How to Talk so Kids Will Listen...And Listen So Kids Will Talk

This book is phenomenal. I've read alot of parenting books, and this is one that my husband and I both found to be extrememely effective with our little boys.My favorite concepts are acknowledging kids' feelings, helping them problem solve, and describing a problem instead of accusing. Just by doing these three things we have stopped time-outs all together, a practice which wasn't helping us at all.The best part is that I can see them becoming the people I want them to be. They are learning the tools to work through their strong feelings and to resolve issues with their family and friends.The other day I lost my patience with my 5 year old, and started to yell. He told me that I was hurting his feelings and that maybe we could both meditate to calm down. I was stunned, and happy to go along with his solution.The funniest thing is that I've been using a lot of these tools on adults who are upset and it works like a charm.

Helpful in providing very positive parenting strategies. For those who aren't familiar with this style of parenting, it may be difficult to actually implement or change the parenting style without a lot of practice and maybe even coaching that an audiobook wouldn't offer. I accidentally purchased the audiobook but decided to listen to it and it's only an hour long. That can be a drive to and from work. The strategies and philosophy are similar to those used in the style, Parent Child Interaction Therapy, but geared a little more towards older children who have more impulse control and reasoning abilities.

This is a great basic primer on the dynamics of parents and children, their communication and discipline. It encourages parents to actively listen to their children and validate emotions. It speaks about young kids as well as teenagers. I think that for parents, this would be extremely helpful. It's also not boring to listen to and gets the point quickly.To therapists and other clinical professionals: I was a bit disappointed that this didn't teach me new skills or give me new concepts or a different perspective. Everything you learn in this book you will learn in college and in your work. Basically, speak to your children the way you would when showing empathy to a client. Validate their emotions. Have boundaries. Reinforcement works better than punishment. Let your kids face the consequences of their actions to learn. Give your teenagers more space and responsibility because they are older. Nothing unexpected or new.

I was expecting 368 pages (the length of the original book) jam packed into at least a double cd case. Instead the ONE cd was only ONE hour long. In that hour you get some good info, but nothing in depth. For $12 that's sort of a lot of money for just one hour's worth of stuff. I should have just gotten the book.

I got the audio version because I like to listen to books while driving in on my long commute. I have no kids at home, but I got this because of the high review marks and because I like to learn all I can about effective communication. This is a clearly written book that covers some of the key communication principles you might find in other books like _Difficult Conversations_, but it does so in a concise way and with practical techniques that you can employ. It only takes a little over an hour to get through. It also made me laugh out loud quite a bit as the audio players enacted out typical exchanges between parents and kids. Very well done audio book!The interesting revelation for me with this book is that I now know that both my husband and I have been "typical parents" in our communication to each other! We'll be reviewing this together to see if we can unlearn some of our bad habits.

Ordered this on cd so I could listen in the car. I thought there was a lot of great reminders in the book on how a parent should word what they say to their kids. Our wording can make a huge impact on the outcome of a situation. I plan to listen to this cd once a month as a reminder to keep my cool and listen to my hyperactive child and remind me that my words do matter. I would highly recommend!

I bought the CD because I couldn't get the book at a reasonable price. I'm glad I did because the CD includes lots of role-play situations that bring to life conversations between adults and children. To be honest it didn't really give me many clues as to how to communicate with my 15-year-old son - it's primarily aimed at parents of younger children - but perhaps if I'd had this advice earlier I might have avoided the issues I've got now! Perhaps the CD about communicating with teens would have been better for me. This CD should be most helpful for parents of 5- to 12-year-olds.

I got this CD thinking it would be an easy way for me to be productive on the subway to and from work. By the time I got home... I had listened to the whole CD!! That's it! I was very disappointed, because the content was great, and I wanted to hear more. I neglected to read that this was an "abridged" version of the book. Too bad, it felt like one chapter out of a book rather than the whole book. I got the book for my 3 pregnant girlfriends and they were all really excited to read it (as were some of their husbands). I own the authors' book about how to talk so kids listen and learn, and i think the principles taught are wonderful. I have yet to try them on my future students, but I have secretly tried their techniques on my husband and it seems to work with him :).