Parents are much more likely to be attuned to what they don't like than they are to the expectations that the kid is having difficulty meeting.

The vast majority of things parents and kids get in conflict over are highly predictable. We're disagreeing about the same expectations the kid is having difficulty meeting every hour, every day, every week. Because it's predictable, we can have these conversations proactively. That is very hard for people.

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.

A lot of parents aren't exactly sure how to go about solving a problem with a kid in a way that's mutually satisfactory - doing that with their child feels very foreign to a lot of people. It probably explains why so many parents tell me their kids don't listen to them and why so many kids tell me that they don't feel heard.

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.

The idea that we can take this lump of clay and mold it into a form of our choosing is absolutely ludicrous.

If we're being unilateral, then communication does not happen, the relationship does not happen.