PDF Summary:How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk helps parents build mutually respectful relationships with their children. Written by two educators, it’s been dubbed “the parenting bible” by The Boston Globe. Although it was published over 40 years ago, it remains popular because of its concrete advice on how to communicate in a way that shows your child you hear them and care about how they feel.

Having to say no to your child can make you seem like the enemy. The ideas in this book can shift that dynamic and show the child you’re on their side. Instead of getting locked in power struggles, you can work together to solve problems. You’ll learn how to give effective praise, respond when your child says they “hate” someone, get your child to cooperate, promote their independence, and get better behavior without punishment. This guide updates the material in the book and includes additional research about effective parenting techniques, including newer brain research that supports the authors’ original recommendations.

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Role-Playing Can Be Great Preparation for Everyday Life

In Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting,

Dr. Laura Markham builds on Faber and Mazlish’s advice to use hypotheticals. She suggests that parents use stuffed animals to role-play difficult scenarios with their children.

For example, if your child is giving you a hard time about doing their homework, act out different possible scenes, taking turns being the “parent” and “child.” Markham says don’t be afraid to get silly. This could mean including some scenes in which the child does their homework in invisible ink, or homework is canceled forever. These role-playing scenarios, writes Markham, are another way of granting your child’s wishes in fantasy.

Empathizing puts parent and child on the same side instead of in opposition, the authors explain. Enlisting your child’s help in solving a problem, the focus of our next section, also makes parents and children allies instead of combatants.

3. Give Autonomy, Get Cooperation in Return

A third pillar of Faber and Mazlish’s approach is giving your child a level of autonomy that’s developmentally appropriate. This will make them feel empowered in the relationship, create a smoother, give-and-take relationship, and make your child more cooperative.

Showing that you empathize with their feelings, described in the previous section, sets the stage for cooperation. To build on that, Faber and Mazlish suggest approaches that depersonalize the conflict so it’s no longer a war between you and your child but a cooperative endeavor instead.

Gaining children’s cooperation is key because parents have to stop their children from doing so many things—putting Barbie shoes up their nose, riding the dog—and this can make you seem like an enemy. When you get locked in a power struggle with your child, no one wins.

Faber and Mazlish recommend that you focus not on your authority but on solving the problem that needs solving. When you focus on solutions, your child may be able to suggest some creative approaches you haven’t thought of. By allowing them to come up with ways of addressing the problems they face, you’re also fostering their autonomy.

Why Autonomy Is Important

Why is autonomy so critical? According to psychologist Eric Erikson’s stages of development, a sense of autonomy develops during the toddler years, from 18 months to three years old—years that are often recognized as difficult or “the terrible twos” because children start insisting on their own wants. This stage is a natural part of child development. If parents don’t sufficiently foster this sense of independence and capability, a child might feel doubtful about their abilities, become dependent and overly cautious, and have low self-esteem.

To get off on the right foot, here’s what not to do if you’re trying to get a child to cooperate, according to the authors. Don’t blame or accuse your children of negative traits, like being messy or clumsy or never listening. Don’t threaten them, use sarcasm, issue commands, lecture them at length, or compare them to others.

Now, here’s what Faber and Mazlish say you should do instead.

Neutrally Communicate Facts

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Describe the problem: You may feel like telling your child, “You always make a mess! I’m tired of it. Do you live in a barn?” But if you’re angry, your child may automatically get defensive and argumentative in response. This pits you against your child. A better approach is to calmly observe: “I see muddy boots on the living room floor.” When you point out an issue, your child has a chance to suggest a solution, which is an excellent skill to learn, and your conversation remains focused on the problem and how to address it.

Give Information

Equip your child with the knowledge they need to make the right decision. For example, if they’re trying to give the dog their snack, tell them, “If you feed a dog chocolate, they might get sick.” Then they can draw their own conclusion: “I’d better not feed the dog chocolate.” If they realize themselves what the right thing is to do, they’re more likely to do it.

Offer Options

Offer two options that you find acceptable—for instance, suggest your child wear either the red or blue pajamas, and let them choose. This can feel empowering to them because they enjoy selecting an option, and they feel that you value their input.

Be Concise

Don’t pepper your child with questions; the more you speak, the less room they have to think or respond. Instead of a lecture, call attention to a task with one word. “Teeth!” “Groceries!” Let children figure out what the problem is and how they can solve it.

