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The Wrong Target: Why Your Parenting Approach Is Not Working-and How to Find the Right Place to Act
Paperback
Series: Parenting That Fits
Child PsychologyGeneral Parenting
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Aug 26 2026
Pages: 190
Weight: 0.58
Height: 0.40 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
You've explained. Reminded. Helped. Set consequences. Tried harder.
And the same problem keeps coming back.
What if the problem is real-but the place you are trying to change is wrong?
The Wrong Target is a practical parenting decision tool for the moments when familiar responses stop working. It does not ask you to uncover one hidden cause or apply another universal technique. It shows you how to identify the smallest place where change is most likely to matter-and test that judgment without turning family life into a permanent investigation.
Drawing on more than thirty years of study of developmental psychology and human adaptation, Julian Omes translates complex systems thinking into a clear four-step method that helps parents:
- separate visible behavior from what may actually need to change;
- keep several plausible explanations open without overanalyzing;
- choose one bounded target and one action that reaches it;
- run a small test and let the result correct the next decision;
- recognize when the useful target is a skill, a transition, an environment, a relationship, a boundary-or a deliberate choice.
This is not a book about parenting harder. It is about aiming better.
For parents of children and teenagers who keep thinking: I am already doing more. Why is nothing changing?
Before you change your child, make sure you are working on the right thing.
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