People don't scream or swear or pout or sulk when there's compatibility. But most growth occurs when there's incompatibility. When it comes to resilience, when it comes to pulling yourself up when you've fallen down, you don't learn those things when things are going well. You learn those things when you're struggling.

Challenging behavior is just a signal, the fever, the means by which the kid is communicating that he or she is having difficulty meeting an expectation.

When people are rushed, they're stressed and you greatly increase the likelihood of being punitive and unilateral just because you're trying to grasp control.

If a solution isn't mutually satisfactory, it's not going to stick.

Over 18 years of us solving problems together, my daughter has shown me that she's got a good head on her shoulders, that she is pretty good at solving the problems that affect her life. If she wants my input, she gets it.

People still look askance at a kid in the supermarket who's pitching a fit and think the parent is not sufficiently in control or not being sufficiently punitive. That's an issue for a lot of parents as well.

Everybody is talking about the behavior. Behaviors float downstream to us. We need to paddle upstream. The problems that are causing the behaviors, that's what's waiting for us. It's a crucial paradigm shift.