How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen by Joana Faber & Julie King

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

 by Joana Faber & Julie King

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.

Published: 2017
Read: May 2021

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.