How To Talk So Little Kids Will Listen: A Survival Guide to Life with Children Ages 2-7

Gentle, respectful, yet practical and realistic. It has made my life much happier and easier! There are numerous tools in here which REALLY WORK and take a bit of practice, but it's worth it. The tools preserve the relationship between you and your child, yet enable you to protect your own feelings, desires and boundaries. I read the audiobook version and I love it - it had me laughing out loud throughout. I feel like the authors "get" where I am coming from and have solutions to my daily struggles with my 2 and 4 year old. Easy to read (listen) in this format, not having much time, I mainly listened in the car or when cooking etc. Fairly long book but the main points are in the first few chapters. The only area which I felt it hasn't helped massively was sleep (The Holy Grail!!) - there is a chapter devoted to it but there wasn't anything in there I wasn't already doing. Having said that, applying the other tools in the book generally through the day has improved bedtime struggles a bit and most importantly, I am coping with those struggles better.

I absolutely love this book and continue to reflect back on its key takeaways to help me embed the principles. I didn’t realise how much I was dismissing my 3 year old son’s emotions until reading this; the framing of an adult conversation really helped clarify and see how I needed to change my responses. It seems so obvious, yet I was stuck in my ways of a playful reply of ‘ah you don’t hate it, you had it yesterday’ not realising the harm it was doing. Within the first day of reading, I tried out some of the tools to try and get him to sit down to eat…and it worked, no more questions, no more running off to play, just willingness and acceptance. Surely this was a fluke. I continued over the following days to keep thinking back to the principles and try to implement them. It was a struggle in the moment as my brain wouldn’t always pick the right approach and remember what I had read (Mel Robbins ‘Let them theory’ came in handy a few times) but I would eventually figure out and remember the right type and they really helped. My biggest takeaway and reason I continue to reflect back on this though is that within the first week, there was a situation where my 3 year old was about to build up and get upset but using the steps and tools of the first section I recognised this and simply accepted his emotions instead of my usual palming off reply…and I’ll never forget the pause and look on his face as he finally felt that acceptance and clearly felt heard. I felt so mean that he clearly hadn’t felt this way before, yet so happy I now had this awareness moving forward. Physically seeing how much weight I took away in that moment has made me realise how something so small in my world makes such a big difference in his world; something highlighted throughout the book. This along with insight on how a simple rephrase of praise can have such a positive/negative impact on their future actions, I would 100% recommend this book to not only parents/guardians but any adult interacting with children. Our actions really do make a big difference.

It’s a great book for parents of young children. I only wish it had MORE examples with situations. As I personally really struggle to find words in situations when little one throws a tantrum. It has lots of examples and sometimes they WORK! But as it’s said in a book toddlers are human beings and you can’t always win a battle🥲

I got this book a while ago after reading The Whole Brain Child from another author, as I was looking for something for specifically targeted for early years and specific every day situations. I have to say yes it has helped. I had heard the author speaking online prior to that. They take a realistic and pragmatic approach, which is soothing and empowering to us as parents and the book is packed with good ideas for various situations. I have used them and they work, at least some of the time. The general idea to take from this book is that managing challenging behaviour requires a bit of imagination and a sense of humour really, which is not always easy when we’re stressed. But as the book says it goes a much longer way than getting angry, and it’s not as draining, so well worth it for everyone involved.

I can’t put this book down. I even highlight as I read. The tools it provides for parents/carers/teachers are so obvious, but no one is naturally employing them until it’s been brought to your attention. Honestly, it’s even helped me speak to my husband better, too. My daughter is only 18 months, but she knows her own mind and I can tell her twos are going to be terrible. I wanted to get a head start with parenting books and I’m so glad I started here as I don’t particularly feel like I need to read much else now. This is a very quick and easy read, no pompous PhD chat and not foofy crunchy granola either. Just straightforward normal parenting/teaching suggestions to get better results when dealing with little people.

If you’re a parent or ever have any interactions with kids, this will save your sanity. It’s simple, straightforward, easy to do and quite simply so brilliant you’ll wonder why you never did this before. It is quite repetitive - in a good way - as the basic techniques can be used for a variety of situations. Learning to communicate differently is hard, takes practice and patience but I’m finding it really worthwhile. It takes the frustration out of situations, helps us all understand each other’s perspective a little better, and definitely reduces the stress in those tricky situations. I’ve noticed less tantrums - child and parent - and reduced need to repeat or escalate the same message. I wish I’d had this book before now but I’m making up for lost time. A little improvement in understanding situations goes a very long way to make life more peaceful.

