There are parenting books that you read, nod along with, and forget by Tuesday. There are parenting books that sound brilliant in theory but crumble the moment your child throws spaghetti at the wall. And then there is “How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk” by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, which is neither of those things. It is the rare parenting book that actually changes the words that come out of your mouth, and in doing so, changes the entire atmosphere of your home.
First published in 1980, this book has sold over three million copies worldwide. It has been translated into more than 30 languages. It has been in print for over four decades, which in the parenting book world is roughly equivalent to immortality. New parenting philosophies rise and fall like fashion trends. Attachment parenting, helicopter parenting, free-range parenting, gentle parenting—they all have their moment. But Faber and Mazlish sit quietly on the shelf through every trend, because what they teach is not a philosophy. It is a skill. And skills do not go out of style.
The book is based on the work of the late Dr. Haim Ginott, a child psychologist whose approach to parent-child communication was decades ahead of its time. Faber and Mazlish, both parents themselves, studied with Ginott and translated his clinical insights into a format so practical, so immediately usable, that a sleep-deprived parent can read a chapter at night and apply it at breakfast.
But does a book written in 1980 still hold up? Can a communication method designed before smartphones, social media, and the modern anxiety epidemic still speak to today’s families? The answer, emphatically, is yes. And in this review we will explore exactly why.
The Core Problem This Book Solves
Before we get into the techniques, it is worth naming the problem clearly. Most parents are not bad parents. They are not cruel or indifferent. They love their children fiercely. But they are communicating in ways that inadvertently shut their children down, escalate conflicts, and erode the very connection they are trying to build.
Here is a scene that plays out in millions of homes every day. A child comes home from school looking upset. The parent says, “What’s wrong?” The child says, “I hate school. Nobody likes me.” The parent, out of love and a desperate desire to fix the pain, responds with one of several classic mistakes.
Denial: “That’s not true. Lots of people like you.”
Advice: “Well, have you tried being nicer to the other kids?”
Interrogation: “What happened? Who said that? What did you do?”
Dismissal: “Oh, you’re fine. It’ll blow over.”
Philosophy: “You know, when I was your age…”
Every one of these responses is well-intentioned. Every one of them makes the child feel worse. The child did not come to you for a solution. They came to you to feel heard. And in your rush to fix, advise, minimize, or redirect, you accidentally communicated that their feelings are wrong, unimportant, or too much for you to handle.
Faber and Mazlish wrote this book to give parents a different set of responses. Not because the old responses make you a bad parent, but because the new responses make you a more effective one.
Chapter by Chapter: The Skills That Matter
The book is organized around specific communication skills, each presented with cartoon illustrations, real-life examples, and practice exercises. This format is one of its greatest strengths. You are not passively reading theory. You are actively practicing a new way of speaking.
Skill One: Helping Children Deal With Their Feelings
This is the foundation upon which everything else is built. Faber and Mazlish argue that before a child can behave well, think clearly, or solve problems, they must first feel that their emotions have been acknowledged.
The techniques are deceptively simple.
Listen with full attention. Put down your phone. Turn your body toward the child. Make eye contact. This sounds obvious, but most parents listen to their children while simultaneously cooking dinner, checking email, and mentally composing a grocery list. Children know when you are half-listening, and half-listening communicates that their words are half-important.
Acknowledge the feeling with a word or sound. Sometimes all a child needs is “Oh,” or “Mmm,” or “I see.” These small sounds communicate presence and acceptance without judgment or advice.
Give the feeling a name. “That sounds really frustrating.” “You seem disappointed.” “It sounds like you were embarrassed.” Naming the emotion helps the child feel understood and also builds their emotional vocabulary, which is a critical skill for self-regulation.
Give the child their wish in fantasy. This is the technique that surprises most parents. When a child says “I wish we didn’t have to go to school ever again,” instead of lecturing about the importance of education, you say “Wouldn’t that be something? What if you could design your own schedule? What would you do all day?” You are not agreeing that school should be abolished. You are entering the child’s emotional world and letting them feel the relief of being understood. Once they feel heard, they can usually move on.
The power of these techniques lies in what they replace. They replace the instinct to fix, deny, or minimize. They replace the reflexive “Don’t feel that way” with “I hear that you feel that way.” This shift is small in words and seismic in impact.
Skill Two: Engaging Cooperation
Every parent needs their child to cooperate. Shoes need to go on. Teeth need to be brushed. Homework needs to be done. The question is how you get there without threats, nagging, or the slow erosion of the relationship.