Use Scaffolding to Encourage Autonomy

Hand-in-hand with giving information and options, parents can use scaffolding to encourage their child’s independence. Just as scaffolding is a temporary structure that provides support for a building that’s under construction, educational scaffolding provides support for a child while they’re learning to do things themselves. With this support, a child can feel more comfortable taking the next step, and the adult gradually takes down the scaffolding, meaning they do less and less for the child as the child learns how to master the skills they need.

Another approach that can help foster a child’s independence is by letting them fail and try again. If parents swoop in too soon to help a child, that child isn’t able to develop healthy coping strategies around failure, and that can make the child afraid to try because they might be afraid of making a mistake. It’s only when children are given the space to try things, make mistakes, and try again that they develop the resilience they will need in their later lives.

Write It Down

Instead of nagging your children, the authors suggest writing a note reminding them to hang up their wet jacket or put the toilet seat down. Notes on paper can seem more authoritative to children than spoken reminders. If your kids are always raiding the kitchen, you could put up a sign saying “Pantry Closed” after their snack. The authors encourage whimsical approaches, like notes written from the point of view of a towel that say, “Don’t leave me on the floor! Hang me up on the hook on the door!”

(Shortform note: Writing notes to your children fits Faber and Mazlish’s general strategy of depersonalizing rules and making daily life less of a power struggle between parents and children. It makes clear that these tasks are not just arbitrary things you want them to do because you’re annoying, but things that need to be done for the house to run smoothly.)

Share Your Feelings

Let your children know how their actions affect you. You can tell them, “I don’t like being poked when you’re trying to get my attention. Please use words.” If you’re feeling tired or frustrated, you can share these feelings with them in a memorable way—for instance say something like, “My patience is the size of a tiny mouse.” In better times, you can tell them, “My patience is as big as an elephant.”

The more authentic you are with your children, Faber and Mazlish say, the more honest they will be with you. Another way of giving your child space to express themselves and grow into the best version of themselves is jettisoning any fixed ideas you might have formed about them, which is the subject of the next section.

(Shortform note: Along with sharing your own feelings, Dr. Laura Markham advises parents to practice self-care and treat their feelings as valid and worthy of attention. If you feel overwhelmed, give yourself what you need in the moment, if you can–for example, a five-minute break or a cup of coffee. Schedule it for later if now is impossible.)

4. Challenge Preconceived Ideas About Your Children

A fourth key to communicating with your children is re-thinking any stereotypes you have, even unconsciously, about your children, and helping them resist the labels others may foist on them. The way you think about your children becomes the way they think about themselves. One of the authors describes how a nurse labeled her newborn son “stubborn” because he wouldn’t breathe right away. This label stuck, and it was hard for her to think of her child differently. The idea that he was stubborn became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

How Negative—and Positive—Stereotypes Hurt Kids

When kids are stereotyped either negatively or positively, they may end up having to deny some of their authentic feelings to fit into that narrow role. Negative stereotypes make it hard for kids to behave differently. Even positive stereotypes can have negative effects, because if a child is called, for example, the “smartest kid in the class,” they may feel less likely to take risks or raise their hand in class to answer a challenging question; if they get it wrong, they might ruin their reputation for intelligence.

These stereotypes may operate at school, socially, and even at home. For example, in some families different children are pigeonholed into a few narrow roles. There is the scapegoat, or black sheep, who gets blamed for all of the problems in the family. There is the golden child, who is supposed to be perfect and always make their parents happy. Psychologists say that adults suffering from golden child syndrome can experience anxiety, perfectionism, and depression, have trouble setting boundaries, bend over backwards to please others, and become too reliant on external validation.

Fortunately, if people become more aware of the roles they were made to play as children, they’ll be better able to deal with these issues. Following Faber and Mazlish’s advice will make it less likely that children will be forced into narrow roles in the first place.

To break out of this harmful dynamic, first, here’s what not to do: Don’t label children or let others label them. If someone calls your child shy, you may keep thinking of them that way even if you try not to. If you, or others, call your child bossy, irritating, or selfish, they’ll act that way, the authors say.

Now, here’s what Faber and Mazlish say you should do instead. These are ways to help your child realize they’re more than the labels imposed on them.

Don’t Stereotype Yourself

If you make a mistake, don’t call yourself “stupid” or “clumsy”; talk about what you can do better next time. Just as you would for a child, when you’re talking about yourself, address the behavior rather than the person. Model helpful responses to difficult situations. If you have to clean up a messy kitchen, admit to your child that you feel a little overwhelmed because it’s a big job, but then talk about how you’ll do it step by step.

Set Expectations

If your child acts up, tell them how you feel and how you’d like them to behave. For example, if your child forgets their keys at school, tell them you expect them to be able to remember important items like keys. If you express confidence that they’re capable, they’re more likely to act capably, the authors explain.

