Changing Children's Behavior: By Changing the People, Places, and Activities in Their Lives Book

Is your child doing poorly in school? Hanging out with the wrong crowd or having trouble making friends? Defiant and argumentative at home? In this provocative new book, author Richard L. Munger makes the case that the environments in which a child lives, plays, and studies are even more important than personality in shaping that child's behavior. So, he says, making changes in the people, places, and activities in a child's life can have profound effects on his or her behavior. He identifies ten "behavior settings" in which children and adolescents spend most of their time - home, neighborhood, school, after-school, electronic (TV, computer, and other media), friends, work, faith, recreation and leisure, and sports. These settings and the presence of interesting, challenging activities and adult mentors in them can make a big difference in helping children develop into motivated, compassionate, and competent adults. For parents and professionals, Munger discusses what research has revealed about the impact of the ten environments on children's lives. At the end of each chapter, he provides a quiz to help parents develop a profile of their child's environmental strengths and weaknesses and then makes suggestions to improve them.