How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen: A Survival Guide to Life with Children Ages 2-7

Ok, so I’ve been wanting to write a review for this book since I received it – when it first came out – but I can’t find it in my house. I think that my child took it and is reading it so that he can learn all our tricks. Haha. My child doesn’t actually read yet but I am lucky I did before it went missing because it has done no less than change my relationship with him.How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen is full of great, doable advice that is general enough for any situation, but with specific examples so that you know exactly what the authors are trying to explain. The real-life examples could easily have come from my family. For example, the child who wants something that fell into a crack in his car seat and it is inaccessible to him and to me, the driver. Joanna and Julie give great advice on how to respond to difficult situations with little kids that could easily cause a major meltdown.For example, when the thing falls into the crack in the car seat and I can’t reach it, in the past my child would start yelling and screaming and then move into a full-on tantrum. I always felt that I had two choices:1: I could pull over and stop, get out of the car, open the door where his car seat is, and retrieve the thing. That would stop the tantrum before it starts, but it would teach him that he is welcome to have his way whenever he threatens me with a tantrum.Or, 2: I could not get the thing, tell him to live with it for the 10 minutes (or whatever) until we get to where we are going. That response would surely invite crying escalating, into a full-on, inconsolable tantrum as the ride went on. I would have to listen to the screaming for the whole ride and then deal with it when we got to where we are going.Julie and Joanna suggest a great third response: agree with my child that the thing is really important. Tell him that I wish I could reach the car seat to retrieve it. Then really get dramatic with it: talk about having a button on the dashboard that I could just push and a hundred of those things would magically appear! And then ask what we could do with a hundred of those things, until my child is so caught up in the fantasy that he has forgotten how much he wants the thing and we get to where we are going safe, sound, and happy. I’ve actually had to do this a number of times since reading the book. My child’s response still amazes me every time!It sounds like magic, but it’s not. It is a way of listening to your child and validating his/her experience. How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen gives lots of ideas, stories and examples of how to do this in any number of difficult situations. I do want to be clear, this isn’t magic, and sometimes even the best skills don’t produce sunny results. But more often than not, as a result of the skills I was able to pick up from this book, I can at least head off tantrums and other bad behavior before it starts, even if my child isn’t all smiles.

The absolute best book you can get on parenting. Or dealing with people in general.

I wish I could give this book 10 stars out of 5! At age 53, I've had my 2.5 yo and 5 yo nephew and niece sort of paradrop into my life as an auntie, a pseudo-parental figure who's having to work to catch up quickly on figuring it all out. This book is GOLD. I bought in hard copy rather than Kindle, and took a highlighter to it like it's a college textbook, also making notes in the margins. I'm passing it around my household and others in our "village" of raising kids together. The best thing I got from it is the reminder that children will develop their problem solving skills, and conflict resolution methods from the actions of adults while they're young. The tools in this book not only get us through the moments that are challenging for parental figures right now -- but they're going to teach the kids how to resolve these situations on their own later. GOLD, I tell you! We've had such immediate success with, "Let's make a list of 3 things we like/dislike about [whatever the desired but unavailable subject is]" -- "Let's draw a picture of [the desired thing or person that's unavailable right now]" -- and progressively more success with just acknowledging and labeling feelings. I really enjoy how the book encourages "acknowledging" and "accepting" feelings rather than "validating," which I think is an important and refined difference. I can't thank the authors enthusiastically enough, or recommend this book to interested readers with enough confidence.

This book gives a lot of examples scenarios of what dialogue to use with your kids. My older child is not even three yet so some are not as useful yet, but others seem so unrealistic that I feel it would never work. Overall, I'm glad I got it to read, but ultimately, parenting is all about experimenting and figuring out what works for your family personally.

This book has changed my relationship with my children and my partner. I learned to lead with empathy, disrupt tantrums before they happened, and relax into my role as a parent. My relationship with my kids is suddenly playful and loving where before it was tense and frustrating. My partner is on board too (though he didn't read the book himself) and it's so much fun to watch him connect so seemingly effortlessly with our kids, and them adoring him. And the best part -- the kids have learned some phrases and tactics from us, and are being nicer to each other!