The Big Book of Parenting Solutions: 101 Answers to Your Everyday Challenges and Wildest Worries

he Big Book of Parenting Solutions: 101 Answers to Your Everyday Challenges and Wildest Worries (Child Development)
By Michele Borba Ed.D.

Today show's Michele Borba's cures for difficult childhood behaviors In this down-to-earth guide, parenting expert Michele Borba offers advice for dealing with children's difficult behavior and hot button issues including biting, temper tantrums, cheating, bad friends, inappropriate clothing, sex, drugs, peer pressure, and much more. Written for parents of kids age 3-13, this book offers easy-to-implement advice for the most important challenges parents face with kids from toddlers to tweens.

    * Includes immediate solutions to the most common childhood problems and challenges
    * Written by Today Show's resident parenting expert Michele Borba
    * Offers clear step-by-step guidance for solving difficult childhood behaviors and family conflicts
    * Contains a wealth of advice that is easy-to-follow and gets quick results
    * Author has written outstanding parenting books including Building Moral Intelligence, No More Misbehavin', Don't Give Me that Attitude, and more

Each of the 101 issues includes clear questions, specific step-by-step solutions, and advice that is age appropriate.

In this down-to-earth guide, parenting expert Michele Borba offers advice for dealing with children's difficult behavior and hot button issues including biting, temper tantrums, cheating, bad friends, inappropriate clothing, sex, drugs, peer pressure, and much more. Written for parents of kids age 3-13, this book offers easy-to-implement advice for the most important challenges parents face with kids from toddlers to tweens.

    * Includes immediate solutions to the most common childhood problems and challenges
    * Written by Today Show's resident parenting expert Michele Borba
    * Offers clear step-by-step guidance for solving difficult childhood behaviors and family conflicts
    * Contains a wealth of advice that is easy-to-follow and gets quick results
    * Author has written outstanding parenting books including Building Moral Intelligence, No More Misbehavin', Don't Give Me that Attitude, and more

Each of the 101 issues includes clear questions, specific step-by-step solutions, and advice that is age appropriate.

Top Ten Proven Parenting Solutions
Content from Dr. Michele Borba

Here is just a sample of the hundreds of proven and simple tips from Dr. Borba’s latest book, The Big Book of Parenting Solutions. The best news is that these solutions work for all ages, take less than a minute to do, are based on proven research and when consistently used will reap lasting change.

1. Get attention: Lower your voice almost to a whisper and then say your request. Kids aren’t used to a quiet request.

2. Increase positive behavior: Research shows that giving kids the right kind of praise (called “positive reinforcement”) is one of the best ways to shape new behavior. So, catch your kid doing the action you want. Just make sure your praise is specific and tells your child exactly what he did right. (Adding “because” or “that” takes your praise up a notch. “I’m so impressed that you started your homework all by yourself this time.”)

3. Stretch persistence: Praising the child’s effort (“You’re working so hard”) and not inherent intelligence (”You’re so smart”) is proven to enhance perseverance and performance, but the child is also more likely to bounce back from a mistake—all because he feels success is not mixed.

4. Reduce fear: Expose your child to a fear in small manageable doses and help them develop a statement to speak back to the worry (“Go away worry!” or “I can do this!”)

5. Curb a tantrum: The longer you give attention to a tantrum the longer it lasts. Ignore, ignore, ignore!

6. Nurture kindness: Encourage your child to use the Two Praise Rule everyday. “Say or do at least two kind things to someone.” Random acts of kindness really are catchy!

7. Increase assertiveness: Stress: “Look at the color of the talker’s eyes.” Using eye contact helps kids appear confident. Strong body posture also helps a child be less likely to be bullied.

8. Friendship builder: The two most commonly used traits of well-liked kids are “smiling” and “encouraging.” Reinforce those traits in your child to boost his friendship quotient.

9. Develop healthy eating habits. Eating relaxed family meals regularly enhances kids’ psychosocial well- being, boosts grades and deters behaviors like smoking and drinking and eating disorders as well as teaches the child healthy eating habits.

10. Curb nagging. Say "no" the first time and don’t back down. The average kid nags nine times knowing the parent will give in.

The BIG BOOK of Parenting Solutions by Michele Borba is a great reference book for people with children ages 3-13. It addresses 101 tough problems parents face and how to deal with them. The introduction is very helpful. It first covers the seven deadly parenting styles, then addresses change, and effective mechanisms for parenting for real and lasting change.

This book is very comprehensive, and thoroughly covers many topics: family, behavior, character, emotions, social scene, school, special needs, day to day, and electronics. Throughout the book, red flags are listed for most problems, and the changes to parent for, and the reasons to do it, are very clear. One of the things I most appreciate about this book is the emphasis placed on early intervention, because I believe that the sooner issues are addressed, the less likely it is for them to become bigger problems. Many times it is important to "dig deeper" to find the real root or underlying reasons for a problem because often these have to be addressed before the change can occur. The type of rapid response necessary, and how to develop habits for change are very well covered and insightful.

Of course one book, not even a book this big, could cover every aspect of raising children in full depth. Within many of the sections, more references are listed for acquiring additional information under "more helpful advice", and the notes at the end of the book list many additional references.

Overall, this book does a great job of covering topics ranging from "smaller" types of parenting problems (disorganized, indecisive, tattles, whining, etc.) to very major issues (autism spectrum disorder, depression, attention deficit, etc.) in a clear and organized way. I highly recommend it; it really may be the only parenting book you ever need.


This huge volume on various parenting topics is a wonderful resource for problem's faced by today's parents. In my work as a family support specialist, I often need to educate parents in effective techniques for parenting their children. The resources I can provide that back up my basic information reinforces for my clients what to do and when to do it. This book does all of that in an organized and understandable way.


Parents often say, "I wish kids came with a manual." This book could be it.

This is a very comprehensive book about raising children and covers so many topics that it should be good for most parents.

Major sections include: Family (adopted, divorce, middle child, new baby, etc.); Behavior (argues, back talk, biting, bossy, etc.); Character (bad manners, cheats, insensitive, intolerant, etc.); Emotions (angry, dependent, fearful, grief, etc.); Social Scene (bad friends, bullied, bullying, cliques, etc.); School (day care, gives up