Help Children See Themselves Differently

If your child has been pigeonholed as forgetful, try giving them responsibility to show that you trust them, say Faber and Mazlish. If others (or you!) have called your child clumsy or uncoordinated, give them a chance to show off their somersaults or help you fix a broken toy.

Praise Children to Others in Their Presence

While on the phone to their grandma or talking to a neighbor, counter possible stereotypes of your child by talking about how they behaved differently, and let the child hear you. For example, if your youngest has been called babyish, tell others how they acted maturely.

Free Children From Rigid Sibling Roles

While consciously trying to counter stereotypes, parents may unconsciously let birth order influence how they treat their children. For example, they might think of their oldest child as the one who should be mature and responsible, the middle child as difficult, and the youngest as the one they can baby and spoil. In Siblings Without Rivalry, Faber and Mazlish discuss how parents can help liberate their children from these restrictive sibling roles.

For one, they recommend that parents examine how their own birth order might be shaping how they treat their kids. A dad who was an older brother as a child and always considered his younger sister an annoyance might sympathize more with his older child when his own children are fighting, while another parent who was a younger sibling might sympathize more with their younger ones.

Faber and Mazlish also caution parents that they might not know everything going on between their children; maybe parents have stereotyped one as a bully because she seems to start fights, but the other sibling is needling her in ways the parents don’t notice.

It’s also important, the authors add, to treat children not as they are, or as they seem to be, but as you would like them to become. Even a child who constantly teases his sister has a capacity for kindness that can be encouraged; even a child who seems to always be the victim can be taught to stand up for herself.

Remind Children of Their Past Success

Counter the adjectives others may have forced on your child by reminding them of the ways they’ve acted differently in the past; for example, if your child tells you their teacher called them messy, talk about a time they were organized.

If you remind your child of previous times when they demonstrated admirable qualities, you’ll reinforce those qualities, Faber and Mazlish say. Focusing on the positive will build your child’s self-esteem, show your child that you’re supportive, and build a relationship of mutual trust and respect. This foundation will make it easier to respond when your child doesn’t behave as you would wish. The next section discusses how to respond using alternatives to traditional forms of punishment.

(Shortform note: Dr. Laura Markham suggests another way to point out children's successes. She advises parents to focus not on telling a child they made you happy, but on sharing with them the effects of their positive behavior. For example, you might tell a child, “Rebecca was really happy that you gave her a turn on the slide.” This helps children understand why they should behave kindly—it’s not merely to please you, but to make others’ lives better.)

5. How to Encourage Positive Behavior Without Punishment

Faber and Mazlish's final principle for communicating effectively is to use communication as an alternative to punishment. They explain that punishment is a distraction, because instead of reflecting on their behavior and how they can do better, a punished child becomes angry and upset and wants to take revenge. But many parents are at a loss for what else to do.

First, Faber and Mazlish stress what not to do if a child misbehaves, no matter what age they are: Don’t do something unrelated to the offense like taking away a toy or sending them to their room. Punishment like this makes the child defiant and vengeful, and it doesn’t help them understand how they should behave differently in the future.

Why Punishment Doesn’t Work

Faber and Mazlish don’t explicitly define punishment, but they give examples of typical punishments: telling a child they can’t have a treat, excluding them from a family activity, or making them stand in the corner. Since How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk was published, there has been a wealth of research showing that these kinds of punishments—depriving a child of something they want, isolating them from the family—backfire.

Dr. Laura Markham writes about some of this research in Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting and in her articles for Psychology Today about how to encourage good behavior without punishment. According to Dr. Markham, punishment can make a child feel that they are bad, making them more likely to misbehave in the future. She adds that punishment fills the child’s brain with adrenaline, which renders them unable to reason calmly. Punishment also fails to bolster a child’s own developing morality; a child might behave out of fear of getting caught, but as soon as that threat is removed—when the parent is no longer watching—they’ll return to their old behavior.

Now, here’s what Faber and Mazlish say you should do instead. Focus on getting the right behavior in the future, not punishing the child for past misdeeds.

Ask Misbehaving Children for Their Help

Faber and Mazlish recommend redirecting children by enlisting them in a constructive activity. For example, if your children are grabbing toys at the store, ask them to help you shop for what you need.

Explain Why They Should Behave Differently

It may seem frustrating or repetitive to be continually explaining to a child why their behavior is problematic, but Faber and Mazlish recommend that you keep trying. Instead of criticizing the child, focus on the potential consequences of your child’s actions. For example, if your children are playing tag on the sidewalk and not looking where they are going, don’t label and punish them by saying, “You’re being so naughty—no treat for you today!” Instead, explain that people and dogs might trip over them.

