Customer Reviews

How To Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I have just finished reading the book. The examples are very down-to-earth and the best thing is that there are summary pages at the end of each section for a quick lookup. I plan to copy these pages and stick them on the refrigerator and keep another copy with me to refer when in need.
I hope to change my habits by applying most of these principles not only with my child but also with everybody that I know. This is a very good book on human relations.

I've purchased several audio books on parenting to use while I'm commuting to work. This book has many great concepts wrapped up into one, short, easy-listening audio book. So if you're short on time and money, pick this book. It's worth it!

I thought this book might be about how to use praise and language to avoid facing discipline issues with children but it is not like that at all. It teaches parents to be authorative and send the right messages without micro managing their children. The suggested changes are fairly straight forward and common sense, but may require some practice. Fortunately thare are many well illustrated examples and practical exercises to reinforce these ideas. This book stictly sticks to the topic of comunication and establishing cooperation which makes it an excellent supplement to any parents existing parenting style. Teaches mutual respect without surrendering parental authourity. A very good read.

Faber has developed a system of communication that applies to all interpersonal relationships -- not just parent to child. I recommend the book, but if you're pressed for time or absorb audio better than reading, get this tape!

The many situations quoted are those that you experience every day in a home (especially mine with 3 kids). The book presents new and effective approaches to parenting. Will also help teachers. I read the entire book in one day and will be reading off and on to remind me of the tactics used. I wish I read this book earlier, when my kids were younger......I could have avoided all those stressful times.

The book was easy to read and I loved the real world examples. I read the whole thing in 2 days... wasn't a chore but I still learned a whole lot!

I just read this book and -- though it it's right on the money in its attitude towards childrearing -- it doesn't describe the mechanics of how the "listening" and "talking" skills work as well as Thomas Gordon's Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T.).

P.E.T. has a chapter called How to Listen so Children Will Talk and another called How to Talk so Children Will Listen. I wonder how the autors of this book got away with borrowing the title for their book straight out of some chapters in another (the original P.E.T. was published years before -- the one at stores now is a new edition).

Lest it sound like I'm slamming this book, truth is it's not a bad read at all. But for an in-depth explanation of how these skills can be put to daily use, I'd go for P.E.T. Better yet, read both.

Even better yet, first read Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman to get an idea WHY these skills are so important to a child's development, then follow it up with P.E.T. and this book.

If I could entice every new parent to read just one book, this would be it. Thousands of children's lives have been improved, and in some cases transformed, as a direct result of their parents reading this book and practicing its kid-tested, nonpunitive approaches to discipline. The authors have little time for abstract theorizing, concerning themselves with down to earth practical issues of parenting, using sensitivity, empathy, communication skills, and humor. This book is crammed with invaluable suggestions, techniques and ideas for parents committed to raising great kids without resorting to discredited, harmful, pain-and-fear-based methods of the past.

This book is in its twentieth edition for a reason: these methods WORK. I personally know a mother who formerly used the harsh, punitive methods of James Dobson, only to find that her problems with her daughter became worse and worse over time rather than better. After she read "How To Talk So Kids Will Listen And Listen So Kids Will Talk" and put its suggestions into practice, she literally threw Dobson's volume into the trash. And after a year and a half, she told me her relationship with her daughter had improved so much that she'd previously had no idea that it COULD be that good. The fact that the problems she'd been having had vanished now seemed almost an afterthough compared to the deepening of their parent-child bond. Their communication had improved profoundly, opening up previously unguessed levels of richness in their relationship. "She is such a terrific kid," my friend once told me, and with genuine incredulity added, "I can't believe I actually used to HIT her!!"

Another acquaintance of mine, who is raising two great kids using nonpunitive methods of the sort Faber and Mazlish recommend, summarized her entire philosophy in just one sentence: "I don't want obedient children, I want COOPERATIVE children!" I think the great majority of parents, if they thought about it, would realize that this is what they too would prefer. Faber and Mazlish show the way.

This book appears at first glance to be a collection of nonpunitive discipline techniques, but it is actually much more: a whole new way of thinking about the parent-child relationship which transcends the permissiveness vs strictness continuum with an approach to parenting based on neither punishments nor rewards. Authoritarian methods use coercion to make the child lose and the parent win, while total permissiveness makes the parent lose and the child win. Faber and Mazlish's methods, on the other hand, show the way towards families in which everybody wins.

Christopher Dugan

http://www.geocities.com/cddugan/homepage.html

I have read a lot of different parenting books but if you only had time to read one this would be it! It is very easy to read and has lots of specific examples on how to change the way you talk and think during certain situations. The moment we started using these particular techniques we saw an enormous difference in our relationship with our child. She responds so well because we are respectful of her as a person and of the feelings that she has.

It's amazing after you take a good look at how we've been taught to see children that it really is such a poor way of treating them. Our motto is if *you* don't want to be treated that way then your children certainly don't.

Read it, you won't regret it.

Having studied psychology and counselled many parents over the years, one of the concerns most often addressed is "How do I communicate with my children so that they listen?" You communicate with children in the same respectful, understanding manner you would communicate with anyone else. Many parents do not allow their children to express their true emotions, or when children do express their feelings, the parent(s)contradicts those feelings. If the child says, "I'm scared, " and the parent says," "Don't be so silly," that sends a message to the child that their feelings are foolish and trivial. Take the time to find out what it is that makes that child feel scared, re-inforce that it is alright to feel that way, and find out what you can do to make that child feel more secure so he or she will not be scared. What may sound foolish to you as a parent, may in fact be a very real concern to the child." Is it any wonder that by the time children reach their teens, we lose communication. It is not sufficient just to listen to a child, it is equally important to understand their feelings from THEIR perspective.

This book is an excellent tool in improving communication skills with your children, regardless of age. I will highly recommend it to any parent who asks for advice on how to bridge the "communication gap" with their children. Like anything else in life, miracles do not happen overnight. A positive result is only achieved if you have sufficient self-discipline to implement what you read and the commitment to follow through.