A Survival Guide to Life with Children Ages 2-7
By Joanna Faber and Julie King

“A Survival Guide to life with little children!”  Could this be true?

I am a mom of a lively 3 year old boy and a Resource Consultant (RC) who supports parents and Early Childhood Educators. I am thankful that I came across this book at our CISS resource library. Not only does it align with the practices used amongst our team of RC’s it also offers an abundance of fun, effective, concrete tools and tips that I couldn’t wait to begin implementing with my son and within my RC role. 

I felt like a fly on the wall while reading this book as I was privileged to follow along with a group of parents who met regularly at “How to Talk” workshops. Again and again they would regroup and discuss the experiences they had using these insightful methods.

Nearly every challenge is covered from hitting, refusing to get dressed, not tidying up, tattling, telling lies, food strikes, and much more. Joanna Faber and Julie King highlight the pit-falls of traditional discipline methods such as logical consequences, punishments and shaming. They offer alternative solutions such as accepting emotions, helping children make amends, providing information, and problem solving. These are just a few of the tools in the kit that will not only prevent challenging behaviours but help to shape children to become cooperative and caring beings.

My favourite technique for preventing meltdowns is something that comes naturally to me it’s HUMOUR and I must say getting out of the house with my son is much easier now that he gets to jam his “stinky feet” into his poor unsuspecting talking boots! Ha!

Find it in the CISS Resource Library here

Danielle LeCourt, RECE
Resource Consultant
Children’s Inclusion Support Services