How to Get Your Preschooler to Listen to You andRespect You
An article for Parents, Caregivers, and Teachers
As an
Early Childhood Educator
I have had many parents approach me andask this question: “How do you get my child to listen to you, they won’t do that for me, or, they don’t listen to me like that.”The answer is so simple. If you want to know the answer please read this article.
No means no
.
Now before you roll your eyes and say, “I’ve heard that before,I’ve tried it and it doesn’t work.” You need to read what I have tried andguarantee will work.I was a supply teacher for a while and would cover vacations and maternityleaves and sick days at a daycare. So I got tested really badly from children.Why wouldn’t I, I was a new teacher that wasn’t there everyday so they wantedto test me to see what they would get away with.One day in particular I had set out the teeter-totter for the children on theplayground (among other toys to play with). One of the daycare rules that thechildren know very well is that when they are on the teeter-totter with a friend,they are not supposed to jump off the teeter-totter while they have their friend onthe other end, up in the air. They know that their friend will end up slammingdown to the ground and could be injured.I observed this one young boy do it to one of his friends. So I reminded him thatwe weren’t supposed to do that. About 15 minutes later I saw him do it again.
What would you do?
A. Give him 2 more chances?B. Remove him from the teeter-totter and let him play somewhere else?C. Keep reminding him of the rules hoping he will stop?D. Ignore the situation; he’s just doing it for the attention. He will stop if I look theother way.E. None of the above.The answer is E. All the choices I gave are what I see being done so often withsome parents and also some day care providers I have worked with. If I haddone A-D, I was keeping the child in the air at high risk for getting a tooth
knocked out, or falling hard to ground and possibly biting his tongue or lipseverely. And as for letter B, I would be putting the other children at risk as thechild who jumped off the teeter-totter seemed to be in the mood to try and hurtsomeone.Not too mention he was deliberately disobeying a school rule that was knownwell and had been repeated to all children.What did I do? I immediately removed the child from the area by holding hishand and walking him to a chair set in a quiet area away from the other children.He was yelling and screaming that he didn’t want to go on time out. So I gotdown to eye level with him and calmly said, “You chose to go on time out.” Hethen yelled, “No I didn’t.” So I calmly said,” Yes, when you dropped your friendfrom the teeter-totter you were telling me that you wanted to go on time outbecause you know that we get time outs for breaking school rules, especiallywhen they can hurt our other friends.He didn’t like what I said very much so he got up from time out and started towalk away. So I directed him back to the chair. He got up again and walkedaway, so I again directed him back to the chair. He did this about 4-5 times.What did I do to show him I was in charge? I didn’t give up. In many situations,by the third or fourth time I’ve seen parents give up because they think it’shopeless. That’s exactly what the child wants you to think. They are testing youto see what they can get away with. So if you give up, they know exactly what todo next time, what buttons to push, and how long it will take before
you
give upand give in to what they want.Back to the situation. I calmly said to him, “I can do this all day if you want, butthen you will miss out on play time outside with your friends.” He didn’t like thatvery much so he just sat in the chair and yelled at me some more. He said hehated me and that he hated school.How do you feel when your child tells you they hate you when you disciplinethem by time-out or loss of privileges?Many parents take it to heart and think that their child really won’t love themanymore or have a grudge against them forever, or are harming them by makingthem so angry, and they cringe when they hear their child say such harsh wordsto them. The big thing to remember and the hardest thing to do is,
You are the adult, you make the rules to be followed, not broken. If they start tobreak the rules and get away with it, you are basically telling them not to listen to
you, and that they are the ones making the rules. Your rules don’t really matter if you don’t care about them.When the child said he hated me and school I immediately said, “But I love you,and the school wouldn’t be the same if you weren’t here.”I then asked him why he dropped his friend off the teeter-totter when he knewwhat the rules were. He just sat there and ignored me. So I asked him again.He again didn’t answer. So I said, “I guess you’re not ready to talk to me, youcan stay on time out until you’re ready to answer my question.”He just sat there and got angry all over again.
Notice
he just sat there
.
He did not try to get up again because of how Ihandled the situation mentioned earlier. He knew he was not in charge of beingable to get up when he wanted.When he had calmed down I went over and asked him again why he dropped hisfriend off the teeter-totter when he knew what the rules were. He again ignoredme. I didn’t bother asking a second time. This time I didn’t say anything further, I just walked away. He got all upset again so I left him to settle down.He finally said to me, I’m ready to talk now. But this time I said to him, “I’m notready now. I came up to talk to you twice and you ignored me. I will come backwhen I feel ready again.” He didn’t make much of a fuss this time. He just kindof crossed his arms and huffed and puffed.When I saw he was all calm again I went over and said, “Are you ready to getthis over with?” He said, “Yes.” As I was talking to him he was looking on theground and looking behind me and looking at the wall. So I said, “Please look atme when I am talking to you so I know you are paying attention.” He refused todo so. So I said, “I guess I will leave again and come back when you are readyto look at me when I talk.”He said, “No, I’m ready, I’m ready.”So I asked him, “Why did you jump off of the teeter-totter and let your friend fallto the ground?” He said, “Because it’s fun.” I replied, “It may
seem
fun but wouldit be fun if it happened to you?” He said,”No.” I explained again what thedangers of getting hurt by doing this were. He looked at me while I spoke to himand when I was done I asked him to repeat what the dangers were.He repeated them to me. I said to him, “We have these rules because we loveall of you and don’t want any of you to get hurt.” I then said he could go play withhis friends.
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How To Get Your Preschoolers To Listen To & Respect You!
A professional provides tips & ideas for having kids listen to you and respect you at home & in daycare settings.
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