I have a very excitable 4 year old who is being assessed for ASD/ADHD and I truly was at my wits end with how to cope with his negative behaviour, his energetic personality, his routines and rituals. Literally everything. Health professionals advice was to simply ignore negative behaviour but when he's hitting his head on a doorframe trying to knock himself out because I raised my voice it's not the best time to be ignoring him. Now I'm only 2 chapters in and this book has already given me heaps of ideas and advice to help me and my son have a positive relationship again and to help him manage his feelings and behaviour without bringing on a meltdown or being a big nag (because when has that ever worked?) I have already started recommending this to everyone because it is so worth a read!

Easy to read...lots of lightbulb moments and realistic scenarios. Helps with the mum guilt and gives sensible and practical solutions. Not finished whole book yet but so far really impressed and can honestly say it's helped me to reflect on what I can change and I've seen the benefits with my son's behaviour (especially my 3 yr old).

If you have a little person in your life, you also need this little book. Beautifully written - entertaining, relevant, thoughtful and informative. The examples the author uses helps to ground her information. Being able to place yourself in your little one's shoes and seeing it from their point of view is highly insightful. The lessons in this book can be used not only with children ages 2-7 but with all our day to day relationships. I highly recommend 'How To Talk So Little Kids Will Listen: A Survival Guide to Life with Children Ages 2-7'.

This book literally change my life as a parent. My understanding is so much clearer and I feel more confident as a mother. I highly recommend and I wish every parent reads it!!

Ok, so I’ve been wanting to write a review for this book since I received it – when it first came out – but I can’t find it in my house. I think that my child took it and is reading it so that he can learn all our tricks. Haha. My child doesn’t actually read yet but I am lucky I did before it went missing because it has done no less than change my relationship with him. How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen is full of great, doable advice that is general enough for any situation, but with specific examples so that you know exactly what the authors are trying to explain. The real-life examples could easily have come from my family. For example, the child who wants something that fell into a crack in his car seat and it is inaccessible to him and to me, the driver. Joanna and Julie give great advice on how to respond to difficult situations with little kids that could easily cause a major meltdown. For example, when the thing falls into the crack in the car seat and I can’t reach it, in the past my child would start yelling and screaming and then move into a full-on tantrum. I always felt that I had two choices: 1: I could pull over and stop, get out of the car, open the door where his car seat is, and retrieve the thing. That would stop the tantrum before it starts, but it would teach him that he is welcome to have his way whenever he threatens me with a tantrum. Or, 2: I could not get the thing, tell him to live with it for the 10 minutes (or whatever) until we get to where we are going. That response would surely invite crying escalating, into a full-on, inconsolable tantrum as the ride went on. I would have to listen to the screaming for the whole ride and then deal with it when we got to where we are going. Julie and Joanna suggest a great third response: agree with my child that the thing is really important. Tell him that I wish I could reach the car seat to retrieve it. Then really get dramatic with it: talk about having a button on the dashboard that I could just push and a hundred of those things would magically appear! And then ask what we could do with a hundred of those things, until my child is so caught up in the fantasy that he has forgotten how much he wants the thing and we get to where we are going safe, sound, and happy. I’ve actually had to do this a number of times since reading the book. My child’s response still amazes me every time! It sounds like magic, but it’s not. It is a way of listening to your child and validating his/her experience. How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen gives lots of ideas, stories and examples of how to do this in any number of difficult situations. I do want to be clear, this isn’t magic, and sometimes even the best skills don’t produce sunny results. But more often than not, as a result of the skills I was able to pick up from this book, I can at least head off tantrums and other bad behavior before it starts, even if my child isn’t all smiles.

This book is life changing! Not only it gives you valuable tools to mitigate daily parenting needs, but your can also apply these techniques to adults too. As an introvert I always struggled to speak with people, but this book has given me some useful tools which are really life changing for me. I thank the authors for writing such a wonderful book. I'm planning to buy the rest of the books in the "How to talk" series.

How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen