Faber and Mazlish’s books are the ones that helped us most.
Small children are highly counter intuitive, and the “usual” way of dealing with them is not very good (what you see in movies, what people tell you to do, what you feel society commands you to do). Confronting a young child’s mind to an adult’s way of thinking can lead to serious clashes.
Faber and Mazlish have a practical approach that is neither too permissive nor punitive. They mostly give you tools that you can use in various situations, and that work really well.
Things like repeating what the child just said, or describing their emotions, or using positive reinforcement. It feels very weird when you do it the first time, but then seeing how it works is amazing. And then you’ll see that the best early-childhood professionals do these sort of things all the time.
