Thursday, July 30, 2009

How do I get her to listen?

Seriously...Little E is 4 and just doesn't listen...we may as well be talking to a wall. She's been up for a half an hour and she's already in time out. Why? Because I told her it was time to eat her breakfast and she needed to stay in her chair. She got up within 2 minutes and I reminded her of where she was supposed to be. (ignore). I counted to 3 and she ran back to her chair just as I was about to say 3. 2 minutes later, she's out of her chair again. I started counting to 3 and she blatantly ignores me and then when I get up to send her to time out she screams "no, I will sit and eat." Sorry, it doesn't work that way. So, I send her up to her room. 3 seconds later she comes out "can I come down now?" I told her that she needed to finish her time out. 2 seconds later she's back out "I need to go potty." I told her she was going to have to go back in her room and finish her time out (and she already used the bathroom right before her time out, so she's just using it as a tactic to get out of time out). 2 seconds later I hear "I'm ready to listen, I'm coming downstairs." Um, child you are 4 and you are not going to tell me what you are going to do. I asked her if she's heard the timer go off and she says no. I told her to get back in her room, I was restarting the timer and once she heard it go off and I told her that she could come down, she could come down then. It's like this with her all day long and the behavioral doctor says she's probably a little ADD and she's confused and it's just going to come out in behaviors. I completely understand all that, but it just gets very frustrating and with the fact that it's constant and all day long makes for some very long days. Any suggestions on how to get her to actually listen?

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You know, my kids are far from where I would like them to be in the listening arena. There are some things that I know that I have seen that work with them...now if I could just be consistent about it!

Don't count UP count DOWN. In my opinion counting up One, twooooooooooooooo, threeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, gives the child delayed obedience, which is really disobedience...They must obey the first time. When my children see their ball running in the street, and run to get it and I yell "Stop" there is no time for counting up, reasoning, explaining, etc. They just have to STOP! That only happens by them learning that when Mommy says something, I better do it.

"_____, Please put away the trucks in the Bin." .......nothing...... "_______, when do you obey Mommy?"
"FIRST TIME!"
"Then do it, NOW!"
If they don't do it, I physically make them do it, by taking their hand and putting the stuff in the bin, encouraging and praising them with a cheerful voice all the time, whilst they are (sometimes) screaming.


By counting DOWN I mean :
Prepare them for the request. When I ask them to do something and I know they are busy I give them a two minute heads up. Two more minutes and then (fill in the blank) One more minute and then (fill in the blank) then I ask them..."Guess what time it is?"

The oldest is now allowed to ask,(because she does usually obey the first time) "May I have two more minutes before I do ______________" instead of, "But Mommeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee I want to play." Sometimes now I don't even do 'prep time' with her, because she feels like she has more control over the situation, and is more readily thankful for the extra time to play.

A prep tool you could use in the case-of-the-fleeing-breakfast-child:
"We are going to sit down and have breakfast." and then ask her "What are we going do?" ask questions until she gets it. "When do we get up from the table?" For my kids its. "Mommy, thank you for the nice meal." wait.wait.wait. take a drink, wipe your mouth, put your silverware on the plate. "May I please be excused." They cannot leave the table until I say, "you may be excused."

Now granted there are sometimes that they don't really have to obey me the first time and sometimes, not at all, and it doesn't really matter. In those cases I make it question-request. "Will you please throw this diaper in the trash?" If they say no, its okay. I asked them literally a yes or no question. But if I a say, "Please throw this diaper in the trash." They need to say, "Okay, Mommy!" and do it!

Before I even let my kids tell me no, or let them ask for an extra two minutes, they have to be able to demonstrate that they obey the first time. This is ongoing of course, one day they could be more willing to obey the first time more than another day. In that case, I loosen the reigns more and allow for so more control on their part, because they are showing obedience and HONORING ("Yes, Mommy! and doing the request cheerfully) When they are having a challenging morning by obeying the first time and whiny about things, I tighten the reigns so to speak. They have no right to ask me for two more minutes. I don't ask yes or no questions, I tell them. Privileges get taken away, timeouts and spankings (I know you can't spank) quicken, requests get denied, UNTIL the kid learns that they MUST obey me.

I mean this really hard to consistently implement, and some days I don't do it and slack. Those days are just teaching my kids that mommy doesn't really mean the first time. So we then have an uphill battle for the next couple of days. My thing is, if I can't implement it/follow up with consequence because I'm too tired, in the middle of a feeding the baby, in the shower, then I shouldn't tell 'em to do it.

-Stalker

7:11 AM  

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