My son was a very spirited child. He was determined to have his way regardless of the circumstances or punishments that we placed upon him. We did not believe in spanking so would give him time-outs or take away priviledges. This only incensed him more and he would become argumentative as he became older. Thinking we had over indulged him or were not parenting him correctly, we were pretty much at our wits end. I then stumbled across this book while visiting a client and asked if it were of any use to her. She has 3 children, one of which was of the same temperament as my son. She highly recommended the book and gave it to me to read. I implemented some of the steps and in a matter of weeks started to see changes in how we interacted with out son and his responses toward us. He is now facing the beginning stages of puberty, however, it isn't as difficult to handle and some of the techniques learned we are still applying. I would highly recommend this book to any parent who has a child displaying this temperment, don't think it is a miracle cure, but reading through it applying the information gleaned from the book will definitely save you from questioning your parenting skills as well as nights of frustration!