1. HOW TO TALK
SO KIDS WILL LISTEN
&
LISTEN
SO KIDS WILL TALK
BY ANITA LEE

2. AUTHORS ADELE FABER & ELAINE MAZLISH
• This book was created to learn the skills on “how to” effectively
communicate with your children.
• To learn a new skill, you need to practice. This book has the place
for each new skill to be practiced. There are cartoon-style examples
that can be used for reminders of the best way to effectively
communicate with your child.
• This book was requested from countless readers of the first book,
Liberated Parents/Liberated Children, who wanted steps on how to
learn the skills outlined in that book.

3. THINGS TO CONSIDER ALWAYS:
A. Respect the child’s feelings.
B. Use creative problem-solving rather than punishment.
C. Encourage their autonomy.

4. SKILLS FOR LEARNING HOW TO INTERACT
WITH HUMAN BEINGS
• How to listen in order to soothe and strengthen a child for their
next injustice that will come in life.

5. • How to reach a child that has been already damaged by the
adults in their life.

6. • How to make use of that second chance that you will get to
communicate with a child.

7. A. RESPECT THE CHILD’S FEELINGS.
Let the first words out of your mouth be ones that acknowledge
feelings without criticism or denial. This is for your feelings
also.

8. TO DO THIS, LEARN HOW TO LISTEN:
1. Do an action to show that you are giving the child your full
attention; bend down, turn your chair, walk to a bench. That
may be all you will need to do. Do not say a word.

9. 2. While thinking of what name you are going to give to their
feelings (or yours), begin your acknowledgment of them
with words such as, “Oh, “ or “Mmm” or “I see…” A
sympathetic silence or a hug may be all they need to come
up with their own solution to a problem.
Remember, these steps are done for every statement uttered.

10. ACKNOWLEDGE THE FEELING FIRST –
WITHOUT CRITICISM OR DENIAL OF IT.
3. Repeat what has been said with your words and the feeling
named at the end, “Oh, I hear how much you want that toy,
you sound frustrated.” This is teaching you how to listen. If
you do not get the correct tone, then you were not listening
correctly. You can try again.
It is the basic willingness to listen and attitude of acceptance
that makes all the difference in communication.

11. • Never repeat back a negative they have said about themselves;
“I cannot do these math problems; I am dumb.” Your answer,
“These math problems sound like they are causing you to feel
frustrated...”
• For yourself too, name what it is followed by the feeling; “Joey,
when I see you two fighting and then blaming me for stopping
you, I feel frustrated.”

12. Sometimes listening needs to be done by pictures; hand them a paper
and pen and have them draw their feelings, angry lines or faces, and
then acknowledge them, “Oh, I see how frustrated you are that Jill took
that toy from you.”
For yourself, show a picture of your frustration with whatever it is that
you are frustrated about.
It can be a shake of your head to indicate your feeling followed with an
action to indicate what your head shaking is all about.

13. ACKNOWLEDGE FEELINGS AND TEACH BY
SHOWING HOW TO HANDLE IT:
4. You can then give the child his
wishes in fantasy; “I wish I could
give you that toy right now,” Then
offer the alternative you see with
your explanation; “Maybe you
could use words to ask Joey for it
instead of grabbing it from him
or you could try another toy until
that one is available.” Or,
together make a list of
brainstorming ideas for solutions
to problems.

14. PRACTICE ACKNOWLEDGING FEELINGS:
It is in these actual practice scenarios that you build your skills
to learn how to do the steps addressed in the book. Put one
word to describe the feeling from the example given:
A boy shoves the boy in front of him in line.
1. Give them a word, a hug, bend down to their level; something
for them to see or hear that you are giving your attention to
their feelings as you think of the word for their feelings. Ask
no questions.

15. 2. Acknowledge their feelings with a word;
“Oh dear,” as you move the boy to stand a bit out of the line and
bending down to his level…your words you came up with to
describe his feelings are:
Frustrated, impatient

16. 3. Repeat what has been said or done with your words and
use the feeling word that you came up with at the end of
your sentence.
“You are pushing and being rude to your classmates; you must
be in the frustrated-shoving mood and tired of waiting.”
The boy starts crying and jumping up and down when you moved
him away from the line. Next descriptive words come to mind:
Overwhelmed, embarrassed

17. Remembering that sometimes listening needs to be done by
pictures:
As the line moves out of the classroom, you move over to the
chalkboard, as you lead the screaming boy lovingly by the hand,
and say as you are drawing a stick figure with big tears coming
down, “It looks like you are overwhelmed and embarrassed with
this situation,,.”
Remember to match your interpretation of their feelings (and
yours), the tone, correctly; huge tears or angry, slashing lines.

