Talking to Toddlers and Talking to Terrorists

In the last few years I've read a few thousand pages about negotiation. Massive corporate mergers. Post-conflict peace deals. CIA negotiations with Colombian cartels. Couples therapy manuals. Hostage-standoff case studies. I wanted to understand what actually moves people—what gets someone from dug-in and defensive to open and cooperative, across the full spectrum of human conflict.

The best negotiation book I found had a hand-drawn psychedelic yellow and green cover. It was published in 1980. It's about toddlers.

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, is still in print, still routinely described as life-changing by exhausted parents everywhere, and in my opinion the most practical communication book ever written. The authors had an intuitive genius for what actually works with the most irrational, amygdala-driven, impossible-to-reason-with creature on the planet, the human three-year-old.

A few years after reading it, I picked up Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, the former FBI lead hostage negotiator. Within a few chapters I had a strange sense of déjà vu. The techniques Voss used to talk armed, desperate people out of bank robberies and kidnappings were almost identical to what Faber and Mazlish recommended for getting a four-year-old to put on shoes.

I've been turning that over ever since. If the techniques are the same at both ends of the spectrum—the hostage standoff and the morning school run—what does that tell us about how human beings actually work?

Quite a lot, it turns out.

When the Amygdala Is Running the Show

Here's what's happening in the brain when someone becomes unreasonable.

A study placed undergrads in an fMRI machine and showed them emotionally charged images. Researchers watched in real time as blood flooded into the amygdala—the brain's alarm system—and drained out of the prefrontal cortex, where rational thinking, impulse control, and long-term planning live. The insular cortex, home of empathy and social intelligence, also went dim. The whole evolved, sophisticated outer brain essentially went offline.

This is what neuroscientists call an amygdala hijacking. And it's not just undergrads in scanners. It's your kid refusing to get dressed. It's the person across the negotiating table who just went rigid. It's anyone who has shifted from problem-solving mode into survival mode, where the only options feel like fight, flee, freeze, or—as I've started calling it—the fourth F, which is basically "F*** it, I give up."

When someone is in that state, logic doesn't land. Evidence doesn't help. Raising your voice makes everything worse. You can't argue or pressure or reason someone out of an amygdala hijacking, because the part of the brain that processes arguments and reasons has temporarily vacated the premises.

So what do you do?

Name It to Tame It

Here's the part of the fMRI study that stopped me cold. When the participants simply *named* the emotion they were experiencing—just said the word, "anger," "fear," "frustration"—blood rushed back into the prefrontal cortex. The outer brain came back online. The alarm quieted.

Just naming the emotion was enough to begin regulating it.

This is the neurological basis for what therapists call "name it to tame it," and what we tell kids when we say "use your words." It's why therapists reflect emotions back —"It sounds like you're feeling angry at your mother"—and why that reflection, annoying as it can seem in parody, genuinely works. Once a feeling has language attached to it, it loses some of its grip. The nervous system starts to settle.

Chris Voss calls this "labeling." Faber and Mazlish call it "acknowledging feelings." The brain science underneath both is the same: Naming the emotion is a prefrontal act that pulls blood away from the amygdala and restores access to the rational, relational brain.

This is also why validation is neurobiologically rewarding, not just socially pleasant. Being understood—really understood—activates the same brain regions as receiving praise. It feels good at a deep level, which means people open up, trust increases, and the conversation can actually go somewhere.

What This Looks Like in Practice

The technique is simple, though simple and easy aren't the same thing.

When someone is activated—whatever the stakes—your job is to name what's underneath the behavior, not respond to the behavior itself. And here's the important part: You're not agreeing with them. You're not validating the action or the demand. You're just acknowledging the emotional reality that's driving it.

Same scenario, three versions:

The school run:
Kid: "I hate school and I'm not going."

❌ "Too bad, you're going or no iPad for a year."
❌ "Fine, you don't have to go." (freeze/forget it)
✓ "It sounds like you're really dreading school today."

Not a magic bullet, but it moves the needle. You both start to settle. And now there's a conversation instead of a standoff.

The negotiating table:
Buyer, arms crossed, jaw tight: "That price is completely out of the question."

❌ "Well, that's what the market supports."
❌ Immediately offering a discount to relieve the tension.
✓ "It sounds like we're further apart than you were hoping we'd be."

The hostage phone:
A man who's just lost his job, his marriage, and his savings in a crypto crash is barricaded in a bank with eight people.

❌ "Sir, please put down the weapon."
✓ "It sounds like you're completely out of options and you're furious at the world right now. Am I getting that right?"

Notice that last phrase—*Am I getting that right?" In all three scenarios you're leaving room to be corrected. You're not declaring what they feel, you're offering it as a possibility. That's not just politeness; it's strategy. Being asked to correct you gives the other person a moment of agency and power in a situation where they feel they have none. And a person who feels empowered—even slightly—is less likely to do something impulsive and irreversible.

A Few Things that Backfire

"I know how you feel.* Don't say this. It almost always lands as condescending, and it removes the person's ability to correct you. Far better: "It sounds like you might be feeling...", or "I wonder if there's some frustration underneath this."

Jumping to solutions. The instinct when someone is upset is to fix it—offer advice, present options, solve the problem. Resist this until they feel understood. An unheard person cannot receive solutions. Their brain is not in receiving mode. Validate first; problem-solve second.

Matching their energy. If you escalate, they escalate. This is mirror neurons doing their job: We unconsciously attune to each other's nervous systems. The calmer you stay, the more you're pulling them toward regulation rather than deeper into alarm. Your nervous system is contagious. Use that.

The Deeper Point

What Faber and Mazlish understood intuitively in 1980, and what neuroscience has since confirmed, is that most conflict isn't really about the surface content. The child who won't go to school isn't primarily making a logical argument about educational policy. The hostage taker isn't primarily interested in the ransom. The buyer who went cold across the table isn't primarily responding to your price.

Underneath almost every entrenched position is an emotion —usually some version of fear or anger—and underneath the emotion is a need that isn't being met. Your job, before anything else, is to find that, name it, and let the other person feel that you've found it.

When they feel felt, the alarm starts to quiet. The rational brain comes back online. And now you're actually talking.

As negotiators put it: "If they're talking, they're not walking." And if their brain is regulated, they're not doing anything dangerous, impulsive, or stupid —whether that means taking the hostages, walking away from the deal, or melting down spectacularly in the cereal aisle.

The techniques are the same. The brain science is the same. The stakes are just a little different.

Try this: In your next tense conversation—with a kid, a colleague, a partner, whoever —resist the urge to respond to the words. Instead, take a breath and try to name what you think is underneath them. "It sounds like you're frustrated." "It seems like there might be some anxiety here." "I wonder if you're feeling like your concerns aren't being taken seriously." Say it tentatively, leave room to be wrong, and then just wait. See what happens.