Faber and Mazlish offer five tools for engaging cooperation, and each one replaces a common parenting mistake.
Describe what you see instead of blaming. Instead of “You never hang up your coat!” try “I see a coat on the floor.” This sounds absurdly simple, but it works because it removes the accusation. The child hears information rather than an attack. Information invites action. Attacks invite defense.
Give information instead of commands. Instead of “Go brush your teeth!” try “Teeth get cavities when they’re not brushed.” The child is given the reasoning and allowed to draw the conclusion themselves. This builds internal motivation rather than external compliance.
Say it with a word. Instead of a long lecture about the coat on the floor, the backpack on the stairs, and the shoes in the hallway, simply say “Coat.” One word. Children tune out lectures. They hear single words.
Describe what you feel. Instead of “You’re so rude for interrupting me,” try “I feel frustrated when I’m in the middle of a sentence and I get interrupted.” This uses the classic “I statement” format that keeps the focus on the impact rather than the character of the child.
Write a note. For recurring issues, sometimes a note works where spoken words have failed. A note on the bathroom mirror that says “Please put me back on the shelf. Signed, Your Toothpaste” can get a laugh and a behavior change where a verbal reminder would get an eye roll.
These tools share a common principle: they treat the child as a thinking, feeling person rather than an object to be managed. They invite cooperation rather than demanding compliance. The difference is not semantic. It is relational.
Skill Three: Alternatives to Punishment
This chapter is where Faber and Mazlish enter territory that makes many traditional parents uncomfortable. They argue that punishment, while it may stop a behavior in the moment, carries hidden costs that outweigh its benefits.
Punishment, they argue, makes children angry, resentful, and focused on revenge rather than reflection. A punished child is not thinking “What did I learn?” They are thinking “This is unfair” or “I won’t get caught next time” or “I hate my parents right now.” The lesson is lost in the emotional storm of the consequence.
The alternatives they propose include expressing your feelings strongly without attacking character, stating your expectations clearly, showing the child how to make amends, offering a choice between acceptable options, and allowing the child to experience the natural consequences of their actions when it is safe to do so.
Crucially, Faber and Mazlish also advocate for collaborative problem-solving. When a recurring problem exists, sit down with the child, describe the problem without blame, invite the child to brainstorm solutions, write down every idea without judgment, and then together decide which solutions you can both live with.
This process accomplishes several things simultaneously. It teaches critical thinking. It gives the child ownership of the solution, which makes them more likely to follow through. It communicates respect. And it builds the problem-solving skills that the child will need for the rest of their life.
Skill Four: Encouraging Autonomy
Faber and Mazlish argue that much of what parents do in the name of love actually undermines the child’s developing sense of competence and independence.
Every time you tie a shoe your child could tie, answer a question your child could answer, or make a decision your child could make, you send a subtle message: You cannot handle this. You need me. You are not capable.
The book offers practical ways to foster autonomy. Let children make choices appropriate to their age. Show respect for a child’s struggle instead of rushing to rescue. Don’t ask too many questions. Don’t rush to answer questions. Encourage children to use sources outside the home, like teachers, librarians, or books. Don’t take away hope.
This last point is especially powerful. When a child says “I want to be an astronaut,” the instinct to reality-check (“Well, that’s very competitive”) should be replaced with encouragement to explore: “You’re really interested in space. What would you want to learn first?”
Autonomy is not abandonment. It is the gradual, intentional release of control that allows a child to discover who they are and what they can do. Faber and Mazlish provide a roadmap for this release that balances safety with freedom.
Skill Five: Praise That Builds Instead of Traps
Like Alfie Kohn, Faber and Mazlish are suspicious of conventional praise, though they are less absolute in their critique.
They distinguish between evaluative praise and descriptive praise. Evaluative praise (“Good job!” “You’re so smart!” “You’re the best artist!”) positions the parent as judge and can create pressure, dependency, and anxiety. The child who hears “You’re so smart” may become afraid to try difficult things because failure would disprove the label.
Descriptive praise, on the other hand, simply describes what you see and lets the child draw the conclusion. “You used three different colors in that corner and blended them together.” The child thinks: I made interesting artistic choices. I am creative. The praise is internal and therefore more durable.
“I see you set the table and even folded the napkins. That took real effort.” The child thinks: I am someone who makes an effort. I am capable.
