How to Get Kids to Listen
Is it a major thing to get your kids to listen to you? Do you say something to your child that gets completely ignored and you end up yelling just to be heard? And then you both feel bad, and it’s extremely upsetting.
It makes your job as a parent much more difficult when your kids don’t listen to you. It’s exhausting, really.
Children’s brains are constantly absorbing all sorts of things all around them, so you are competing with a lot of stimuli to get your child’s attention.
Most of the time they want to cooperate, but kids have priorities of their own. They are constantly exploring and their main priority is to play. They can get pretty wrapped up in their play to a point that they block out everything else.
How to Get Kids to Listen to You and Cooperate with You
You can’t make your kids listen to you without doing some damage to your relationship. But you can connect with them in a way that they will want to listen to you.
Brain research shows that people are more open to another person’s influence if they feel connected to them. The most effective way to engage cooperation with anyone is to first calmly connect and then make a request.
This is especially true for children. If your kids don’t feel connected to you, they will be resistant to your rules and guidance. I’ll share some suggestions on how to calmly connect and engage cooperation with your kids in another post. But I first want to point out something significant:
It’s hard to be calm when your kids don’t listen!
Why is this so hard?
Let’s be real. It’s not easy to show up as the calm, connected parent you want to be when you’ve got responsibilities, schedules, tons to do, and a lot to worry about.
There also might be something deeper going on….
We all want to be seen, heard and understood. These are core human needs. Most of us have had experiences as children or in significant relationships where we didn’t feel heard.
When you were a child, did you feel truly seen, heard and understood by your parents? Or were your thoughts and feelings mostly discounted or ignored?
I think this is one of the reasons why it feels so bad when our kids don’t listen to us. It can bring up this deep longing to be heard that was never really met.
When your child ignores you, it can trigger some deep unresolved feelings. And you want to try to solve it with threats or consequences.
But here’s the problem…
Threats, consequences and yelling actually lessens your influence and creates more power struggles.
In moments of yelling or threatening consequences, kids brains go into a stress response and the part of the brain that controls executive functioning shuts down. Then it becomes more difficult for them to see your point of view and want to listen and cooperate. They may cooperate out of fear of consequences, but would you rather your child be self-motivated to follow your guidance instead of doing what you say out of fear?
If your children feel like you don’t understand them and are trying to control them, they will be resentful – and that’s what leads to all the struggle. They’re not feeling understood and they don’t want to listen and cooperate. It’s vitally important to recognize this and create an ongoing safe space for your kids to feel heard and understood.
Connection is the only reason your kids willingly follow your rules. When you have an ongoing strong connected relationship with your kids, they actually want to cooperate, and they will listen to you.
A connected relationship with you – the most important person in their life – helps to develop your children’s emotional intelligence and the executive functioning in their brain.
When kids are emotionally intelligent, they are more sensitive to the cues of others and have the ability to see and feel something from another’s point of view.
Executive function is the ability to follow directions, prioritize, perform tasks and solve problems. All kids are on an ongoing path to develop executive functioning, and it may not be fully developed until age 25-30.
What kids need is an understanding parent who is calm, patient and can hold the emotional space for them so they can develop these abilities.
Connecting with your kids with understanding and empathy is the way you can truly influence and guide your kids and have a peaceful cooperative home. And quite honestly, it’s what makes parenting really worth it for you – to be able to feel that sweet deep connection with the ones you love so much.
