I'm at my wits end with my 3 1/2 year old lately. She does not listen at all. I will talk to her, have a serious conversation about xyz and immediately she will turn around, run away, and do xyz! My ears get so red and I just want to explode. I've tried everything and nothing works, how do you get your child to listen?
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We use increasing punishment when my 3.5 year old doesn't listen.
We start with timeouts. 99% of the time this works for us.
If this doesn't work after 2 attempts, we start taking away things - tablet watching rights, his toy cars etc.
We've never had to take it beyond that. -
What has helped us is trying not to be in any situation where i feel out of control. I.e. if the issue is that he is running away from me, he gets strapped in the stroller. If it is that he is being unsafe at the park, we go home. It is so tough tho! especially when your'e somewhere where you can't just leave.
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If the tv is on when this is happening, threatening to turn it off works 100% of the time. Otherwise all I can do is remove him from the situation completely either with a timeout or getting strapped into stroller/car and being nearby but ignoring him for a few minutes. It's the attention he really wants so I refuse to give in.
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I have come to realize that if I want my son to do something, I have to model the behaviour. I can talk until I am blue in the face, but things don't always click for him until he sees it in action.
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@LuLu Mom: Honestly? We started seeing a child psychologist because we were exactly where you were. We were SO tired of repeating and yelling - nothing was working. But seeing the psychologist made all the difference for us. He explained why she does the things she does and what we need to do to get through to her. It did take a lot of effort in the beginning, but we now have a much better handle - there is hardly ever any yelling from us to her.
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@LuLu Mom: @BabyBoecksMom: I just started seeing a therapist who specializes in parenting support, for this very reason. I was finding myself getting SO upset at him and nothing seems to work as far as consequences go. I'm hoping she can help me navigate it better.
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@bushelandapeck: I hope she'll help! I found one that specialized in kids with Autism (because that was a concern of ours) - I wanted to make sure it was an actual psychologist, not just a counselor.
You want to know what the biggest issues were for us?
1. We weren't consistent (Sometimes we were just too tired to keep being consistent and took the easy road of letting her have her way... which is a HUGE no-no)
2. We didn't project that we meant what we said We might have thought we meant what we said, but it wasn't until we were really angry that she could see it. Kids need black and white, not gray. I would find that I would try to explain my reasoning - that was over her head! She just needed to know where the boundary was and that there was no crossing it.
The best example I can think of is this: Our psychologist asked us "would you let your child go outside in the front yard without you?" My answer was (without hesitation) "absolutely not!". And *that* is how you have to be... with everything..... it's exhausting, but completely worth it when you get through the initial hump.
3. I parented with too much emotion. I still struggle with this. I would get caught up with either "oh I don't want her to not like me because I'm having to be strict" or I would be so enraged when she wouldn't listen. I had to learn to take my emotions out of it.It is NOT easy, but I will tell you that the changes we have seen are incredible.
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@BabyBoecksMom: this is really helpful-thanks! I definitely parent with a lot of emotion...DS is a very active, impulsive kid, so I feel like I am ALWAYS on edge, especially about his safety and the safety of his younger sister. I try really hard to keep my emotions in check, but I do lose my temper more than I would like to admit.
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