During my 34 years in elementary education, I had the opportunity to observe many children and their parents. One of the most perplexing observations I made was the frequency with which I would hear parents of young children make statements such as, “I can’t get my son/daughter to do homework” or “If my child is tired at school, it’s probably because he/she refuses to go to bed at night” or “Kids today just don’t mind.” Statements such as these are perplexing because they imp

Much of the misbehavior seen in children and youth today is rooted in a lack of self-regulation, the conscious management of one’s own...