Get Your Child to Listen: A Clear-Cut Way To Feel Heard
To get your child to listen the first time, you must help him develop the habit to pay attention to whatever you are saying. How you talk to your child is part of cultivating this habit.
When threats, promises, and pleading do not work any longer, yelling is what parents often feel they have to resort to.
Particularly when there is no time, behaviors are out of bounds. Big power struggles cause parents to see yelling as the only way to get a child to listen to them.
Table of Contents
Yelling Makes Kids Behaviors Worse
Stop yelling.
Parents may find yelling to be an effective option in the short term, but it creates more problems. It makes the pattern of communication to be dysfunctional. Studies have revealed that it can cause more damaging consequences on the child even compared to physical punishment.
A child with verbally aggressive parents may have lower self-esteem, extreme aggressiveness, and a higher risk of becoming depressed.
Avoid name-calling or yelling as a child can feel shameful and angry but less understanding.
Kids learn by effective communication, and by seeing what you and others around you do.
Modeling the Behavior
If you want your children to eat healthily, they need to see you prioritizing your health and eating healthy. Even my five-year-old is more likely to eat her vegetables when she sees mommy eating hers.
Model the desired behavior, if you want your kids to pick up their toys, show them how to pick them up and specifically where to put them.
Even young kids can understand way more than you know, so show them and explain to them the specific expectations for them. This is a very effective way to get your child to listen to you with less of a fight when they see your success or that they are not alone in trying this.
If Your Child Has a Hard Time Focusing
Some children may have a hard time focusing or remembering what they were told. To help you from having to repeat yourself for the 1000th time
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How to Deal with Toddler Tantrums
It’s normal for toddlers to throw temper tantrums so keep that in mind and choose your battles wisely.
Be patient and stay calm, let them express themselves, and encourage them to use their words if they are able to speak. Validate why they feel the way they do (sad, angry, frustrated) and tell them what good behavior looks like.
Do not react to their tantrum, be patient, and help them feel less angry or anxious. They could be experiencing anxiety and they may have no idea how to deal with it.
If your toddler will let you hold them, then hold them. Direct them towards what they can do and encourage them to express their feelings in a more effective way than hitting or hurting themselves or someone else.
How to Get Your Child to Listen without Yelling
To avoid the above-mentioned adverse effects of yelling, the parents should adopt the following measures:
1. MAKE SURE Your Child Actually Hears You
For a younger child, get on your knees and try to maintain eye contact while talking to him. Friendly physical contact can help them feel safe and calm as well.
Make sure you are very calm when speaking to them, as children as young as 6 months old can detect if you are
2. Your Child Isn’t Just Ignoring You
A young child does not notice what is happening around him. As he easily gets distracted when involved in physical activity such as gaming, playing, or reading.
Parents, in this situation, do your best to give a benefit of the doubt to your child.
3. Call Their Name Until You Know They Are Listening. They either respond by looking at you or responding to your call.
Children are also very curious and especially at toddler age, they may just be focused on exploring and are not being “naughty”.
4. Realize That Your Child May Not Be Paying Attention For a Reason.
Contrariwise, the child may “test” his parents to see what happens if he ignores them.
This is a normal part of a child’s development and a piece of important information for him.
Parents should consider that they might have involuntarily taught the child that they can be ignored. However, just the response that they have been given communicates this to them.
How to Get Your Child to Listen in School
Making a child listen in school is a crucial aspect of his learning in the class. Paying less or no attention in the class can be troublesome for the children, parents, and school teachers.
The most effective way to make your child realize that classroom listening is important is to model that education is a priority. Getting involved with school activities is a great way to do this!
Modeling is an effective way to get your children to do what you want them to do. For example, if you want them to eat their vegetables, make sure you eat those vegetables in front of them.
Visual examples are very helpful to help a child better understand!
Parental involvement will demonstrate the child that education is an important aspect of life and it should be taken seriously.
Parents can help them by helping them with their homework, getting involved in physical activities. Playing games with educational themes such as puzzle-solving, mathematics problems, word games, and talking about their day at school.
Making a child realize that his education is of prime importance for you will make them more likely to listen in the class more attentively.
Ask your kids what they are looking forward to for the next day at bedtime and help them get motivated for something they will be doing the next day.
Positive Reinforcement in the Classroom
When parents make the child realize the importance of anything in his life, it is a good idea to reward the child when he shows improvement in a task given to him. This is known as positive reinforcement.
Giving positive reinforcement to the child over their successor achievements will enable the child to demonstrate positive behavior.
This will let them put more effort into a task given to them and show positive behavior repeatedly.
