James Windell, M.A., has specialized in work with children and families for more than 40 years. He is currently an author, college instructor, and parenting consultant.

Previously he was a court clinical psychologist with the Oakland County (Michigan) Circuit Court’s Psychological Clinic for more than 20 years where he conducted group therapy with delinquent adolescents and co-led the high-conflict post-divorce group ADEPT. Prior to that he was a probation officer and social worker in a delinquency prevention program.

In past years as a psychotherapist, he specialized in work with disruptive and oppositional children and teens. He has taught parent training classes over the past 30 years, and a discipline skills training class he developed for parents of delinquents was awarded the Outstanding Education Program by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.

For more than 30 years Mr. Windell wrote the weekly newspaper column “Coping With Kids” for The Oakland Press and the Staten Island (NY) Advance. He has been a guest writer of the “Coping With Kids” column in Working Mother Magazine. In addition, he publishes journal articles on juvenile and criminal justice, and has written several booklets on such topics as children’s self-esteem, discipline, and hyperactivity.

His first book, Discipline: A Sourcebook of 50 Failsafe Techniques for Parents, was published by Macmillan in 1991. He subsequently published 8 Weeks to a Well-Behaved Child (Macmillan/Hungry Minds, Inc., 1994), Children Who Say No When You Want Them to Say Yes (Macmillan/Hungry Minds, Inc., 1996), 6 Steps to an Emotionally Intelligent Teenager (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1999) and co-authored What You Need to Know About Ritalin (Bantam, 1999) and Conquering Postpartum Depression: a Proven Plan for Recovery (Perseus, 2003). He’s also written or co-authored Talking to Teenagers about Sex (originally written for Mightywords.com) and companion workbooks to 8 Weeks to a Well-Behaved Child: A Parent’s Workbook and the Instructors Manual for Teaching 8 Weeks to a Well-Behaved Child.

He co-authored The Fatherstyle Advantage (May, 2006: Stewart, Tabori & Chang) and Defusing the High-Conflict Divorce (November, 2006: Impact Publishers). A new edition of his Student’s Guide to Writing a Criminal Justice Research Paper (Kendall-Hunt) was published in the spring, 2010, and he is the co-author of Take Control of Your Divorce: Strategies to Stop Fighting and Start Co-Parenting, which was released in January, 2011 by Impact Publishers. Some of his recently published books include The Everything Child Psychology and Development Book (Adams Media, 2012), Dissertation Solutions (Rowman & Littlefield, 2012), and The American Criminal Justice System (Cognella, 2013).

Mr. Windell earned his Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology at Oakland University (Rochester, MI). He has been a consultant to various juvenile court programs, the State of Michigan, the Michigan Department of Social Services, and to daycare and preschool programs. He has run parenting classes at the Haven, a domestic violence shelter for women and children in Pontiac, MI. He currently teaches in the Criminal Justice Departments at both Wayne State University and Oakland University. He is the editor of the Michigan Psychologist, the newsletter for the Michigan Psychological Association.

Since 1991, Mr. Windell has appeared on nearly 200 radio and television programs including CNN, The Company Show, Gerry Spence, and The Donahue Show. Reviews and articles about his books and his work with parents have appeared in The New York Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, The Detroit News, Working Mother Magazine, Child Magazine, Parent Magazine, Parents Digest, and many other publications.

He lives in Royal Oak, Michigan with his wife Jane, a speech and language pathologist and early childhood interventionist. Their adult children make them very proud.