Years ago, James and his wife Lillie were happily raising four beautiful children who excelled in sports, school, scouts, etc.

Then, tragically, some older kids at church introduced their youngest son to drugs. As they waded through a hellish nightmare of police, jail, drug programs, counselors, and psychologists they wondered where they had gone wrong. Through hundreds of hours of individual, family and group counseling, James and Lillie found that they knew very little about raising a family, and realized that a good parenting didn't just happen; that parenting is a science based upon correct principles.

James went back to school and earned a Masters degree in Marriage, Family and Child Therapy, and a Doctorate in Counseling Psychology. Over the years he has given thousands of hours of individual and family counseling.

With this experience, combined with the knowledge and exstensive data from studies, he was able to produce incredibly powerful parenting progrems as such Family Basics, the Kudos! for Kids system as well as other great books, and audio and video programs.