Why Kids Don’t Listen & How to Shift the Dynamic
It’s incredibly frustrating to ask your child to do something and they flat out ignore you. It’s like you have the Charlie Brown “Whah-whah” voice and you don’t realize it. In your head you may think, “Now I have to MAKE them to this!” Your stress response gets turned on. Your child’s behavior feels like a threat and pretty soon you’re yelling.
Does that help? Unfortunately no. Yelling triggers a child’s fight, flight, freeze stress response, which cuts off access to the learning parts of their brain. So whatever it is that we want them to do differently? They can’t learn it when we yell.
So what is a parent to do?
Here, I’ll share some reasons why your kid may not be listening to you and what to do about it.
Let’s do a little exercise together. (Try this! It will help you take it in SO MUCH MORE).
I want to invite you to imagine yourself in the place of a child who has left her snack mess on the floor. Close your eyes and imagine that you are seven years old and are already onto some other play. For each statement I say, think about your response as a seven year-old child.
“Pick that up this instant. I don’t want that mess left here.”
Chances are, in the shoes of the kid, you felt some indignation and irritation. From the perspective of the child, we can see that ORDERS cause resentment. Children resist
being told what to do. The parent is cracking the whip and the child may want to “save face.”
Let’s try another common way of talking to kids. Again, imagine that you are seven years old, you left your mess, and are already onto some other play. How does this make you feel? What thoughts occur?
“If you don’t pick that up right now, I’m going to take away your screen time.”
When I’ve shared this in workshops, parents report feeling angry and a sense of unfairness. Is that how you perceived this?
This statement is obviously a THREAT and threatening causes the same kind of resistance in the child. They feel coerced and manipulated. In this case, the child is backed into a corner and will either resist or submit, but either way threatening causes resentment and makes the child less likely to voluntarily cooperate in the future.
One more time! Again, imagine that you are seven years old, you left your mess, and are already onto some other play.
This will be a common statement parents everywhere say. Check in with yourself: How does this make you feel? What thoughts occur?
“You know better than to leave such a mess on the floor.”
This is a BLAMING statement. In workshops, parents report feeling guilty and bad about themselves.
Blaming is a put-down. With this response, the parent is highlighting the mistake and implying that the child’s character is in question.
The child may feel guilty, unloved, and rejected. They feel the parent is being unfair and will often actively resist the parent’s message. To submit is to admit that the parent’s words are true.
HOW THIS AFFECTS KIDS
Can you see how these very typical responses can cause resentment? Perhaps you have been on the receiving end of some of these barriers and know how it feels.
In the Mindful Parenting Course, these are some of the 6 Barriers to Communication, and they do just that: put up a barrier, making your child less likely to want to listen to you.
Learning about these communication barriers can be an eye-opening experience. As you students start to learn them, they often start to hear them everywhere.
You’ll also start to hear them in yourself! That’s okay. Becoming aware of your own unskillful ways of communication is an essential step towards making a change. Becoming aware of your own use of the barriers is a win! Because you can’t change anything you are not aware of.
HOW TO SHIFT THE DYNAMIC
How do we shift the dynamic?
The first and most important thing to do is to slow your roll with any yelling. Yelling can be a very destructive barrier to your relationship with your child, building resentment.
I have two great resources to help you with yelling. First, check out this free blog post. Then, if you want more support, I have available the Stop Yelling Formula course.
Once you’ve calmed your reactivity, it’s time to practice some more skillful communication.
A great hack to get started with this is to ask yourself this question:
“How would I say this to MY FRIEND’S kid?”
That will help you move away from orders, threats, and blaming language. Write it on a sticky note and put it up around your home!
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