The distinction is subtle but transformative. Descriptive praise builds intrinsic motivation and self-assessment skills. Evaluative praise builds dependence on external validation. Over thousands of interactions, this difference compounds into fundamentally different self-concepts.
Skill Six: Freeing Children From Roles
The final major skill in the book addresses one of the most insidious patterns in family life: role-casting.
Every family unconsciously assigns roles. One child is “the responsible one.” Another is “the wild one.” A third is “the sensitive one.” These labels feel like descriptions, but they function as prescriptions. The child labeled “the wild one” begins to believe that wildness is their identity, and they perform accordingly. The child labeled “the smart one” avoids challenges that might reveal them as ordinary.
Faber and Mazlish offer strategies for freeing children from these roles. Look for opportunities to show the child a new picture of themselves. Put children in situations where they can see themselves differently. Let children overhear you saying something positive and unexpected about them. Model the behavior you want to see. Store the child’s special moments and reflect them back.
This chapter is less flashy than the others, but many parents report it is the most life-changing. When you stop treating your “difficult” child as difficult and start noticing their moments of cooperation, creativity, and kindness, the child gradually rises to meet your new expectation.
What the Book Does Exceptionally Well
The format is brilliant. The cartoon illustrations that open each chapter show common parenting mistakes in a way that is immediately recognizable and slightly humiliating. You see yourself in those cartoons. Then the corrected versions show you what to say instead. The visual format makes the skills stick in a way that prose alone cannot achieve.
The practice exercises force active engagement. You are not just reading about better communication. You are writing responses, imagining scenarios, and rehearsing scripts. This transforms passive knowledge into usable skill.
The tone is warm, non-judgmental, and genuinely funny. Faber and Mazlish never make you feel like a terrible parent. They make you feel like a well-meaning parent who has been handed the wrong script and is about to get a better one.
The universality is remarkable. These techniques work with toddlers, school-age children, teenagers, and frankly, with adults. The principles of acknowledging feelings, engaging cooperation respectfully, and describing rather than evaluating are not age-specific. They are human-specific.
The Honest Critique
The book was written in 1980 and reads like it in places. The family scenarios assume a traditional two-parent household with stay-at-home mothers and after-school milk and cookies. Single parents, blended families, same-sex parents, and families where both parents work demanding jobs will need to mentally translate some examples into their own reality.
The book does not address cultural differences in communication. The techniques assume a communication style that is direct, verbal, and emotionally expressive. Families from cultures where emotional restraint, indirect communication, or hierarchical parent-child dynamics are valued may find some techniques feel foreign or inappropriate.
The book occasionally oversimplifies. Some children, particularly those with trauma histories, neurological differences, or severe behavioral challenges, will not respond to these techniques as cleanly as the examples suggest. The book is a communication upgrade, not a clinical intervention. For children with significant challenges, these skills are necessary but not sufficient.
The chapter on punishment alternatives can feel incomplete for parents dealing with serious behavioral issues. Collaborative problem-solving is wonderful for the child who draws on the wall. It is less immediately helpful for the child who is physically aggressive or engaging in dangerous behavior. Parents in acute situations may need more structured guidance than this book provides.
Who Should Read This Book
Every parent should read this book. That is not hyperbole. Whether your child is two or seventeen, whether you are a first-time parent or a grandparent, whether your family is thriving or struggling, the communication skills in this book will improve your relationship with your child.
Teachers and educators should read this book. The classroom applications are immediate and profound. A teacher who describes what they see instead of labeling students, who engages cooperation instead of demanding compliance, and who acknowledges feelings before redirecting behavior will transform their classroom culture.
Couples should read this book. The irony that many readers discover is that these techniques work beautifully on spouses, coworkers, and friends. The principles are universal. Humans of all ages want to feel heard.
The Final Verdict
“How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk” is not the flashiest parenting book on the shelf. It does not promise to end all tantrums in three days or raise a genius by age five. What it promises is something quieter and more durable: a way of speaking to your child that preserves their dignity, strengthens your connection, and actually works.
Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish wrote a book that has endured for over four decades because it addresses the most fundamental challenge of parenting: communication. Not the grand philosophical questions of discipline or education or screen time, but the daily, mundane, relentless act of talking to another human being who happens to be small, emotional, and utterly dependent on you for their sense of self.
If you read one parenting book in your life, many experts will tell you it should be this one. After forty years, millions of copies, and countless families transformed, it is hard to argue with them. The words you use with your child today become the voice in their head tomorrow. This book helps you make that voice a kind one.
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