Hellobee Boards

I need tips too please. My threenager absolutely refuses to listen right now. He's having a hard time transitioning now that I'm returning to work from ~4months maternity leave with dd. Dd's transitioning fine though lol - fed, changed = happy. Haha.

It's not just you. Until he hit 5, LO was good about listening and following directions. It suddenly got a lot harder to get him to follow instructions/pay attention last year around 5.5 or so.

It mostly occurs when I'm asking him to do something that he doesn't want to do, like cleaning up or getting ready to leave, because he's doing something else. The only solution I've hit upon on that front is to give him more notice of the not-daily events and try to build the other stuff into a routine. That has been moderately effective. I think other times it's a bid for attention. When he suddenly starts behaving super childishly, I suspect its that he feels a little deprived (but he is definitely not!). Five and six seems like a stage where he wants and needs independence and will happily do his own thing for a long time, but when he wants attention, he still wants it immediately.

I will say that the recent spate of not listening feels different from the toddler/preschooler situations. It's less impulsive and harder to deal with because it often feels more like calculated resistance. For example, he'll tell me he can't do X now because he's reading or doing something else that he knows I generally consider productive.

We're just running into this at 3.5 years old. Sometimes counting from 5 works but not always. It usually ends with him losing toys/privileges and me fuming. Not a good situation!