Book Club: How to Talk so Little Kids will Listen

How to Talk so Little Kids will Listen, by Joanna Faber & Julie King

Alternate option: How to Talk so Kids will Listen and Listen so Kids will Talk, by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish

WOW. Another amazing book. I FILLED this book with little sticky-note markers so I could remember all the important points, and truly, I put so many of them that it looks like I just need to re-read the book! This is definitely a book I’ll be turning back to over and over again for the helpful insights and specific examples (in other words, if you didn’t read the book already, don’t just get it from the library — buy it, because you’ll want to reference it again!), but for now, here are my top 3 takeaways!

Emotions come FIRST

“Children need us to validate their feelings so they become grown-ups who know who they are and what they feel.”

The first chapter is all about allowing emotions, and it blew. my. mind! Of course I’ve heard this before, but what made it really powerful to me was to see side-by-side comparisons of things we say to children and what it would look like if another adult said a similar thing to us. Every single example — all of which I’ve used repeatedly — showed just how awful it would be to be treated that way! I certainly don’t want my kids to turn into adults who just brush away the emotions of others, so I need to work on how I respond to their emotions now.

Do kids freak out about seemingly ridiculous things? Absolutely. Does that mean we shouldn’t care about the seemingly ridiculous things? NOPE. It matters to them, and they matter to us, so our love and care for them is what needs to be communicated first and foremost.

The authors give five tools for doing so, including acknowledging the emotion with words, writing, art, (almost) silent attention, along with giving in fantasy what we cannot give in reality. With each tool, they give several examples of how to use the tool.

Although this is one of my main takeaways, I still don’t feel like I’ve figured out how to do it well, at all. Allowing emotion is something I’ve been working on for ages, but it never seems to help Ada the way it helps the kids in the examples! I try to name the emotion for her and really allow it, but it never seems to help the emotion dissipate more quickly, so maybe I’m doing it wrong!

There was one time recently when Ada was very angry, and she was screaming and starting to hit and kick. I stayed very calm and kept telling her that she must feel so angry. I told her “it’s okay to be angry, but it’s not okay to hit.” She continued to scream and hit and kick, so I ended up taking her to her room to keep me and Holly safe from her hits. While she was in there for a few minutes, I said to Russ how frustrating it is, because I feel like I was everything right (in this particular instance), and yet she was still acting like a crazy person! But when I did go back to Ada, all she wanted was snuggles, and she quickly apologized. While it’s true that my actions didn’t get rid of her tantrum, I felt much better about how I handled things. I felt like I allowed her emotions but still held safety boundaries, and I did it all with love rather than anger. And overall, it did feel like the episode lasted less time, perhaps only because it lasted less time for me. As in, I wasn’t angry for as long. I didn’t have to mirror her anger with my own — I could just allow it instead. What a concept.

Make the drudgery FUN

“If you can muster up a little playfulness, it actually takes less energy than having to deal with all the whining and resistance you get from a direct order.”

This is a principle I’ve heard many times from Ralphie, so it wasn’t new to me. But every time I hear about being playful or making things fun, I can’t help but feel like, “Really?! Why can’t kids just do what they need to do just because they need to do it?! That’s what’s expected of ME, so it should be the same for them!” So basically, I feel annoyed that I have to make things fun if I want to get good results, ha!

However, every. single. time. that I actually stick to it and try to make things more fun, I truly see such better results, for my kids AND for me!

For instance, the other day I walked with my girls to a park that is about a 20-minute walk from our house. The walk there is typically just fine because of the anticipation of the park, but the walk back home is almost always pure torture. Ada whines constantly about just wanting to be home, and the logical side of me wants to explain repeatedly that “the faster we walk, the sooner we’ll get home, and complaining about it along the way won’t make it come faster!”

On this day, the story was no different — easy there, rough on the way back. Ada began complaining of intense thirst from the second we started walking back, and of course we had no water with us. After a minute of allowing the emotion, I then tried to divert her attention.

I told her that I had no water, and I couldn’t make any magically appear, so then I asked her, “Wouldn’t it be great if we had magic? What kind of magic would you want?” (playing off a tool from the book: Give in fantasy what you cannot give in reality) and we took turns saying things like teleporting (so we could easily get home), a magic water dispenser connected to your hand (Ada’s idea!), along with other non-related magical powers like the power to instantly put dinner on the table every night, or snow and ice powers like Elsa.

