The Longest Shortest Time

How to Help Your Person Be a Person

As Sasha moves out of babyhood and solidly into toddlerhood, I find myself delving into the vast realm of parenting books. It is so hard to know where to begin when it comes to helping your person become a person, so I asked a friend for a recommendation and she suggested How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish.

Although at a year-and-a-half, Sasha is a little young to be reasoned with when she, say, wants to spend her entire time at the playground digging for cell phones and keys in strangers’ purses, I’ve found a lot of the techniques in this book to be extremely useful and have even started implementing some of them. Things like offering two choices; stating my observations about her messes and accomplishments rather than using words like “bad” or “good”; and perhaps most importantly, acknowledging emotions and allowing them to be present. Right now I feel like I’m at the practicing stage when I use the tools outlined in this book, but I know it will become a text I return to again and again as Sasha grows and the challenges she faces become more complex.

Anyone else found this one useful (or not)? Other books on child development you think I should check out?