New solutions to old problems - Between Parent And child

I have lived my parenting life suffused with guilt over the times I have hurt my daughter's feelings with yelling, demands and recriminations over her behavior. Reading this book was a life changing experience for both me and my husband. In the few weeks since I have read this book, life in my home has changed dramatically. I now have the tools to relate effectively to my daughter. I understand WHY she reacts to situations as she does and can handle redirect her anger, fear or sadness simply by letting her know that I understand and sympathize. We are all happier and more secure - this book has truly changed my entire way of thinking.

Dr, Ginott's ideas are not only enlightening, but also effective. They are without a doubt the most effective conversations to have with children. The trick is practicing them consistently. Using the same listening techniques for adults works also.

This book contains extensive information and real life examples on the effects of the words we choose to use in every day situations with children. Dr. Haim G. Ginott describes how all emotions, whether they be positive or negative, are part of us and must not be undermined. When talking of helping children with big feelings, Haim G. Ginott draws parallels with applying first aid to your child after an injury. It's natural for us to help a physically wounded child immediately, and the same principle needs to be applied for emotional hurt and difficulties. The language used in this book is very simple to understand. Like all new things it takes good practise to really nail the art of communication, and it's never too late to begin. I can see myself using this book for many years to come.

I really wanted to like this book. It was recommended in a blog and I was impressed by the reviews here. But I cannot even get through it! First of all this updated version is still insanely out if date. If you tell your child they are stupid or want to "pummel" them, then yeah, you need to stop. And he goes on and on about how we were raised to not express feelings and do not do that with our kids. That's all people talk about now.

The example conversations are ridiculous and no human speaks like that. I also have a problem not praising your child. Not to mention the over use of the word "hate" towards teachers. Which seem to be the bulk of the examples.

I do not think telling your child that you are proud of them or that they are beautiful harms them.

Some of the methods are sound such as the discipline and talking through feelings but there is a lot of garbage to sift through to get that.

I think in general this is suited for parents of older kids and not preschoolers. I need something to help me deal with a preschooler's tantrums and how to get them to get dressed/sleep on their own. This book was not it.

This book sounds like it would be common sense but we often forget (or don't realize) that the way we speak to our children can really affect them, and our relationships with them. This is a must read for any parent. Timeless advice.

I've been reading a lot of parenting books lately and found this to be about average. Certainly every parent could work on improving the way they communicate and speak with their children and this book has some good ideas in this area. However, I am not sure I will ever be comfortable with the way that they recommend speaking to your children. I don't find that asking my children questions shuts down communication the way they say it does. If I am genuinely interested in listening, my children will talk to me. Restating what my child has just said to me feels very forced and artificial and not like a natural conversation at all. I found the chapter on teaching responsibility to be completely unhelpful. They recommend a very permissive approach that will not help your child if they are typical. Most children need much more guidance in being successful with schoolwork. The book suggests psychotherapy for your child if they are struggling with getting schoolwork done. Most children do not need psychotherapy to get their schoolwork done--they need routine, structure, help with organization, and some consequences. Ditto with the approach to music lessons and practicing. Speaking as a former music teacher, it is the rare child who will be successful under their approach.

Improving communication with your child is certainly a good start to better parenting but is not going to take you as far as this book suggests it will.

A must read for every new parent. It teaches effective parenting skills based on respect, and compassion for your child.
You will learn the damaging effects of "punishment" administered to a child to correct unwanted behaviors. Instead, you will be instructed on how to effectively change unwanted behaviors through respectful communication and regard for your child's feelings. Using the methods outlined in this book will ensure your child's self-esteem is kept in tact and your relationship will be one of love and respect.

A masterly work that every parent should read! Written in simple, lucid language, it shows you to how to communicate with the child. You can guide the child without all the shouting and threats, and develop a good relationship. The book worked wonderfully for me.DON'T MISS IT.

Between Parent and Child: The Bestselling Classic That Revolutionized Parent-Child Communication

Excellent parenting book.

