How to talk so kids will listen and listen so listen so kids will talk by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish

After years of criticising our parents, with time, we come to talk in exactly the same way they used to talk, repeating to our children the same sentences that we grew up hearing.

Reading this book has been an enlightening experience, you realise for how long you have been living in “automatic” mode. As a parent you want the best for your little ones, and definitely you do your best trying to raise them, trying to build up their confidence and develop their own little personalities. Then you read How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk (How to Help Your Child) (How to Help Your Child) and, suddenly, you become conscious of what you say, for the first time you pay attention and can hear the words coming out of your mouth when dealing with your children and you surprise yourself at what a difference it makes.

The book is an easy read, really engaging and with touches of nice sense of humour with real life examples where you will see yourself reflected. It does exactly what it says on the cover, it is a practical guide to improve parent-child communication and establish mutual co-operation.

It seems written to reach any kind of parent, from the more intellectual to the more “visual” orientated. Each chapter is divided into different parts; descriptive style, with lots of different examples and real life situations, simple and practical exercises where you can apply your new acquired skills and see what you need to change, engaging cartoons illustrating with clear examples the practice in different situations and short summaries, what a better way of remembering, if, after reading the chapter you have a small page with the basic points noted down, so you can snip it and stick it on the kitchen cupboard for later reference?

Nobody says that raising children is an easy task, not even communicating with them, but books like this one, brings us one step closer to our children by helping us to improve our communication and understanding of their own feelings, finding alternative ways to punishments and bringing mutual collaboration. THAT makes such a difference!

Siblings without Rivalry by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish

When you thought that one baby have changed your whole life as you ever experienced it, the arrival of the second one definitely adds to the challenge. As soon as both siblings grow up a little bit, your daily life becomes dominated by the mental and physical exhaustion as well as stress keeping up with their playing along with the interminable fights and arguments that seem to fill the day (from the time they get up until they go to bed).

Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too (How to Help Your Child) tries to be a practical guide for parents looking for that alternative way of reaching their children without the conventional screaming, punishing and yelling that most of us went through.

Empathy seems to be the key that will allow you to see the situation from a different angle and help you understand your child. The book is full of unconventional advice such as; stop treating your children equally, stop trying to be fair and just try to meet each child’s needs individually, avoid comparison (whether favourable or unfavourable) and just describe the situation, always acknowledge every child’s feelings, stop intervening in their disputes by letting them work out the solution...all seem to be sound pieces of advice that promise to bring more communication, more co-operation and problem solving skills that will be with your children for the rest of their lives.

Written in the same narrative style as How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk, this book is like an extended chapter that became too long, deep and complex as to be included in the same book. Definitely, the complex subject of dealing with siblings deserves a book on its own.

Following the same structure, the book is very clearly laid out; full of real life examples, practical advice on how to tackle day to day conflicts, great cartoons that illustrate in a more visual way the same situations and short summaries with the key points of each chapter to act as a quick reminder. Although, in practise is not that easy to get it right the first time round, the structure of the book makes it easy for you to go back again and again looking for any reference you might need to tackle any specific problem and find it in just a quick flick through.