Whether you're raising foster, adopted or birth children, this parenting approach will give you the tools and the techniques to help change a child's undesirable behavior. The practical handbook describes in detail what you need to know; the DVD offers the opportunity to practice what you've learned.

This curriculum helps foster, adoptive, step, kinship or birth parents:

• Discover how disruptive behavior can be changed, whatever a child's age.
• Recognize 'acting out' and 'hidden' behaviors and know how to respond to both.
• Understand the nature of positive, effective discipline and how to apply it using encouragement, behavior contracts, time out, setting limits and removing privileges.
• Practice using these tools by working with a DVD portraying realistic family situations.
• Know when to call for help and where to get help.
• Experience cooperation in the home -- and enjoy being parents..

The situations presented in Off Road Parenting are as close as you can get to real-life parenting situations. After viewing the real-life family stories on DVD, you can direct those stories yourself and evaluate what happens --a valuable tool offering the benefit of  advance experience. In addition, stories relating to specific age groups may be selected for review.

Do you know the difference between "acting out" behavior and "hidden" behavior? If you don't, this course will enlighten you. Do you send the right messages with your current methods of discipline? This course will explain differences in discipline and show you why discipline, done effectively in a positive home atmosphere, really works. Our program stresses that disruptive behavior, be it acted out or hidden, can be changed -- whatever a child's age.

Cartoons from the "Stone Soup" group -- a highly "off-road" family -- were chosen to be part of the Off Road Parenting book as they express with laughter the surprises, angst, anger and love that are part of real families everywhere.

Parenting can be like driving off-road in that parents often find themselves faced with unexpected, often alarming situations. Take heart. This unique book and DVD combo enlightens and reassures that parents, like off-road drivers, can call upon experience, tools and technique and get back on track.

Book:128 pages, DVD Running Time: Approximately 45 minutes. The time is determined by the path chosen as a parent works their way through the menus.

Public Performance Rights are required if using the book and DVD in a classroom or group-training session. The cost is $99.00. Please call (800) 777-6636 for more information

View Northwest Media's research study on Off Road Parenting.

Off Road Parenting is a unique book and DVD combo that helps parents understand how to work with behavior management tools. It teaches the skills necessary to solve various types of behavior problems that exist within foster, adoptive, birth and blended families.

The family situations portrayed on the DVD are extremely realistic; the handbook is well organized and easy to read. The handbook and the DVD work in sync, demonstrating how parents can foster a child's understanding and cooperation through encouragement, behavior contracts, time out, removing privileges and other essential behavior management tools. Working with the DVD, viewers can choose how they'd handle different scenarios and observe the results of their choices. In addition - keeping in mind that difficult behavior can be changed at any age - stories about specific age groups may be selected for review.

Bottom line, this a program that helps parents master the techniques that make children's lives more productive - and parenting more enjoyable.

A minor drawback: the title, Off Road Parenting. It just wasn't clear until I remembered my own vile "off-road" experience. The ride was bumpy (what road?) and terrifying (sheer drops on both sides of the alleged road), but our good driver got us home and we lived to tell the tale. Surely parenting must often feel like driving off road: unpredictable, uncomfortable and seemingly endless with no solutions in sight. But - like off-road drivers, parents can call upon experience, tools and technique to get back on track.

Cartoons from the "Stone Soup" group (definitely an "off-road" family) express with humor the surprises, angst, anger and love that are part of real families everywhere. These comic strip goings-on will bring a smile, inspire some laughter and remind parents that they're not alone.

Off Road Parenting is an effective, entertaining and extremely well thought out presentation, well worth the money and the time. Hundreds of our customers think so.

• -Caesar Pacifici Ph.D.