The best book ever it should be tranalated in all languages. I live in Israel, My children were brought up using his great methods.
I would like it in Hebrew. A brooklyn boy, living in Israel I am also Chaim (Chaim means Life)
Reprint the book

Enlightening, and very helpful in the difficult moments, more theroy but some practical bits
I used dolls to prepare my son for a situation that he should go with strangers, as was described in the book..

Based on the great reviews here, I bought and read this book. It was good. It taught me some useful things, but there were some parts that I disagreed with. I took it with a grain of salt, and I used the things I found to be valuable and ignored the others.

The best thing that I took away from this book:
The author explains that it's important for children (well, anybody, really) to feel heard. So if a child wants something that you're going to deny, you should not just say "No." First, you should tell the child that you empathize and understand what they're wishing for. And then tell them that the answer is still no. It has helped calm my children down when I have showed them that I understand what they want, before I tell them why they still can't have it. For example, your kid wants to stay on a ride at the amusement park. You say "I understand that you're having fun and that you want to stay on the ride. But there are many kids in the line behind you waiting for their turn. It's not fair if you stay on this ride all day."

The thing I disagreed with the most:
The author says that the way you shouldn't tell a child "You're bad" you should also not tell a child "You're good" or "You're beautiful" or give them a label. Even if it's positive. His reasoning is that if you give them a label, then they don't learn to have pride in themselves and they look outside, to others, for validation and praise all their lives. That part, by itself, might be true, but I don't think their solution is better. All I know is that as a child, my parents would tell me positive things about myself and I was confident. However, at school, my teachers must have read this book or subscribed to this book's theories. They never said to me or the other students "You're smart" or "You're good." If they praised me, they would do what this book suggests which is to say "You must be proud of yourself" or "Tell me about your accomplishment." The author argues that this instills self-confidence in the child. However, I remember most of the time when someone said to me "You must be proud of yourself" that I would wonder "Why aren't they saying 'Good job. You are smart?'" And then I over analyzed the situation and assumed that the educator didn't think I was smart but was trying to be polite and not hurt my feelings. So the lack of telling me that I was smart, made me think that they thought that I was *not* smart. And so I assumed that they were being polite instead of just saying "Big deal. Any moron could have accomplished that goal." It had the reverse effect.

Based on the great reviews here, I bought and read this book. It was good. It taught me some useful things, but there were some parts that I disagreed with. I took it with a grain of salt, and I used the things I found to be valuable and ignored the others.

The best thing that I took away from this book:
The author explains that it's important for children (well, anybody, really) to feel heard. So if a child wants something that you're going to deny, you should not just say "No." First, you should tell the child that you empathize and understand what they're wishing for. And then tell them that the answer is still no. It has helped calm my children down when I have showed them that I understand what they want, before I tell them why they still can't have it. For example, your kid wants to stay on a ride at the amusement park. You say "I understand that you're having fun and that you want to stay on the ride. But there are many kids in the line behind you waiting for their turn. It's not fair if you stay on this ride all day."

The thing I disagreed with the most:
The author says that the way you shouldn't tell a child "You're bad" you should also not tell a child "You're good" or "You're beautiful" or give them a label. Even if it's positive. His reasoning is that if you give them a label, then they don't learn to have pride in themselves and they look outside, to others, for validation and praise all their lives. That part, by itself, might be true, but I don't think their solution is better. All I know is that as a child, my parents would tell me positive things about myself and I was confident. However, at school, my teachers must have read this book or subscribed to this book's theories. They never said to me or the other students "You're smart" or "You're good." If they praised me, they would do what this book suggests which is to say "You must be proud of yourself" or "Tell me about your accomplishment." The author argues that this instills self-confidence in the child. However, I remember most of the time when someone said to me "You must be proud of yourself" that I would wonder "Why aren't they saying 'Good job. You are smart?'" And then I over analyzed the situation and assumed that the educator didn't think I was smart but was trying to be polite and not hurt my feelings. So the lack of telling me that I was smart, made me think that they thought that I was *not* smart. And so I assumed that they were being polite instead of just saying "Big deal. Any moron could have accomplished that goal." It had the reverse effect.

