Product Description

From Dr. Phil's Letter to Parents:

I want to talk to you about family: yours and mine. I know and feel that as parents, you and I share some very important priorities. Just like you, I love my family more than anything in this world and I want us all to be safe, healthy, happy and prosperous in everything we do both within our family and as we go out into the world. Cynics will tell you that in our fast-paced society "family" is becoming obsolete, that it is just an old-fashioned, lost concept, getting buried in a busy world of "enlightened" people. I'm here to tell you that that is not right, not even close. Family is even more important today than in generations past, and its erosion is unacceptable. This is a fight we can and must win. This is a fight we will win if we just do our homework and plug in. What I intend to do in Family First is tell you with great precision what you need to stop doing and what you need to start doing to lead your family with such a pure purpose and power that the competing messages and influences are drowned out. I plan to help you define success and then take the steps to create and claim it for you and yours. Your children are the stars in your crown and it is time for them to shine; it is okay for them to shine and, if you do your job, shine they will. -- Dr. Phil

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13192 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

About the Author
Dr Phillip C. McGraw is best known to millions as 'Dr Tell It Like It Is' from OPRAH and as the author of the bestselling LIFE STRATEGIES and RELATIONSHIP RESCUE. He has trained thousands of people in effective life skills seminars and is one of the most sought-after public speakers.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1: Family Matters

What's wrong with the world...

People livin' like they ain't got no mamas.

-- THE BLACK EYED PEAS

He lives in two worlds, this twelve-year-old boy. Every day, he troops in and out of those two worlds, in and out of the tiny paint-peeled tract house he lives in with his father, mother and three sisters. To say his is a modest neighborhood is kind. To the casual observer the houses are indistinguishable. There is kind of a peace and order to the cookie-cutter sameness, everything in its place and a place for everything. At least so it appears. Like every other neighborhood in America, suburbia or the inner city, every home is a façade, an outward face that betrays little of what lies inside. Sometimes what is inside is the opposite of peaceful. Behind the social masks, all too often lie families that are chaotic and disconnected, that threaten to disintegrate with the next crisis. The boy lives in just such a house and in just such an American family.

Outside the doors of his home, the boy finds a world that seems immeasurably more validating. He has a small group of friends and acquaintances to whom he in some ways feels closer than his own family. Yet they too seem distant and different because he is different, at least in his own eyes. Among them, he, like so many others, wears a social mask of "okayness," but he doesn't know theirs is a mask as well. He seems relaxed, even confident, but secretly he's always on guard, because he knows he's not like them, not really. He knows he and his family are poor and that they live differently with different problems, problems you just don't talk about. He's making one of the first and most common mistakes children make: He's comparing his private reality, his world behind the door, to the social mask of all of his friends. He assumes that what he sees is the truth, and in comparison, his image of his own family situation suffers dismally.

In the world beyond his home, the discovery of athletics has been an absolute godsend. He and his family don't have the money, the clothes or the ability to participate in any of the extracurricular activities except for sports, which are free to all students. In fact, at his young age, the boy already works two jobs, and so he embraces sports as a leveling device. On the playing field, he doesn't have to talk or be like everybody else; he doesn't have to have money or a fancy upbringing or even a stable home. He just has to be what he is -- a strong and coordinated kid, able to excel at just about any sport. Through athletics, he has found not only his self-esteem but an acceptable outlet for a burning anger that he doesn't understand, but knows is always there. Even with sports as an outlet, violence and fights are an everyday occurrence in a rough testosterone-driven world. Backing down is not an option. Because of sports, the urge to win has been planted in his head like a fast-growing seed -- he loves being in the thick of competition and he has learned what it takes to win and others are eager to follow. The seed has sprouted; he doesn't like being second-best.

School life is less comfortable. He is smart, though not academically motivated. He reads all of his textbooks from cover to cover the first few weeks of school and masters the material, but could care less about class or grades. Homework is turned in only if it is handy to do so. Teachers find him quietly charming but reluctant to get involved. His writing is excellent when he bothers to do it. His test average is A+.

To his twelve-year-old sensibilities, being out with his buddies, playing sports with a passion and getting through each day are what life is all about -- "out there," at least, in "that world." Out there, in that world, he is his own person, but always with an undertow from the other world, the world behind the door.

Once he goes home, he enters a completely different world, and he becomes a completely different person.

Cut off from his friends, his athletics and his school life, he is withdrawn, sullen, depressed, lethargic and emotionally detached from the rest of his family. Being the only boy, he has his own small room and he stays in it the vast majority of his time. He has no television, not even a radio. He just stays quietly to himself and even comes and goes through his bedroom window to avoid walking through the house. Unbeknownst to his parents he roams the streets after the family is asleep. He sleeps little as his paper route starts at 4:30 a.m. Days and nights don't seem much different when you are alone. He yearns for the hours to pass so he can make his way out into the other world, the one in which he is more functional, engaging, successful and motivated, at least in some areas of life. There is an astonishing contrast between what he is like in that world, out there, and what he is like in this world, in here.

But why?

Before that question is answered, let me tell you that in the many years that I've worked with the parents of troubled youngsters like this one, it became quite common to hear a mother or father request that their "problem" child be fixed. "Get our child straight!" they would demand. "We just don't know what happened! He just seemed to go downhill overnight. He is so withdrawn, so down and depressed. What is wrong with him? Can't you do something to fix this problem?"

Is this right thinking? Not even almost. No matter what maladaptive behaviors a child is exhibiting, I can guarantee you that the problem is almost certainly with the entire family, and most often the child is just the sacrificial lamb dragged to the altar of the counselor because he or she happens to be making the most noise and has the least amount of power or ability to shift the focus to someone else.

