Someone asked me recently whether there is any difference between teaching and parenting. After reading “How to talk so teens will listen and listen so teens will talk”, I realise that my training as a teacher has actually incurred detrimental effects on me at the home front.

For example, it is very intuitive for me to think about consequences and punishment when my students break rules. Teach them a lesson! the warning bells in my head wail. Stay back after school and write your reflection form!!! But as a parent, I’m encouraged to lay bare my feelings and expectations as well as offer choices so that my child can do his “emotional homework” and feel remorse. Totally different mindset, totally different rules of engagement.

It’s like I’m expected to be a chameleon.

Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish framed this book as a communications expert running a series of workshops for distressed parents and imparting actionable strategies through the struggles they face. The strategies are presented through cartoons in the form of negative examples and positive demonstrations, so I can compare them side by side and see how I can apply them. Each chapter ends with the parents trying out these strategies with their teenagers. I enjoyed reading about the broad range of problems and how the strategies de-escalated tension and facilitated the formation of a common ground. Since I read fast and forget easily, the quick reminders at the end of each chapter recap the strategies succinctly and will come in handy for me.

This book also affirms my parenting ways. It recommends “saying it in a word” - something I have already been doing. In December, I came to realise that I should use single words to communicate with my 2-year-old so that she could take reins of them effortlessly. I’m happy to report that she has since learnt how to say “Share”, “Please”, and “Finished!l like a pro. No mean feat because I speak Mandarin to her most of the time.

I do have some reservations about the techniques. I think they will work on teenagers who not only possess a certain degree of self-awareness, but also have the language skills to express their feelings. I don’t think that I’m being disparaging because I have been bombarded with a string of IDKs more often that I would have liked. Still, I don’t doubt that my non-responsive teenagers need exposure to these strategies because if I don’t force them to think and take responsibility for their actions, who else will?