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BOOK REVIEW: How To Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk

Filed under: Uncategorized @ March 30, 2007 7:50 pm by healthiacynthia

Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish first published this book in 1980, the result of their own forays into parent education and, in turn, educating parents. You can read about them and all the books they have written since then at their website.

I became well acquainted with this particular dog-eared copy of HTTSKWIL&LSKWT back in the 90s when I was a social worker at Saskatoon’s Family Support Center, a government-funded, Adlerian-supportive agency that, when I worked there, offered free parenting classes, support groups for women and children, and a mandated program working with teen parents. Sometimes my job involved facilitating parenting groups. I loved how Faber and Mazlish blended child psychology with empathy and compassion for parents and their children. They were my heroes at the time. Because I’m considering doing a ‘parent coaching’ group this Fall or Spring, I thought this particular book was worth another boo.

Re-reading this book was almost as much fun as re-reading a favorite childhood novel (like Anne of Green Gables, for example). I felt light bulbs go on in my current stance as a concerned Granny that I don’t recall when I read this the first time around. I marvel at the excellent examples– so wide-ranging– that the writers include in their look at promoting respect, dignity, co-operation and responsibility. And I love the cartoons as much as I did the first time around. Parents in my class were very responsive to their gentle nudges to try something different from the usual brow-beating, et al, techniques that are standard to parenting inside the box.

I know that there is an updated version of this book written in about 2000, I think, and I actually DID have it, but I think I must have handed it off to someone, because I don’t have it any more. That is the true test of books around parent educators… is it one that you want your own grown kids to be using with your grandkids? Is it the one that you give as a gift to new parents? Affirmative in both cases for me.

How To Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk

 

1 Comment »

  1. […] How To Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk […]

    Pingback by HealthiaCynthia » Blog Archive » Goal=Read 100 Books — March 30, 2007 @ 7:58 pm

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