestion by Dr. Dobson will work with every child there are several great suggestions and examples that should help every parent in some way.
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