Selective Listening?

[Sonnie Bee]

"Please pick up your toys." - doesn't hear that.

"Please put your clothes on." - doesn't hear that.

"Please turn off the television and come for lunch." - doesn't hear that.

"Don't climb on the monkeybars, they're too high." - doesn't hear that.

"Okay, NO ice cream for dessert." - he HEARS that!

my four year old son suffers from a terrible case of selective listening. basically, he hears what he chooses to hear, as it suits him.

i have given him a lot of independence in the past year, allowing him to do certain tasks on his own, which he does very, very well. Things like making his own bed, choosing his own clothes and getting dressed, picking up his room by himself, and even getting his own drink and fruit/veggie snacks from the fridge.

the trouble is, when he is asked to do something specific, like pick up his toys, etc, it becomes a full on battle of wits, often leading to discipline or the taking-away-of-the-tv-or-favorite-toy.

yesterday, for the very first time in my parenting, i actually raised my voice to a "scream." i never scream or yell at my kids, but it got to a point where his "selective" listening was so selective, that nothing i said was getting through.

it's becoming a big problem. so much so, that it's been reported to us by his teacher at pre-school. "he's always the last one ready to go outside because he doddles around while the other kids are getting ready."

Anyone else experience this kind of behavior? What can be done? I give options, I give second chances, I even offer my help as long as he can show me that HE can begin ("put some toys away and I will come help you.")

He's an extremely good and loving boy. he's got a ton of energy and he loves to play and laugh and goof around. but this is a problem i am having trouble with.

any thoughts or advice would be cherished!!! thanks!

[Don-Dad]

I feel your pain. My oldest now 5.5 years was just about the same way. In preschool he was not too bad but he was a little pushy at times.

We decided to send him to kindergarden even though he was very close to the cut off age, he was still 4 when the school year started and it's all day kindergarden. His first 2 months at kindergarden were rough, sent tot the principles office twice. A few calls home. But then he turned around, and was even student of the month last month. Lately his behavior has been going down hill but not as bad as last year.

I am not sure what advice I can offer. I hate raising my voice but I seem to do that more lately. Have you tried to get hard core, like tell him if he's bad he will lose his toys. Take a favorite toy away, or no TV. Then the next step, strip the room, I did that, took everything out except for some books and the more educational stuff, paper, crayons. Then make him earn the stuff back. That helped us some, not a total behavior modification but a step in the right direction.

Sometimes its just that age, a maturity thing. You might have a few hard months ahead but there is light at the end of the tunnel :)

[tt3]

I've got some ideas, but they are pretty unformed yet, since Tara is only 2.5

Stop asking. If its something that I don't really care one way or another, I'll ask her. If its something that she needs to do, I tell her. Like the toys and stuff, thats one to ask, the monkey bars though, that is tell. Tone lowers, I get quiet and I tell her.
Thats where it gets fun :roll: If its a safety issue and she doesn't listen, I usually remove her or the problem, whichever is easier.

Heres one I read for the other stuff that I thought was pretty neat. The toys thing, "Please pick up your toys." and you get nothing, drop it until he wants something. "Yes you can have blah, but first pick up your toys like I asked."
Apparently the reasoning is he'll start to realize there are fewer obstacles to what he wants if he acts first. (Oh, he hears ya, just chooses to not do what you are asking.)

Best I can offer, sorry, I'm not there yet, but that is one of my biggest chafes, peeves whatever so I'm interested in seeing what others write too!

edit: once again, Don strikes first! :lol:

[dabrewinguy]

Ugh, I hate the battle of picking up toys. Here's what I did once that worked pretty good. I told her to clean up her stuff...no reaction, I told her again...no reaction...dad doesn't say a word, but goes into the basement, brings up a huge box and starts throwing her toys into it. She comes in and asks what I'm doing and I reply, if you aren't going to take care of your toys, I'm going to send them to a kid who will. Well that changed her mind quick because she saw some of her favorite stuff already in the box. The only flaw in this little plan is that I wasn't willing to follow through and actually get rid of her stuff if she chose to still ignore me, so eventually it lost it's effectiveness, but for a while it DID work, and maybe that's all your kids needs to get him to listen more.

[Jackson's Dad]

I agree with the tell-don't-ask idea. But never raise your voice - it signals that you lost control, and that they didn't. Likewise, instead of threatening with a big consequence, make sure he understands what you are asking. How about this: tell him to do something in a normal voice. If no reaction, lower you voice (no yelling) and in a "parent voice" tell him again. If no reaction, stop what ever you are doing, and (gently) make him do it. Don't lose you anger, just let him know that you will not stop telling him to do it until he does it. Then as soon as he does it, switch to your happy voice and congratulate this.

