Good book, with a lot of really good info on communicating with children (and honestly just communication in general).

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 information in the real world, with real examples. It tries to make it much more applicable and memorable.

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. ( )

In this book, Joanna Faber and Julia King discuss tools for getting little kids to listen. Part one discusses the core tools. Each chapter describes the tools along with illustrative stories. Each chapter ends with a useful summary of the tools and the key tips. Part two applies these core rules to many common parenting scenarios. Each chapter contains more stories and highlights how to apply the rules in that situation. It is definitely worth reading part one in full. Part two can be read in full but may be more effective read "à la carte", focusing on the problems that are relevant to you. The book phrases advice in terms of parents and children, but these tips are valuable for any interaction between adults and children.

One of the things I liked about this book is that many of the stories involved siblings. There are a lot of parenting books that focus on the parent/child interaction without acknowledging that when multiple children are involved, there's a whole nother layer of complexity going on. The authors also acknowledge that parents have feelings too and provide tools for helping parents respond in the least harmful way possible when they are the ones feeling overwhelmed.

Before we go into a bit more detail, let's start with the basics: if children are hungry, sleep depreprived, need recovery time, feel overwhelmed, or aren't developmentally ready for what you're asking of them, the tools in this book won't work. Take care of the basics before expecting children to be flexible.

At the core of Faber and King's methodology is treating children with respect. We need to help children handle their emotions, not dismiss them. Acknowledging children's emotions helps children to learn how to handle them on their own. Also, it's what they want as people. No one likes to have their feelings dismissed or minimized.

Only after children have calmed down can we focus on getting them to cooperate. The commonality among the tools the authors describe is that we can give children agency within bounds. We can give them choices between acceptable options, make it a game, put them in charge of part of what needs to be done, and more. Giving children agency goes a long way. When it doesn't work, we need to take action without insult. We do what we need to do — strap them in the car seat, leave for work, etc., — but without lecturing or berating them.

Faber and King believe that punishment is not effective and should be avoided. Instead of punishment, we want to focus on the ultimate goal: we want to teach children to handle their emotions appropriately and to solve problems in acceptable ways. Often, it can be enough to express our feelings strongly (with "I" statements), acknowledge their feelings, and help the child understand what are acceptable things they can do. When that's not enough — if the child is causing damage or harming themselves or others — we can take action without insult. Once everyone is calm, we can try problem solving to resolve the cause of the issue and help children resolve problems more effectively in the future.

Problem solving is a key technique, so is worth describing in more length. To problem solve: (1) Acknowledge the child's feelings. (2) Describe the problem. (3) Ask for ideas. Write all of them down, even the ones that are infeasible. (4) Decide which ideas everyone likes. (5) Try out your solutions. (From experience, i've learned that the infeasible ideas can be the best. "Let's put it on the ceiling!" can turn tears to giggles.)

A chapter on praise reminds us that praise given badly can be harmful. It can lock children into a fixed mindset. Instead of empty praise — "That's so neat!" — we can show our children we are really paying attention. We can describe what we see, the positive effect the child is having on others, their progress. We can turn this into a conversation. One thing we should always avoid is praise by comparison; we don't want praise to become a competition.

Before going into the detailed looks at food, morning routines, sibling rivalry, shopping, lies, and more, the authors take a look at how to modify these tools for differently wired children. These children often have different needs and a different perspective on their world than neurotypical children. They have a different perspective on the world, and parents will need to do more to try to get into the mindset of the child's perspective.

While at times this book felt repetitive and belabored (mostly in part two, hence the à la carte suggestion), overall it contains solid advice in a well organized, easy to read format. The use of stories helps to ground the tools in the nuance of real scenarios. Overall, I would recommend this book for parents of young children. ( )

Our eldest son (two years and eleven months old as of the time I am writing this, some months before it will be posted) has been having some issues with causing physical harm-- biting other kids at daycare, along with kicking and scratching and sometimes throwing. He also does it to us, and to his little brother. I picked this book up from the library because it seems to be well regarded and I think broadly fits with our parenting philosophy.

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.

This book is incredibly helpful. ( )