Trying to understand a child's behavior without interviewing the rest of the family just won't cut it, and any therapist worth their salt knows it. I want to be sure you know it too. So let's step through the front door with the twelve-year-old boy I described earlier and observe the other five parts that would be missed if a therapist, or more importantly, you, as a defensive parent, trivialized or ignored the family aspect.

Life "in there," life with his family unit, is tumultuous, volatile and unpredictable. Here's the real cause for this boy's refusal to plug into his family: His father is a severe and chronic alcoholic. He is typically emotionally unavailable to the boy, and to the rest of the family. He and the boy have clashed violently when the alcohol takes over and while the father barely remembers the confrontations, the experiences are seared into the boy's mind and heart. Further, the father has aborted his career in sales, uprooted the family, moved to a new state and returned to school at a university in the hope of a brighter yet highly speculative future. Though nobly inspired, this decision hurtled this family of six into grinding poverty. There is little inner connection as each family member's own personal struggles drain them of energy. Hunger gnaws at times and doing without is just how it is. Life is insecure, as the children are the poor "new" kids. Life is emotionally barren, full of desperation and drama, with one crisis after another. Tired and struggling, this family is not coping well at all.

Clearly scarred by the psychological and emotional stress, the boy's two older sisters try in their own way to escape the turmoil. But this turns out to be a classic case of "out of the frying pan into the fire." Both sisters have ill-fated elopements with boyfriends before finishing high school. Tension is everywhere in the home. The boy loves his sisters and they have protected him and helped him in a number of ways, but then they were gone. When they returned home, they were strangely different. They weren't just the other kids in the family anymore. And so, the boy feels further isolated. Although loving and caring, the mother works long and grueling hours on her feet as a store clerk just to keep food on the table. She is ill-equipped to deal with or counterbalance such a dominantly patriarchal family and such disconnected kids fleeing from their father's alcoholism. Baby sister is cute but silent. God only knows what she must be thinking. She is extremely dependent, afraid to leave home even to sleep over at a friend's house. She must stay close; this deal could cave any minute. The boy stays close to her, and they talk late at night, but he realizes that the less she knows, the better.

Both the mother and father were born into poor, uneducated families, and consequently, they had very little idea that life offered anything other than what they were exposed to. Tragically, the father had suffered severe mental, emotional and physical abuse at the hands of his own mother, and this legacy crippled his relationship with his own wife and children.

This is the world in which we find this twelve-year-old boy. He is embedded in a family on the verge of imploding and to evaluate him in isolation would be an exercise in futility. There is in this world an enveloping bleakness.

Trouble runs in packs.

If you haven't figured it out already, I know every detail of this story because I lived in that house. The story is my own. I was the twelve-year-old boy who moved from one world to the next, and back again. That was how I saw and experienced my life. That doesn't mean that my perception is correct or is how the other five members of my family would describe it. Every family member's experience and perceptions are different, but you can bet that everything each member thinks, does or feels bears on every other person in the family.

Although it isn't much fun to recall, I'm telling you this story because it's one I lived, and one I can say with great confidence illustrates that family matters. Family matters because it is the single most outcome-determinative factor shaping one's outlook and achievement. Your family powerfully determined what you've become and how you think about yourself, and so it will be for your own children. That's why among all...

From AudioFile
There apparently is no bottom to the well of intelligent advice that appears in Dr. Phil's books and audios. With the earnestness and vigor we hear on his TV show, he lays out a bulletproof defense of the importance of the family in preparing children for life in an X-rated world. He speaks kindly but firmly to parents who make excuses when they can't find the courage they need to provide good moral structure. The advice about getting professional help is especially practical so that by the end of the program you know your family's problems are not unique or hopeless. For listeners who want to reel in their children and need a strong celebrity push to get the process going. T.W. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

excellent book for advice
This is a highly recommend book by Dr. Phil. Gives excellent adise on raising a great family.

Info abou the CDs
The CD set contains 6 CD's with a downloadable PDF file (75 pages) that replaces the workbook. The workbook is 200+ pages but is MUCH more broken down if you need that.

The program is interactive, pausing now and then for you to read from the printout. However, the CDs are good to play in the background or in the car for refreshing or letting it sink in.

The PDF file needs Adobe Reader (free online) to print. I had trouble doing this. I realized that after downloading Adobe Reader I had to go into my start-up menu and search for Adobe, right click it and create a shortcut for the desktop. Put in the cd, open Adobe Reader and go to File, select "open", and from the drop-down box at the top select the Drive the says "family First". The PDF file will appear and you can print it out.

I have the book and find the CDs much easier to follow and find time for. I synced it to my Ipod and can knit/wash dishes etc while I listen. My kids can play and be loud without disrupting my "reading".

Tools to help put your family first.
This book is on my mind because I recommended it yesterday while talking with a single mother. She clearly loved her kids but was at her wit's end with them not listening, not helping out at home and constantly arguing with her and each other. She said she had "tried everything" (which she later acknowledged she hadn't once she saw how she eventually gave in because the disciplinary tactics she used "weren't working"). This book immediately came to mind as one that is easy to read and will give her guidance on setting boundaries, sticking with them, being consistent and doing "what it takes" to get her family back on track.

This book offers an assessment for parents to identify their parenting style and their child's personality style and provides strategies to best adapt their parenting accordingly. Make sure to measure each of your children separately - amazing how kids in the same family can be so different!

This book is especially recommended for those who are (or quickly heading toward) parenting teens. Even if you feel like you've lost control of your teenage kids, this book's message that it's never too late to turn things around is reassuring and empowering. Some parents might need additional professional help but this book provides a solid start for all.

Mollie Marti, Ph.D., J.D.
Author, Selling: Powerful New Strategies for Sales Success