Before It's Too Late: Why Some Kids Get Into Trouble--and What Parents Can Do About It

I enjoy this authors books.

I'll start with a summary. Samenow begins his book by arguing that his theories on troubled children run counter to current mainstream trends in psychology about the way we look at anti-social children. He argues that anti-social behavior is not caused by genetic, biochemical or environmental factors and that these are merely "excuses" that shift blame away from the true root of the problem: namely the children themselves. He theorizes that delinquency is largely a function of personality, that there's seven fundamental personality characteristics that make troubled children naturally inclined toward anti-social behavior. His thesis is that troubled children make a series of poor choices throughout their life that lead them into delinquency and that parents need to intervene early on in this chain of bad choices to help their child become pro-social. His advice is articulated as six steps, but I honestly think all the steps are just variations of one basic flavor: be firm and stop making excuses for your kid.I am deeply skeptical of his thesis and his prescribed solutions to the problem for a number of reasons. My position is that if you're going to make claims that run counter to mainstream psychology---as Samenow does---then you bear a responsibility to support and prove your claims using peer-reviewed research. Samenow completely fails to do so. What little research he does supply in his footnotes is terribly outdated and much of it, frankly, doesn't past muster. While Samenow is arguably drawing upon his personal career experiences working with juvenile delinquents to prove his claims, that's about as far as his credibility extends. He relies almost exclusively on his intuition about why troubled kids are the way they are. It's possible his claims have merit, but he provides no convincing evidence that they are. In short, I am not convinced.Maybe this book represented "top notch" knowledge back in 1989 when it was first published, but it seems woefully out of date and out of sync with the scholarly consensus in the field of psychology today. I find it very unsettling that numerous parenting groups and schools still recommend such outdated reading.

The only reason I didn't rate this book 5 stars was its length vs the amount of content. That is, this was an informative book, but it was too long for the amount of information contained. I think Stanton Samenow is a really insightful author; however, in this book he kept going over the same points until you just wanted to shout, "I got it already, what else?!". He does do a really good job of showing how it is not always a case where the parents act in a way that causes the child to become bad. Often the parents are backed into a corner by a child being so encoragable that the parents, almost out of defense, react, and yes maybe overreact, to the child's sneaky, self-centered, demanding ways. Samenow, who has over 30 years working as a phorensic psychologist, tells you in clear detail how to spot what he calls an antisocial child in the making. He then goes on to tell you what steps a parent can take, "before it's too late". That is, what you can do before the child is too old for you to be able to change their personal life's trajectory.

The item was as advertised. The book presents case studies of clients the author has worked with and provided counseling to. Since the book was written in the 80's the examples don't reflect the ubiquitous technology and Internet, issues parents face today, but still provides insight into the anti-social personality. The traits he outlines are universal despite the passage of time and will help parents determine if they need to pay attention to the patterns of behavior described in the examples he provides. The book does not provide false or easy solutions for dealing with difficult children but emphasizes parenting consistency, oversight, and not turning a blind eye or making excuses for their kids. I wish I would've had this book when I was raising my difficult child. It is a valuable resource.

I am still at lost to understanding the solution that Dr. Samenow wrote about. I guess that I was looking for a mechanical solution. What I got is that it is important to recognize faulty thinking in a child and that I am not alone in the raising an "anti-social" or overly self-centered child. Our son is 48 years old and in Federal Prison. I still do not know what I would say to parents that have a child that "does what he wants to do when he wants to do it" . Trying change the child's thinking at an early age is the message I got.

I read this book years ago and quoted from it in my latest book, Effective Discipline the Montessori Way. He makes an excellent case for the position that kids have free will and make their own choices, and are therefore responsible for their own behaviors.

This book provides more applications of Stanton Samenow's radically meaningful understanding of social deviancy, with the idea of utilizing its resulting modes of communication and interaction with kids during formative years. Samenow's honest approach overrides often-used counseling practices that are based on a psychological paradigm geared to supporting stifled individualism, thus not appropriate, but harmful, to the social deviant and those he affects. As Samenow's findings gain traction with therapists, parents and educators, we may hope the incidence of social deviancy may decrease under new enlightenment in child guidance.

My therapist suggested this book to me and has really helped. I'm only 1/2 way through but it describes my parenting to a tee and deals with my situation with my 16 year old son who has gotten involved in drugs. He had disconnected from me, his sports and the rest of the family, this book helps me to understand why and how I can help him and help myself. Don't think this book has all the answers, get a good therapist too, like I did! Good luck to you parents out there, this is a good stepping stone to realizing the problems you are facing.