How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen: A Survival Guide to Life with Children Ages 2-7 (The How To Talk Series)

by Joanna Faber

Children need practice resolving their “childish” disputes so they can become grown-ups who can peacefully resolve their adult disputes. This is the work of childhood.

your spouse isn’t happy and says to you, “I need you to make dinner earlier on week nights so I can get to bed earlier. Listen, I’m going to offer you a reward. For every five nights that you get dinner on the table by 6 p.m., I’ll take you out to a restaurant of your choice. I made a sticker chart so I can track your successes!” What’s wrong with this scenario? Why do we suddenly have the urge to serve dinner at midnight . . . burnt? Well, first of all, does your spouse even care about your feelings? Does he not recognize the effort you put into all this food production? Does he realize how difficult it would be to get it all done earlier? And what if you get dinner on the table early four nights in a row, and then mess up on the fifth? Do you have to start from square one because of a single misstep? Is it even worth the effort? What about that reward? Maybe a new car would be a better incentive. Maybe you should be getting rewards for all the other things you do around the house. A new pair of boots for folding the laundry, a flat-screen TV for cleaning the toilet.

reward is offered with an implied threat: If you don’t do what I say, you’ll miss out on something good.

Most people would prefer a partner who is willing to work with them to solve a problem. Someone who might say, “Gee, I really appreciate all these delicious meals. My problem is, I’m frustrated with the late nights. I feel like I’m not getting enough sleep. Is there anything we can do to get dinner on the table earlier? What could I do to help make that happen? Let’s think of some ideas!”

What went wrong? The corollary to “you can have this wonderful thing if you do as I say” is “you can’t have this wonderful thing if you don’t do as I say.” The reward slips its mask and reveals itself as a punishment in disguise.

If this sounds overly idealistic to you, consider the latest research on motivation. An eye-opening study found that when people are offered large monetary rewards to complete a challenge, their creativity and engagement in the task plummets. Rewards helped people perform well on some very simple mechanical tasks, but as soon as they needed cognitive skills, rewards interfered with their ability to function.

It turns out that the three factors that motivate people most strongly are a sense of autonomy (the drive to be self-directed), mastery (the intrinsic drive to develop competence), and purpose (a sense that our actions are meaningful and have value).2

The difference is that you’re not saying “if you get in the car, then I’ll give you a treat.” You’re planning your exit strategy together as a team.

You can let them know that fun activities await them when chores are finished. “As soon as we get our teeth brushed, we can have bedtime stories.” “As soon as the blocks are put away, we can go to the park.” You’ve avoided the unpleasant and manipulative “If you do this, then I’ll give you that” statement, and replaced it with information.

My answer is that the reason time-outs aren’t working for you is that time-outs don’t work.3 The main weakness of the “time-out” is that it doesn’t address the problem. Let’s say your son shoves his little sister away from his blocks, and you grab him by the shoulder and rush him to the time-out chair. What do you think he’ll be saying to himself as he sits in that chair? We’d like to imagine that he’s thinking, Gee, this chair time is helping me realize that I should show a lot more love and tenderness to my dear sister. After all, we do have shared genetic material. As the older child I should learn to be more patient, even when she’s irritating me. Unfortunately it’s more likely that his thoughts will run along the lines of, It’s not fair. I hate her. She pushed me first. She’s always ruining everything. Mom always takes her side. Or he may be thinking, I’m mean to my sister. I’m a bad person. And that’s if you can get him to stay in the chair in the first place! If our intent is to foster a better relationship between siblings, time-out is not the answer.

This is not to say that you won’t sometimes have to separate a child from a situation that is overwhelming him. If you really want to use the phrase time-out in a positive way, you can say, “We need a time-out so nobody gets hurt! Quick, Thomas to the kitchen, Jenna to the living room!” You may even say, “I’m getting frustrated. I need a time-out. I’m going to my bedroom for a few minutes to calm down!” This kind of time-out is intended to protect, not to punish. It’s a way of letting our children know that sometimes we need to take a break before we can solve a problem.

When we use problem-solving in place of punishment, we are truly modeling the attitude we want our kids to take toward conflict in their lives. Not “I’m a bad kid who doesn’t deserve a bedtime story.” Not “I’m a failure as a mom because I screamed at my kid,” but rather, “How can I fix my mistake?” “How can I make things work better?” “What should I try next time?”

Punishment has a short shelf life. Little kids grow quickly. It’s difficult to physically punish a child who is larger and stronger than you are. As children become more independent it becomes harder to enforce punishments. How do you ground a teenager or take away his screen privileges without becoming a prisoner of your own punishment?

The most powerful tool you can wield is their sense of connection to you.

But when we use words that evaluate, we often achieve the opposite effect. As you probably noticed when reading the scenarios above, praise that judges or evaluates can create problems. It can make us focus on our weaknesses rather than our strengths. I’m not really that great. You should have seen me ten minutes ago.

It can make us doubt the sincerity of the person offering the praise. Does he really mean it or is he just trying to make me feel good? What does he want from me? It can feel dismissive. Did he even look at all that work I did? Maybe it wasn’t worth the effort. It can make us feel threatened. What if I can’t do it again? It can even cause us to give up completely—to stop what we’re doing and walk away.

Good reminder... I often have trouble remembering or explaining how or why praise can be not-so-good.

A more useful way to praise is to resist the impulse to evaluate and instead to simply describe what you see (or hear or notice with any of your five senses). Instead of, “That’s a beautiful picture!” Try, “I see green lines that are zooming up and down the page. And look how they connect all these red shapes!” Instead of, “Good job!” Try, “I see you picked up all the cars and all the books, and you even picked up the dirty socks! I see bare floor. That was a big job.” Instead of, “Excellent work.” Try, “I see you circled every single picture that begins with the letter B.” Instead of, “Good job following directions.” Try, “You found your spot in the circle as soon as you heard ‘circle time.’ ” Instead of, “Nice try.” Try, “That ball reached the fifth row of tiles on the wall. It’s getting closer to the basket almost every time!” Or, if you’re not in the mood for a lot of words, you can simply say “You did it!” All of these statements let a child know that you noticed and appreciated something he did—without evaluation or judgment, which could discourage him from future efforts.

Here’s how it sounds when you praise effort instead of evaluating the child: Instead of, “What a smart boy you are!” You can say, “You kept on working on that puzzle until you figured it out.” Instead of, “You’re very talented at gymnastics.” You can say, “I saw you climbing onto that balance beam again and again until you walked the whole beam without falling off.” Instead of, “Good job dressing yourself.” Try, “You kept working on that button until you got it into that little buttonhole.”

With descriptive praise, we can point out progress in a way that feels supportive and genuine. Often pointing out one positive thing is more effective than pointing out ten negatives.

If you want a criticism to be accepted graciously, a good rule to follow is to notice three positive things before mentioning the negative. And even then it’s most useful to put your criticism in positive terms. Talk about what “needs to be done” rather than what is still wrong.

1. For an in-depth discussion of this phenomenon, read chapter three, “Too Much Control,” of Alfie Kohn’s book Unconditional Parenting. And also Donelda J. Stayton, Robert Hogan, and Mary D. Salter Ainsworth, “Infant Obedience and Maternal Behavior,” Child Development 42 (1971): 1057–69.