"Going head-to-head with your child can be more stacked than playing blackjack at Vegas. Your child will ask for some extra reading at bedtime and, before you know it, she'll be whacking you upside the head with a bait-and-switch that you can't refuse. 'Well, if I can't stay up late to have more dessert and play another round of Sorry, then I guess you owe me a back rub and two books before the lights go out.' Where's F. Lee Bailey when you need him?" so writes Harvard Medical School psychologist Richard Bromfield in his new book HOW TO UNSPOIL YOUR CHILD FAST.

"Today's parents," he adds, "tend to be less comfortable with their authority. Instead of telling their child what to do, they ask. Demands become questions, questions turn into special elections."

According to a recent poll by Cookie Magazine and AOL Money, 94 percent of American parents judge that their children are spoiled. Overindulging, overprotecting, and hovering parenting has become both a norm and a worrisome problem for many families -- and maybe, for society as a whole.

What can we do? Twenty-six years of working with families has convinced Bromfield that parents see the problem and mostly know what needs to be done. Delivering the parenting goods, however, is far easier said than done. Parenting, he insists, has never been harder.

HOW TO UNSPOIL YOUR CHILD FAST (Basil Books) offers parents an easy to read, engaging, pragmatic, wise, and sometimes funny guide to restoring authority and balance to their home -- quickly. Called "witty and empathic" by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Rochelle Sharpe, "lively, engaging, helpful" by Cookie Magazine, and a "snappy read" highly recommended by Newsday, this book can unspoil a spoiled child and spoiling family in a matter of weeks, if parents are motivated.

Profits are being shared with the Children's Defense Fund.

Richard Bromfield, PhD, is a psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and author of many well-received books on children, families, therapy, and parenting (Random House, WWNorton, Penguin, and Wiley).

Contact: Richard Bromfield, PhD