H.Ginott was a teacher and psychologist and had a lot of experience with children -no doubts about that- and he was quite explicit when describing parents in general as unqualified, common people are seen as just not ready for this task. Parents do need guidelines and rules, they need to learn, the book is a long list of what they should do and what they should never do... And it's not small tactical advice he is giving - but when considering the interactions of parents and child, I think his recommendations are much too little and much too much.

First - OK, nothing wrong with good advice - but his advices are so general and obvious like good intentions happen to be. For instance:
* acknowledge and respect the feelings of your child, criticize the behavior or the problematic situation, but not the child
* don't behave in a way that you don't want the child to imitate, don't use words you don't want the child to say
*allow children to learn deciding and choosing
* and an overwhelming part of the book informs us that it is better not to get angry, upset, polemical, impatient, sarcastic, bitter, don't lecture, don't threaten, don't bribe ... Don't ask "why do you always..?", avoid the "if..then -fallacy" and stay constructive, positive, helpful, considerate, polite, respectful, and so on.
Obvious, who could contradict that today ? Those advices for more self-control remind me the wisdom of recommendations like the one that you shouldn't show your fear to dogs because this would rather make them bite you. There are certainly some useful recommendations listed in the book but many of them could be replaced by just saying "love your children!". I can't imagine HG's advices to have any solid impact on parental behavior.

And HG's advice is also "too much": to achieve the goal, parents have to repress and overcome their spontaneous feelings and responses, they do need training and skills. Not just in a few extreme cases but parents in general are unqualified, some seem not to have 24h of free time per day and some may want to sleep occasionally, they get impatient, bored when asked the same question again. For HG the authenticity of the parental behavior isn't relevant at all, the parents have to change their way of acting, their way of asking and of not asking, of talking, deciding. And while HG is repeating that parents shouldn't criticize or blame the child but always be subtle, positive and constructive and of course never humiliate - HG himself doesn't talk like that about parents - they are described as incompetent, often too emotional, and their real/spontaneous emotions do not matter at all. I guess that "should" and "should not" is written a few hundred times in this book.

And so we come to HG's fairy tales: again and again we get some little exemplary story describing a certain problem, where the parents say this or that to their child, they might be upset, sometimes rude, ironic, they might be lecturing and then we get descriptions of the terrible and counterproductive consequences of their spontaneous but incompetent interventions. And then -again and again- comes the counterexample, this time the wonder medicine has been taken, the parents did read the book or visited courses, now they speak friendly, do respect the emotions of the child, they do not ask Why-questions and so -abracadabra- the rabbit comes out of the magicians hat, it all gets fine, the problem is solved or appeased. This are not just exaggerations or didactical over-simplifications, this is just ridiculous. Those little examples do not describe real human beings and if you are a parent, it will make you laugh loud.

An example:
"Mother: The yard was so dirty, I didn't believe it could be cleaned up in one day.
Julie: I did it !
Mother: It was full of leaves and garbage and things.
Julie: I cleaned it all up.
Mother: You put in a lot of effort!
Julie: Yeah, I sure did.
Mother: The yard is so clean now; it's a pleasure to look at it.
Julie: Its nice.
Mother: Your beaming face tells me how proud you are. Thank you, dear.
Julie: (with a mile-wide smile): You're welcome.
...
In contrast, the following words of praise addressed to the child's personality are unhelpful:
"You are such a wonderful daughter", "You are truly Mother's little helper" , "What would Mother do without you?"
Such comments may threaten a child and cause her anxiety. She may feel that she is far from being wonderful and that she is unable to live up to this label... She may decide to lessen her burden by a confession of misbehavior....She may not only reject the praise but may have second thoughts about those who have praised her: If they find me so great, they cannot be so smart..."

Come on...
Or another warning:

"To children, threats are invitations to repeat a forbidden act. When a child is told "If you do it once more" he does not hear the words "if you". He hears only "do it once more". Sometimes he interprets it as Mom expects me to do it once more, or she'll be disappointed."

