Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Invaluable resource!!
During my first pregnancy, my husband would have loved for me to write HIM a book about childrearing so that he'd know what to do! He's never worked with kids, doesn't know much about early childhood development, and pretty much wanted me to set the tone for how we would raise and discipline ours. I didn't think I'd find a book that hit the nail on the head as perfectly as this one, but lo and behold! This book is flawless! It's a light read, but PACKED with truly useful content. There were several "AHA!" moments in reading it... I would say to myself, "Of COURSE! That's exactly how I felt as a kid!" [helpless, insulted, powerless, resigned, apathetic]. I could look back and admit how much better I would have behaved if I had felt respected, acknowledged, and empowered to help resolve a situation. The exercises and examples do an excellent job of putting up a mirror to the reader's face. They challenge the parent to experience their own words from the child's perspective. It's difficult to back away from the controlling habit; it's tough for parents to let go of the "I'm the parent, and I'm in charge here" card. But when the book asks point-blank, "How would you feel if someone responded to you in this way...? How about if they responded like this instead...?", there is just no room for argument! It suddenly 'clicks' to the reader just how fruitless these power-struggles really are. And the book replaces these old habits with better tools - ones that will really get results. I love that the authors stress putting yourself in the child's shoes. Too few "experts" willingly concede that kids are human beings deserving of (and craving) the same respect we want for ourselves. I also love that the case studies show that kids whose feelings are respected are more likely to learn to respect others' feelings. That is such a simple truth, and so many child-rearing books overlook it.
Rating: - An Essential Text Which Belongs on EVERY Parent's Shelf
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
Rating:  - Good book, but not as thorough as should be
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.
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