How to get your child to listen

Sep 27

3 min read

It's 7:48 and shoes were due on feet at 7:45.

I have asked, in my calmest Montessori voice, for shoes to go on. I ask again, slightly less Montessori. By the fourth round I'm doing a very convincing impression of a ship's foghorn, and my child looks up from the Lego, genuinely wounded, and says, "You didn't have to yell."

I can tell you, it certainly felt like I had to yell... (yes, it happens to the best of us - I am not the Buddha yet.)

If this happens in your house too, welcome. Most of us reach for the same toolkit: we repeat ourselves, we turn up the volume, and when that fails we bring out the threats (no books at bedtime, and possibly no dessert until you're thirty).

Unfortunately, every time we do this, a child learns that the first request is optional, and that the real one comes later, louder, with a consequence attached. Children's brains are brilliant at spotting patterns, and without meaning to, we've trained ours to wait for round four.

Sometimes what looks like deliberately ignoring you isn’t actually a child thinking:

Excellent. Mum has asked me to put my shoes on. I shall now strategically refuse.

Their brain may simply not be ready to receive the instruction yet.

Children have developing attention and executive-function systems. They are much more easily absorbed by what is happening right now, and when their attention is elsewhere, a stream of repeated instructions can become background noise.

So if your current strategy is:

“Come on.”

“I SAID COME ON.”

“How many times do I have to tell you?”

“You NEVER listen.”

…you may actually be teaching their brain to tune out the way you communicate rather than teaching them to listen.

So here is what I do now, on my better days.

I call it The 3C Method.

Catch. Connect. Command.

1. CATCH their attention.

Stop throwing instructions into the air and hoping your child’s brain catches one.

Get close, say their name, get down to their level.

“I need your eyes.”

Or:

“Hey, buddy. Look at me for a second.”

You’re not demanding instant obedience - instead, you’re getting their attention system to switch from whatever I was doing to you.

2. CONNECT before you COMMAND.

This is where we ditch the phrases that have become the soundtrack of family life:

“How many times have I told you?”

“If I told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times.”

“Why aren't you listening?”

“You never listen to me.”

Those phrases don't give your child useful information about what to DO.

They communicate frustration, and frustration makes it harder for anyone - especially a small human with an immature nervous system - to calmly process what comes next.

Try:

“When you're ready, I have something to tell you.”

“This is important. I need your help.”

“I've got something for you to do.”

Short. Clear. No TED Talk.

3. COMMAND - after the pause.

And this is the part most parents skip.

Pause.

Three seconds. Actually let them turn toward you. Let their attention focus.

Then:

“Please put your shoes on.”

That's it.

Not:

“Please put your shoes on because we're already late and I've asked you five times and honestly I don't understand why this is so difficult and your sister is already waiting…”

Just:

“Please put your shoes on.”

The pause matters because attention isn't instantaneous.

Your child's brain has to disengage from what it was doing, orient toward you, hold the information in working memory, and then work out what to do with it.

That's a lot of brain work.

And when we skip the attention part and immediately pile on instructions, repetition and emotion, we're making that process harder.