18. 4. You can then give the child his wishes in fantasy and/or offer the
alternative(s), offering choices helps, with your explanation;
As I drew stick figures with arrows on the chalkboard indicating the
line I said, “I wish instead of standing in lines,” and drew an airplane
flying and said, “we could individually fly…” and then when he was
ready, “Maybe you could step out of the line instead of pushing the
person in front of you, run in place a bit, and then move back into the
line as it begins to move or motion to me the next time this is
happening and so I can get a clearer picture of what is happening. Do
either of those sound good to you or do you have an idea?.” I indicated
these options on the chalkboard by drawing them in stick figures.
Brainstorm together for solutions.

19. B. USE CREATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING
RATHER THAN PUNISHMENT
Steps to take action to protect rather than using punishment or
consequences: Remember that you may have to use a brainstorming
list session with child to come up with ideas for solving the problem!
Protecting Property
Pounding glass with toy hammers (the wrong action) breaks windows
(causes damage). I will put the hammer away for now. (The action to
protect the property.)
Your turn: _________________________________(wrong action)
________________________________________(could/did cause this
damage). __________________________________________ (protective
damage/problem-solving action).

20. Protecting Others
No hitting! (The wrong action done). I am moving you away from
him so nobody gets hurt because I can see how angry you are
with him. (Action done to protect from harm.)
Your turn: _________________________________(wrong action)
________________________________________(could/did cause this
damage). __________________________________________ (protective
harm/problem-solving action).

21. Protecting the Child
Walking feet! (The wrong action done). I am taking the buckets
away from you so you don’t fly head over heals and hurt yourself
with all that energy you have right now. Maybe it’s time to go to
a place where you can run. (Action done to protect from harm.)
Your turn: _________________________________(wrong action)
________________________________________(could/did cause this
hurt). __________________________________________ (protective
harm/problem-solving action).

22. Protecting Yourself
I do not like it when I ask you to wait in line to go get snacks and
you do not wait in the line. When you do not listen, I feel
frustrated. (The wrong action with the feeling.) When you go
wait in the line for snacks, then you may go for your snack. (The
action to protect myself; teaching to follow directions helps with
classroom management.)
Your turn: _________________________________(wrong action)
________________________________________(could/did cause this
hurt). __________________________________________ (protective
harm/problem-solving action).

23. Protecting Your Relationship With the Child: No orders & No
threats
I do not like the way you are talking to me and I do not like the
way that I am talking to you. I am very upset right now. (The
wrong action with the feeling.) I am stepping out of this room
for some time to calm myself down. (Action taken to learn the
power of protecting oneself and others.)
Your turn: _________________________________(wrong action)
________________________________________(could/did cause this
harm). __________________________________________ (protective
harm/problem-solving action).

24. C. ENCOURAGE THEIR AUTONOMY:
Come up with your own examples of these.
1. Allow choices rather than giving commands. The choice
needs to be open-ended; apple or banana or an option you
can come up with that works for both.
2. No questions but rather give the invitation to talk, “I’d love to
hear about your time at Joey’s when you are ready to tell me
about it.” Or just sitting silently when someone is upset and
letting them talk when they are ready, if they ever want to.

25. 3. Do not push a child into doing anything he/she is not
comfortable with doing nor assign any label to that
resistance. Instead, use the phrase, “When he is ready.”
Example: “He is a picky eater.” Rather, “He will eat it when
he is ready.” (This may be in a few years or never.)

26. 4. Show respect for a child’s struggle. Don’t give up on a
child before they give up on themselves; “I thought the
hammer bag was too heavy for you!” Her response, “I
figured out a better way to carry it.”
5. Alter the competition factor in games in that the
competition is taught on how to compete with oneself
rather than feel like a loser: Racing games; one does the
stopwatch for the other and then switch. Board games;
first one to the end wins but the game continues for all
players to get to their end.

27. 6. Giving descriptive praise rather than criticism gives
strength and thinking abilities to fix the problem rather
than creating defeat in times of need. Example: “You have
kept that cell phone for a long time without losing it, I
wonder what happened to it…”
7. Do not take away the hope for the future. Praising by
comparing diminishes the compared relationship for the
future benefit. Rather than, “You did better than all the
other kids.” Try, “You had the whole room tapping their
feet.” Rather than, “You can’t sing well enough for a solo
so don’t bother trying.” Try, “Wow, it sure is brave of you
to try out for that!”

28. MAKE THE EFFORT TO DESCRIBE WHAT YOU SEE
OR FEEL AND LET THE CHILD SUPPLY THE PRAISE:
Instead of, “You’re terrific” describe “terrific.” “You figured out
the cans of corn on sale, the three-for-a-dollar ones, are
actually more expensive. I’m impressed.”
Instead of “ You did a great job cleaning up,” describe, “great.”
“The books are all picked up and put away. The paper scraps are
in the garbage. It feels organized again!”
Come up with ways to describe rather than using your typical
praise words and add a descriptive word to the end of your
description, only focusing on the present. Remember, praise
brings repeat behavior, don’t praise what you don’t want.