Once the magic conversation had run its course and Ada remembered her intense thirst, we spent some time wishing for drinking fountains along our little trail. “That would just be so convenient, don’t you think?” Again I was trying to give in fantasy what I could not give in reality.

When, once again, Ada began complaining, I started grasping at straws for something else to distract her. I was honestly annoyed that I KEPT having to think of ideas to keep her mood and attitude better, because I had already done the work of coming up with one really great distraction/conversation starter! But I asked her if we should pretend we were pirates on our way to an island with buried treasure. We had just a bit further to sail, and then we’d get to the treasure chest — what did she think would be inside? Oh, necklaces, bracelets, and jewels? Awesome, what colors? and this conversation carried us the rest of the way home, and she was even so excited about the pretend play that she continued it when we got home. She loved it!

And even though I had to do the front-end of the work of coming up with ideas, it really was so much easier and enjoyable for me than it would have been to just repeatedly grumble and yell at her that we had no water and there’s just nothing I can do about it! I liked the whole situation better, and Ada definitely did, too.

I know I won’t be perfect at this, but hopefully I can start being a little more playful and fun instead of always hoping (and demanding) that my kids just do as I say.

Not only does it make sticky situations better in the moment, but as the book points out, “you’re also teaching kids how to turn a tedious task into a pleasant activity.” As an adult, I look for ways to make my chores more fun — watch a show while I fold laundry, listen to music or a podcast while I do dishes, see how quickly I can accomplish a certain task, etc. — because I don’t want to spend my whole life doing chores AND hating it — I want to enjoy my life! And I want my kids to enjoy their lives, too, so this is the start of teaching them how to make the best of unpleasant situations.

Praise with DESCRIPTION

“Praise that judges or evaluates can create problems. A more useful way to praise is to . . . simply describe what you see (or hear or notice with any of your five senses).”

Just like with the emotion chapter, the praise chapter showed side by side what some of the praise we give to our kids would sound like if given to an adult, and none of it feels like a real compliment. The wrong kind of praise can actually reinforce negative self-image or get kids to stop trying altogether.

Instead, the authors suggest simply describing what you see happening, rather than qualifying what you see. It’s so natural to want to label a behavior as good or bad, but many times, kids already know whether what they’re doing is good or bad behavior, so to actually be seen doing good behavior feels more powerful. We show them that we see them when we describe what exactly we see.

How often does your kid ask for your approval — of their drawing, of their dancing, of their block creation, of their essay — and you sort of say, “Oh yeah, nice work!” but you’re not really paying attention? I sometimes wonder how kids don’t seem to notice the boredom in our voices, AND YET — even if they don’t say something like, “Well thanks a lot, you just sound bored!” they somehow seem to know.

When we actually engage with what they’re showing us by describing what we see (“Look at these squiggly blue lines!” “You’re waving your arms so big!” “You connected all the pink blocks together!” “Your comparison of the main character to Romeo was really interesting to me!”), it’s almost like we’re saying, “I’m paying attention to you; you matter to me.” And isn’t that all kids really want? They don’t need to be the best and the brightest if they know they’re loved just as they are. But if we always praise them for being the best and the brightest, they may start to feel like they have to be the best and the brightest in order to be loved.

Labeling certain behaviors, rather than the person, may be okay. So instead of “You shared your barbie with your sister! You’re so kind!” you might say, “You shared your barbie with your sister! That’s such a kind choice.” The difference between these two statements is that one of them is true (that’s such a kind choice), and the other is only sometimes true (you’re so kind). When given sometimes-true compliments, it becomes very easy for kids to find evidence to support the opposite sentiment (Well, she didn’t see me 10 minutes ago when I ripped that toy out of my sister’s hand!), which works to reinforce negative self-image.

Before reading this section, I didn’t realize just how often I try to label behaviors, and how often I phrase it as a label of the person. Dialing it back to simple descriptions is certainly a new skill for me, but I’m already seeing how it changes Ada’s perception of the praise, even in just the last few days of doing this!


These are seriously just three pieces of the hundreds of pieces of wisdom from this book. They’re the first three things that came to my mind, but as I reviewed my sticky notes a bit, I wanted to add about 7 more important points! Basically, like I said, I’ll be referring to this book often so I can be reminded of all the tools I can use to foster better communication with my kids.

What did you take away from this book?

Join in on next month’s book club pick!