Family First: Your Step-By-Step Plan for Creating a Phenomenal Family

In this whole-family approach to parenting, "Dr. Phil", who is famous for his no-nonsense, "Get real!" approach, offers a comprehensive program of supportive and encouraging advice along with concrete and practical actions that parents and children can take if they want their lives to be good ones. Acknowledging the challenges of raising children of what he calls the "All-Access-Pass Generation," McGraw is traditional in believing that the family remains the single most powerful influence in children's lives--for good or for ill. McGraw proposes Seven Tools for Purposeful Parenting to help parents establish important goals and to keep their eye on the ball. The tools include: defining success, communicating with clarity, negotiating, realizing consequences, dealing with change, dealing with harmony, and setting a good example--parents are expected to "clean house" and "walk the walk" themselves. FAMILY FIRST includes exercises, worksheets, and sidebars (called "Survey Facts") that provide readers with insights into how other parents see their jobs. These parts of the book are intended to be read actively and they are intended to bring about change. McGraw's high regard for parents and their role comes through loud and clear in FAMILY FIRST, and he backs it up with advice to make parents clearer, stronger, and more effective--with the idea that children will get the message and see also that family comes first.