Positive reinforcement in school from teachers can help students become active listeners.
Whenever a child shows a positive behavior expected from them, the teacher should praise them. If done in front of the whole class it will increase their self-esteem!
When they feel appreciated, understood, and valued that is how you can get your child to listen the first time. They feel respected, just like you feel respected and everybody wins!
This is a great form of positive reinforcement in the classroom.
If a child demonstrates the desired behavior he must be praised and be rewarded for it. It helps the child to demonstrate the required positive behavior repeatedly.
Positive and Negative Reinforcement
The difference between positive and negative reinforcement is that positive reinforcements increase behavior and negative decrease the behavior.
Positive Reinforcement-a reinforcement follows the behavior increasing the occurrence of that behavior.
Negative Reinforcement- a reinforcement follows the behavior decreasing the occurrence of that behavior.
Positive reinforcement from parents and teachers can encourage the child to be more confident and to listen better.
Positive reinforcement makes that child do what is right and get distracted from what he is doing wrong. It provides support to the positive behaviors of the child, incorporates more enthusiasm, and encourages the child to do what is taught to him.
Positive reinforcement includes rewards and verbally praising the deeds of the child. By praising the child, the parents show their child how to talk and think optimistically about their behaviors and about themselves as well. It helps your child to learn to identify and distinguish between their good and bad behaviors.
Negative reinforcement example: a toy is taken from a child when they hit another child with it.
Rewarding Your Child
Reward your child for listening in order to positively reinforce that behavior.
Telling them that they have done well results in increased active listening.
This can be in the form of a surprise, a treat, or an additional privilege. Such as, for showing good active listening skills you can make your child choose what he wants for dinner.
Verbally praising the child for his efforts can give him encouragement. When a child demonstrates active listening skills you can say to him that you have done a great job. This will encourage him to do more better in the future.
Your body language and tone of voice can make our children feel more rewarded, especially if they are younger.
Following are some more tips to praise and reward the child when he has done a great job listening:
When you feel that your child has done a great job listening, tell him. Try to encourage him on daily basis. Small things said by the parents can affect the child positively.
Try to adopt nonverbal ways to encourage or praise your child. A high five, thumbs up, or a smile can be powerful for your child to show him that you are impressed by his efforts.
How to Get Your Child to Focus
Attention problems in your child might be a short-term or long-term challenge for you. Either way, it creates difficulties for them in their everyday lives, especially in learning.
There are a few strategies that can help you to solve attention problems.
It becomes hard for the child to focus on a task if the task is delayed for a longer period.
It does not necessarily imply that the child should be doing everything at the same time.
Break chores into chunks to make it easier for the child.
Like instead of telling them to “clean their room” tell them what to clean specifically. Like “make your bed”, “pick up these toys here”.
It is important to not overload your child with multiple things at a time. Keep it simple, especially the younger they are simplifying it as much as you can.
Figure out how long your child can focus use this as a guide and set a time limit for studying.
Make sure to give them frequent breaks to play or to have a quick snack. The time limit to study can be increased gradually if your child focuses better.
Getting your child to exercise can help them focus when they get out their excess energy.
Figure out if your child focuses better in silence or calming music. Your child may want to listen to music while doing his homework.
What if you as an adult have a hard time focusing? You could have anxiety or ADHD just like your children.
Conclusion
Listening is crucial for any individual, especially for young children. In their earlier stages of life, the children are vulnerable to learning new behaviors easily.
Remember if a child is not listening to you, yelling at them does not help long-term.
Get involved with their activities, such as helping them with their homework, playing games, or attending a function at his school. If the child shows the desired results, they must be given positive reinforcement.
Positive reinforcement can be in the form of words such as saying “well done ” when your child accomplishes a task or by giving them a reward.
Attention problems in children can also be decreased by understanding their preferences and providing them with their desired environment.
However, the supplements I mentioned above can help your child focus and learn better. In case you missed them here are the Omega 3 Focus Kid’s supplement and Magnesium Calm Gummies.
I hope by now you have a better understanding on how to get your child to learn the first time, without yelling.
References:
Deacon, G., Kettle, C., Hayes, D., Dennis, C., & Tucci, J. (2017). Omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and the treatment of depression. Critical reviews in food science and nutrition, 57(1), 212–223. https://doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2013.876959
Glade, M. J., & Smith, K. (2015). Phosphatidylserine and the human brain. Nutrition (Burbank, Los Angeles County, Calif.), 31(6), 781–786. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nut.2014.10.01
Originally posted 2020-10-28 05:14:26.
Megan Santiago
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