I’m going to be real with you. I did not read the book How to Talk so Little Kids will Listen. Audiobooks are sometimes easier when you have kids. I engaged in one of my book club cheats and listened to the audiobook. If you’re a busy and overwhelmed parent like me, this audiobook is a big help with trying to communicate with my toddler/preschooler. It was so great that I shared it with my spouse, who also incorporated some of the book’s lessons on how to talk to our little kid so he would sometimes listen. It’s a help, not a miracle worker.
It’s All About The Feels
The main take away I got from How to Talk so Little Kids will Listen was that our son’s feelings must be acknowledged. Acknowledgement isn’t the same as giving into his wants. I also liked that the authors Joanna Faber and Julie King acknowledged that parents have feelings too!
Tools for Parents
How to Talk so Little Kids will Listen provides several tools woven into stories of frustrated parents, like us, trying to get our little people to listen. A few of the highlights are: tools for handling emotions, engaging cooperation, resolving conflict, and showing praise and appreciation. There are also tools for kids who are differently wired (Faber & King, 2017).
The authors provide another tool: language we could use when talking to our son. One example was to be playful with morning dressing routines, where the parent gives the shirt or shoes a character voice. My husband enjoys making funny voices for the socks and then in his own voice telling the socks that they really need to get on Junior’s feet. Or instead of telling my son that he needs to hold my hand because I’m afraid he’ll get hurt by the cars, I should say, “The problem is, I worry about cars hitting children in the parking lot.”
The Audiobook Experience
After I listened to the book I was able to share the book with my husband when I was done. We are able to share Audible audio-books through Amazon Household. As he went through the book, we talked about the lessons learned.
Sometimes the thing that makes the audio-book easier is a bug and not a feature. With a lot of the paperback baby books we bought, we could refer back to them by flipping a few pages. I can’t do that with an audio-book. Thankfully, this came with a downloadable PDF.
The How to Talk so Little Kids will Listen PDF summarized a lot of the main points and ideas. It was helpful to have something to print out and look over with my spouse. Months after our initial listen, we can refer back to the print out.
Does our preschooler listen to us? Sometimes. It comes and it goes. I think one of the lessons from the book was understanding that just because a kid is able to do something one day, s/he might totally forget how to do that thing the next day. But eventually, we see and hear evidence that what we say, has gotten through and sticks.
