Status
Call number
Collection
Publication
Description
Family & Relationships. Nonfiction. Self Help. HTML:More than 300,000 copies in print! A must-have guide for anyone who lives or works with young kids, with an introduction by Adele Faber, coauthor of How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, the international mega-bestseller The Boston Globe dubbed "The Parenting Bible." For nearly forty years, parents have turned to How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk for its respectful and effective solutions to the unending challenges of raising children. Now, in response to growing demand, Adele's daughter, Joanna Faber, along with Julie King, tailor How to Talk's powerful communication skills to parents of children ages two to seven. Faber and King, each a parenting expert in her own right, share their wisdom accumulated over years of conducting How To Talk workshops with parents, teachers, and pediatricians. With a lively combination of storytelling, cartoons, and observations from their workshops, they provide concrete tools and tips that will transform your relationship with the children in your life. What do you do with a little kid who...won't brush her teeth...screams in his car seat...pinches the baby...refuses to eat vegetables...throws books in the library...runs rampant in the supermarket? Organized by common challenges and conflicts, this book is an essential manual of communication strategies, including a chapter that addresses the special needs of children with sensory processing and autism spectrum disorders. This user-friendly guide will empower parents and caregivers of young children to forge rewarding, joyful relationships with terrible two-year-olds, truculent three-year-olds, ferocious four-year-olds, foolhardy five-year-olds, self-centered six-year-olds, and the occasional semi-civilized seven-year-old. And, it will help little kids grow into self-reliant big kids who are cooperative and connected to their parents, teachers, siblings, and peers.… (more)
User reviews
How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen gives you lots of simple techniques for communicating with your little kid, whether you’re trying to get them to do something, get them not to do something, or just get along. It is full of real world examples that the authors have culled from the classes they’ve done throughout the years, which I found really helpful. It turns out, your kid probably isn’t unique — there are plenty of others out there doing the same things they are doing. One thing I especially liked is that they summarize each chapter into bullet points at the end. Something you could easily print out and tape to your fridge for reference.
So if you too are living with a tiny terrorist, give this book a shot! All you parents out there are doing a good job.
Also, age four is SO MUCH BETTER.
1) Acknowledge feelings
2) Adjust expectations
3)
4) Put the child in charge
5) Try problem solving
6) Offer a choice
7) Give information
It's a well written book. There's a general overview of their approach in the first part, which alternates their principles with examples of them in action from either the authors' own experience or from parents in workshops they ran. The book is engagingly written and never dry. The second part then focuses on specific areas, so you can just read the ones that are relevant to your own experience.
The general principle of the book is that you work with kids by acknowledging their feelings. So if your kid is angry that they can't have a cookie, don't minimize that or try to explain why they can't, just agree with them. "Ugh, that's so frustrating!" You also express your feelings strongly, but in ways that are directed at the deed, not the doer: "I don't like to see little kids getting pushed!" not "Don't push your brother!" They also have this idea of problem solving, where you work with the kid to figure out a solution at a point where they are calm, so you can head off the behavior in the future.
Like all advice books, the proof is in the pudding. Does following the advice accomplish what it is supposed to? I am writing this about a month in, and my answer thus far is "I am not sure." Acknowledging feelings on its own doesn't seem to work much on Son One. I'll say, "You're feeling very frustrated right now!" and he'll reply, "Don't say that!" Part of this might be on me: I don't think I am good at matching emotion with my voice, and my voice often carries a "but" in its tone even if I don't say one aloud. So I am working on it. One way they suggest of acknowledging is giving the child what they want in fantasy. I don't think Son One quite gets this yet, so when we go, "What if you got to eat all the cookies?" he thinks it is going to happen! But one tool they suggest for fantasy is drawing, and this has been effective: you draw cookies on a piece of paper with him, and that often defuses things.
They are anti-time-out. I am not sure their alternatives are working on him... but it didn't seem to me that time-outs were working either, so I guess we are no worse off.
One thing that feels like a contradiction to me is that they talk about 1) acknowledging feelings, and 2) being consistent with that by expressing your own desires in terms of feelings. So if you say, "I get angry when I see little kids get hurt," your kid knows what that means because of how you've talked to them about them being angry. The problem I see here is that your kid never gets what they want when they are angry... but ideally you the parent do. Why should their frustrations go unfulfilled but not yours?
Some of it is tricky to put into practice, and will take time. Eliminating "you" from your vocabulary is quite hard, especially in the heat of the moment. My inclination is to say, "You don't sit on the cat!" not "I don't like to see cats get sit on!" So the jury is still out on the effectiveness of this book. Part of it will depend on me and my wife (can we actually do what is suggests consistently), and part of it will depend on the kid (will he actually respond to it). Right now he is out of daycare for the summer, but I really hope we aren't dealing with biting in the fall when he goes back.
The original book was written decades ago, and presents all the topics and information to the reader, to incredible success. This book, is actually a follow up, and uses all the
I was looking for the original and accidentally grabbed this one instead, and I can't say I'm disappointed. The applications and examples made the info easy to digest, but I have no idea how it compares to the original. There were a few chapters where they overdid it with the examples, and it got a little repetitive.