How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk

Many good tips for talking to children. And adults, I wager (which is most of the reason I got this). Ultimately they seem to boil down to the fact that people like to be respected and treated as people. I'm oversimplifying, of course. The book is full of techniques that will help you deliver that respect in a way that the recipient will appreciate and that will keep you sane. There are plenty of examples and exercises.

I'd've probably gone for 5 stars, but there were two things that bothered me. First, there were a lot of letters written in from readers of the authors' previous books. They were positive (natch), and a few had some interesting example situations, but after a while they all ran together and did little more than pad the book. And then there's the language. I haven't tried the exercises, but some of the phrasing in the examples and cartoons seemed overly unrealistic. Maybe that's the point - maybe I have to change my view so that these ways of talking become natural. But I can't help but think that many of the phrases would result in funny looks or black eyes. Still, the underlying advice seems sound.

Oh! I enjoyed the afterword by the daughter.