And there is more like that...
I do not want to state here that only parents are qualified to talk about parent-child relations, not at all. But while reading HG's book with all respect and sympathy for his professional wisdom, I couldn't avoid the impression that he has never been in the trenches of parenthood. He was teacher, psychologist, adviser - interactions for an hour or two, maybe weekly, professional encounters. I don't know if he had children and I might be wrong, maybe he had a few, but when reading this book I have the impression that he didn't. Many of the smart right answers he lists do work or do look nice only the first time they get used - but the interaction of parents with their kids is a dance for ~18 years, the same moves are repeated again and again, and parents play with/against an intelligent player with his own strategies.
And there is so much missing in this book, all about the ambivalence of parental authority or responsibility, the getting angry, the being worried, the experience of having a child which will ..spread out his wings and fly away... Of course there are troubles and anger, but I will myself once miss those moments of in-fight which are just a part of life. Conflict isn't a disease, kids are skilled to wait for the right moment when they see a reduced defense -for instance parents on the phone- and raise the crucial question again for the xth time. To get upset, annoyed, tired is nothing wrong, it's not done because the parents didn't know that they should stay calm. Somehow, when reading those exemplary stories, I just felt that the essential is missing: the loving and wanting to be loved. Being a parent is a non-stop activity, and there are certainly unhappy families and extreme cases but I wouldn't propose to substitute the sometimes ambiguous parental love by psychological professionalism. It would have been simpler to just say "Talk more and listen more to your kids".

And the impact of such good advice ? As we do know, very few people change for instance their way of eating after reading a book. This is such a complex topic, to be a parent is the funniest and most interesting activity I could ever imagine, and it is not pleasant to read how this gets reduced in this book. The idea of parents having permanently to control their emotions and behavior - even if we assume it to be possible - what a strange family life would this be ?
What a shallow book... Love is almost completely missing. Doesn't seem like a way to happiness for the kids.

This book came highly recommended as a parenting tool. I bought it as a gift for my daughter, husband and two small sons. My hope is that they are reading it together as they attend parenting classes for family unity.

This book is extremely outdated. I didn't realize it was so old when I ordered it. If you'd like advice on how to be a good 1950's housewife to a misogynist, then this is the book for you. For instance, from the book: "Father deserves a chance to relax when he comes home. Mother should meet him with a drink at the door and then give him time to relax before allowing the children to talk to him or bothering him with her petty problems." I didn't even put this book in my resale box. I put it into the trash, which is close to sacrilege for me and is reserved for only the very worst of books.

I raised my children using the advice in this book. The most meaningful lesson was to criticize the behavior, not the child. No name calling. Never demean. Using anger as a means to punish isn't useful. Also, praise the behavior when appropriate, too. My "kids" are 45, 47 and 49. They seem to be doing just fine plus no teenage meltdowns. I noticed someone was offended because of the gender issues. I didn't get that at all.

The famous professor of psychology, Dr John Gottman scientifically tested Dr Ginott's theories on children and found them to be exceptionally effective, compared to other methods.

From my own experience, it is tough learning this approach, as it's like learning a new language, but the response from your children is incredible. You will have many 'wow' moments when you follow his advice. I would also recommend people reading all of the books related to Dr Ginott to learn more about 'congruent communication'. These books are 'how to talk, so kids listen and listen, so kids talk', 'Liberated Parents, liberated children' and 'Siblings without rivalry' by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish (who attended Dr Ginott's parenting course for years). There are also books from Ginott and Faber/Mazlish about teenagers and ones written especially for teachers/kid's learning environments.

This book, to me, is the most important parenting book I've ever read. I re-read it time and time again. If you are not sure about purchasing this book, I'd recommend you go to betweenparentandchild.com and watch the video clips of Dr Ginott, to see what kind of a person he was. I think he was warm, funny, intelligent and compassionate and if this is the approach you want to take towards your children, I would recommend this book.

And finally, the most important thing I took from this book is, 'love is not enough'. Parents and carers need skills in order to treat their children kindly and with compassion. Dr Ginott, created this approach to help parents raise children who were compassionate and caring, because it's not worth being a good upstanding, successful member of society if you lack compassion. This is because Dr Ginott cared that the holocaust is never repeated.

One last thing - buy the updated version, as the old version is not as good.