Take this with a few grains of salt. Our kid is just a year old, so I am taking this from a combination of my dog training and Supernanny. :wink:

[tt3]

Parent voice = Command voice
:lol:

[Chef Dave hi-spd]

our problem is that we ask her to do somthing and she says ok but first let me finish whatever shes doing at the time. My wife says that I need to work on what she calls an ALFA command. It's a direct command instead of "maddy will you pick up your room" it should be " maddy I want you to pick up your room now" that way there is no room for her to lollygag around and forget and then I get frustrated. Maddies 8 and she has pretty much found her boundries. We made them very clear early on. We do allow plenty of leway inbetween those boundries. oh ya there was on thing that I just though of. When maddy was younger we used the count to three method. If she was not doing what we needed her to and wasn't listening or whatever we would start counting on our fingers one, two and then say something like if I get to three there will be ( some kind of consequence ) and the hardest part is sticking with it. Oh and the other hard part is cordinating with your spouse and don't let your child play you against one another. For us the 1,2,3 thing worked because she knew that if we started counting and we reached 3 then there was trouble.

hadn't thought of that for a few years now.
Thank's guy's for the memory. :D

[Sonnie Bee]

this is all some seriously great feedback... thank you for sharing!

much of these things i've tried with both good and not so good results. i think the best thing to hear is the "don't raise your voice because it signals that I'VE lost control..." i need to remember that!

also, the safety issue is an absolute. good point on that.

i've been using the 3-2-1-MAGIC method for over a year, and i have to say, it really works well with my son. i almost never get past 1 with him before he gives up. my daughter, though, hasn't caught on yet. she's still young and very spirited, so it'll take more time.

i don't want to even get into the whole Alpha thing. we have four people in our family, and each of us is an Alpha... two tauruses, a gemini, and a sagitarian. quite a combo!

yesterday, i took them to the Boston Children's Museum. it's a huge complex with more stuff to do than they could possibly do in one visit. despite a few incidents of running ahead, it was an awesome time. they both were very good listeners for the most part and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. i even got to try out my new digital camera! yay!

the only disruptive moments were literally as we were leaving. fatigue, hunger, and crabbiness took over and we had a minor meltdown. it was quickly worked through and happiness ensued.

hey, thank you for the feedback. i'll reply to this thread again with updates should they arise.

[Jackson's Dad]

Parent voice = Command voice
:lol:

I think that the dog training classes I took gave me some good basic preparation for the kids. Yes, I know, kids aren't dogs. But what the classes did was train me how to express myself more clearly to someone who doesn't or can't understand you all that well.

One of the first things I learned was how to do a commanding voice that wasn't an angry voice. When I started, my commands all sounded like I was pissed off. But anger is a lack of control, and dogs (and I bet kids) can smell it a mile away. After some work, I got the right tone: solid but calm. Then once the dog does what you asked, I needed to learn how to immediately switch into praise voice (happy, higher pitched). It's not natural feeling at first, but it works wonders to reinforce the message "yes, THAT's what I wanted you to do".

I try it on my neices and nephews as practice. :twisted:

[dabrewinguy]

I read somewhere once, that when it comes to "training" kids and pets, for those of us who never took a class, we should train our kids like we think we should train a dog, and train our dogs like we think we should train our kids.

Obviously not the method I used, cuz my dog eats at the table and the kids chase their tails. LOL

[Jackson's Dad]

And getting our son to stop scooting his behind on the floor has been a real chore. :wink:

[tt3]

to say nothing of the licking! :shock: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[jeffus]

I got a slightly used shock collar from my dog that I'm looking to unload. Remote controlled. Press the button and BOY it's a real attention-getter! :lol:

That's just setting #1. It goes up to 10. Kinda gives a new meaning to the "Don't make me count to 10" method. Doesn't it?

I'm pretty sure it works on people too....if, you're interested??? 8)

[tt3]

HELL YEAH!
Just for the humor of it! Did I ever tell you guys about the kennel I worked at where the bosslady checked the bark collars to make sure they still worked? Gawd it was hilarious, you could see her in the window (she was in the bathroom with the door open, facing the mirror) with a box of collars. Shed pick one up, put it against her neck and see her "BARK", shake her head, drop it and pick up the next one... "BARK" then she'd twitch her neck sOOper funny, nod her head and put that on in a different stack and move on to the next one! Mind you, this was all behind glass, so we couldn't hear her do it, just see her!
I had the pleasure of putting a training collar on my neck at my buddies (can you guess drinking was involved?) The first setting isn't so bad, but it gets pretty uncomfortable if you let your friend hold the remote! :lol:

[Don-Dad]

:lol:

Funny stuff!

[jeffus]

That sounds hilarious! :lol: Bark - ZAP! - Good pile. Bark - Nuttin - Bad Pile.

I admit I gave the thing a whirl myself. Just wanted to make sure it didn't hurt too bad before putting it into service...

[jeffus]

Reading. What's that? :rolleyes:

Sure, drop some names to make yourself feel important! :D

[jeffus]

BARK!

ZAP!

:D