If you’re a parent, you are probably familiar with being provoked into a blood vessel-popping rage that instantly overwhelms any resolution you might have made to stay calm. That’s because kids are amazingly good at refining behaviors that they can turn to when they’re upset or angry, especially in public, to make their parents even angrier—in fact, insanely angry. Let’s just stand back for a moment and appreciate the virtuosity of the 6-year-old who trails along behind you every morning on the way to school wailing that you’re mean because you make him wear an uncomfortable backpack or wrinkly socks, or the 9-year-old who demonstrates her budding independence and wit by being rude to you in front of others.

The best sellers would have you believe that timeout is a time for your child to think about what he did wrong. But Kazdin says that timeout is simply a period of time in which access to reinforcement is brief. One minute  is plenty, he says. Even five minutes is fine. It was never designed to be an exile to Siberia.

Forget everything you've ever heard about how to deal with kids' bad behavior. According to this leading child psychologist, you don't have to get tough to discipline your kid properly.

For those times when your kid goes from zero to possessed in 60 seconds—and you feel like you're yelling at 160 decibels—a top psychologist offers some soothing (and surprising) advice. 

Alan Kazdin, Ph.D. outlines strategies gleaned from his work with thousands of patients—and offers hope to beleaguered  parents everywhere. Here, he helps Cookie staffers with their own disciplining dilemmas. Find  out more specific information on the Kazdin Method.

In this day of two­ earner couples and single parents, when 9­ year­ olds have cellphones, 12 ­year­ olds are binge drinking and having oral sex, and there is evidence that teens are more fearful and  depressed than ever, the challenges of rearing competent and loving human beings are  enough to make a parent seek help from Super nanny.

Deciding how to discipline a child can be one of the hardest parts of being a parent. Even parents of generally well-behaved children can find themselves at a loss when trying to discipline a defiant toddler or a surly teenager. In this episode, psychologist Alan Kazdin, PhD, discusses corporal punishment and the most effective techniques for getting the behavior parents want.

Parents grappling with how to change the behavior of a defiant tantrum-prone child often turn in frustration to books for help, with mixed results.

Alan Kazdin knows where I’ve gone wrong. He knows that I nag, and threaten, and then try to reason with my child, explaining why what she’s doing is a bad idea. And he knows that none of those time-honored parenting techniques work worth a darn.

What parent hasn’t had to deal with an unruly child? Throwing a tantrum in the supermarket. Refusing to go to...