(Shortform note: Sarah Ockwell-Smith recommends a mindful method she terms “Why? How? What?” Consider why your child is behaving that way, how they are feeling, and what your aim is in disciplining them. She stresses that the word “discipline” comes from the Latin for “to learn,” and thus it should not be about following rules but rather about teaching your child how to navigate difficult situations.)

Ask Them to Help You Solve the Problem

Make your child part of the solution rather than making them feel like they’re the problem. This tactic echoes the earlier point about giving autonomy to get cooperation in return. Faber and Mazlish note that involving your child in brainstorming solutions (as previously recommended) can reassure them that you’re a team, and that you’re listening and taking their feelings into account. This approach isn’t about convincing your child that you know best, and they should do what you say. It’s about being open to solutions that your child suggests and trying to find a compromise.

Enlisting a child’s help in finding a solution draws on many of the skills Faber and Mazlish teach—giving reasons, giving choices, respecting your child’s feelings, encouraging autonomy, not giving your children negative labels.

Here’s how Faber and Mazlish say you should put the skills together: Sit down calmly with your child.

• First, discuss their feelings and needs and then your own. For example, your child might want to keep playing with their friends, but you need them to be home before dinner.
• Brainstorm together about how to accomplish this, writing down any ideas, even if they are ones you can’t agree to—for example, even if your child suggests they be allowed to go out whenever they want, write it down.
• Then go back over the list, get rid of any unworkable ideas, and see if you can arrive at a compromise solution. You and your child may think of some creative solutions, and it won’t be about who wins the battle—it’ll be about how both of you can solve a problem.

Discipline Should Fit a Child’s Developmental Level

Ockwell-Smith notes when children engage in difficult behavior, they’re not being disruptive on purpose: They’re reacting to unrealistic expectations. Gentle Discipline is about readjusting parental expectations to take into account a child’s level of brain development. When How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk was written in 1980, we didn’t know that the last part of the brain to mature is the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in regulating emotion, making judgments, and controlling urges—and this maturation does not happen until a person’s late teens and early twenties.

Children have a hard time with these tasks because their brains are not fully developed, and gentle discipline understands this and meets the child where they are. For example, children under four do not have a well-developed sense of how others feel, so it’s unrealistic to expect them to share. Encourage them, but don’t punish them for refusing. Gentle Discipline is full of ideas about how to readjust your expectations to fit a child’s stage and how to turn discipline into a learning experience.

Talking to the Next Generation

Faber and Mazlish write in their afterword to the book that decades later, their advice about communication and respect is more relevant than ever. At a time when parents are busy and stressed, work-life balance is hard to achieve, social media promotes distraction and bullying, and children are getting phones in fourth grade, parents and children need all the help they can get in learning how to be kind to each other and themselves.

One of the last sections of the book is a 2012 note by Adele Faber’s daughter, Joanna, a former elementary school teacher who is carrying on her mother’s work.

(Shortform note: Besides contributing to Faber and Mazlish’s book How to Talk So Kids Can Learn at Home and in School, Joanna has written two recent books along with Julie King: How To Talk So Little Kids Will Listen (2017), focused on children from two to seven, and How To Talk When Kids Won’t Listen (2021). Joanna Faber and King created the companion app, HOW TO TALK: Parenting Tips in Your Pocket, as well as the app Parenting Hero. They also lead online workshops.)

Joanna Faber writes that even though she had been raised in a respectful and accepting environment because of her mother’s parenting style, she found it wasn’t so easy to have patience when she had kids of her own. Sometimes she found herself saying, “Why did you do that? I just told you not to!” or “Fine, I’ll leave you here.”

But she echoes her mother’s message that as a parent, you always get another chance to respond better to your child’s misbehavior. Joanna Faber writes that acknowledging feelings is, to her, the most fundamental skill discussed in the book. It can often solve the problem; sometimes empathy alone makes a child feel better. And it creates a relationship of mutual respect so that many problems don’t even occur.

(Shortform note: Joanna Faber’s How to Talk When Kids Won't Listen updates her mother’s advice with scientific research, especially about acknowledging feelings. For example, she discusses a study that tracked parents with varying communication styles over a few years. It found that children whose parents accepted their feelings were less stressed, had longer attention spans, behaved better, scored higher on achievement tests, and got along better with others. The effects were even physiological; these kids had stronger immune systems. These results suggest that Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish were ahead of their time in developing a parenting approach that emphasizes empathy.)