While this book was originally written a number of years ago, the concepts are time-tested and true to anyone looking to foster the best possible environment for their child. Ginot talks a lot about his experience with children (as a child psychiatrist) and is very effective in relaying how a child thinks, feels and behaves in response to our words, actions and inaction.
The book makes logical sense in how not only children, but some adults perceive the world around them. I currently have two year old twin boys and I have incorporated some of Dr. Ginot's recommendations and I am AMAZED at the difference it has made in the response of my boys. For example, if a child is doing something they are not suppossed to, like hitting a glass table with a plastic golf club (this is a true example), instead of just saying "Paul, do not hit the glass table with your golf club," you say, "Paul, we may not hit the table with the golf club but you can hit the ground or your golf ball with the club," the child responds differently because he knows the acceptable as well as the unacceptable, which defines the boundaries for him. In my case, Paul continued to hit the table when I failed to define the boundaries for him but when I relayed the message to him in a way that defined boundaries, he stopped hitting the table (and has not to thie day - 6 weeks later, whereas it was a 2-3 times a week occurance).
I have read at least a dozen other "child raising" books and if I had to narrow it down to one, this would be it...by a long shot!

This book is a wonderful addition to any parents' library. I am a child psychiatrist who recommends it frequently to parents. It clearly discusses how important language is in our relationship with our children without being judgmental or preachy. It clearly outlines verbal patterns that many parents get into and helpful strategies to get out of those patterns. The premise is simple --- we need to listen more. However, if you are someone who recognizes this is easier said than done, I recommend reading this book. I get hundreds of books out of the library; there are few that I ultimately purchase. This was one of those few.

I came from an extremely abusive home and was too afraid to have children - afraid that I would be a statistic and abuse my own children. A very dear friend gave me this book and coupled with great counseling, I gradually rose above my fears and raised three successful and happy children. I read this book from cover to cover - I had to totally learn a new way of thinking, responding, and feeling. I read it often to keep it fresh in my mind and heart. I broke the abuse chain - I am proud of this. This book gave me the tools to do it! This book gave me the inspiration and guidance needed to be the mother I wanted to be. The reason I wrote this review today, is that my 25 yr old daughter wants to buy this book before she has children - she remembered me talking about it, reading it, and singing it's praises as I raised her. I can't give you a better review than three happy well adjusted young adults and one very happy and content Mom. This book changed all of our lives. Good luck and good parenting, Deb

you can really tell this book is from the seventies or sixties or whatever. its been a while since ive started reading it, therefore i dont remember exact phrases, but it has advice on not saying this or that to your child, and the examples are pretty extreme insults, something no one would say to their kids nowadays anyway. its like saying dont hit your children, when no one in their right minds does that anyway. it might have been new and valuable information 35 years ago, but its not anymore today.

There are only three or four books that changed my life for the better and this is one of them. Recommended to me by the guy who owns the website successinbusinessandlife.org
I'm grateful for the recommendation.

I suddenly realized one day that much of the time I was talking to my three young children (the people I care the most about) in a way that I wouldn't speak to my worst enemy...yelling, threatening, constantly nagging and searching for stricter punishments to help change their behavior...none of which seemed to be working the majority of the time. I really wanted some guidance to help me change my discipline approach. This book was highly recommended to me by my mother who used the principles on me and my sisters as well as in her classroom and I finally decided to take a look at it, especially since it has been recently updated and revised. This book has changed my life. I see why Ginott's book is a true classic...It makes so much sense and has taught me a way of communicating respectfully with my children without becoming a wimpy parent. One of the keys to this philosophy is that it is permissive with feelings but not with misbehavior. I am getting more cooperation from my children without resorting to fear, guilt or spanking. I have learned how helpful it is to acknowledge a child's feelings along with giving clear limits and boundaries. As an added bonus...I have noticed that the insight and skills in this book have helped me communicate and solve problems more successfully with my husband as well as with my boss. I am really feeling good about the positive changes. If you have preschoolers, I also highly recommend an A-Z companion to this book, callled "The Pocket Parent." Ginott is quoted several times and the book is based on the very same philosophy while addressing most of the troublesome behaviors parents face daily with 2-5 year olds. Both books are filled with practical commonsense techniques that we sometimes forget are options as parents.