It's a popular topic. How to get kids to listen without yelling? Like more
aggressive I guess. Like I know mom's not messing around. And we started out with
this great question about how many times does it take to get kids to listen
because we want them to listen the first time, right? So listen in. Did you have to
ask them a lot of times to get them to listen to you? Yes. But how many times on
average would you say? It was maybe 3 or 4 times .We would hit the button if
if you don't listen. You're going to regret it
basically. Oh, at least 3. 3 to 5. And then what's different
about the third or fifth time versus the first? I get like more aggressive I guess.
Like they know mom's not messing around. Obviously, we want them to listen the
first time. But that's not the common experience as you heard from some of our
viewers. What is it that makes the difference? As you were listening in to
some of these interviews, did you notice that when kids respond, it's because
parents are serious. They're at a point where they know, the kids know, that
something's going to happen now if I don't act. So the key here is not to get
angry, not to yell, not to be mad but simply to move the consequence up and
tie it directly to the communication that you just gave. So you're speaking
calmly in a loving voice right? Raise your eyebrows a little bit. Keep a smile
on your face as you say something that's going to happen and your prediction is
something that your kids can count on. What if you want your kids to clean up
the room the first time you ask? What if you want them to put their toys away and
come to the dinner table the first time you asked? What if you want them to get
out of bed and get ready for school the first time you ask? Well, you ask nicely
the first time and then the consequence happens
immediately. See our kids train us sometimes. In fact, that's another
interesting topic that we ought to take to our listeners. Let's listen in on this
one. Now, do you think that parents train their kids or do kids train their
parents? We trained our kids because the things that we did with them, they're what they're
doing with their children. We had a daughter that would say, "I don't care".
I'll say, "The next time you say that is another 10 minutes I did on." And she'd
look at me and say, "Is he kidding?" I don't think that's kidding. It's so
both. I mean kids are kind of in charge to certain extent I think but I mean
it's our job to guide them. So I think it's a give-and-take honestly. You learn
from each other. Remember, how many times do you want to ask your kids before they
respond? How about we get them to respond the first time? Yelling doesn't seem to
help, does it? We asked some of our listeners about
this too. Listen in. Do you ever think that yelling is a punishment or a
reinforcement? Yelling is a waste of time. We just spoke to them like human beings
and they responded. Yeah it was... shouting is no good. I tried not to yell but I feel
like sometimes you have to like be forceful to get them to know you're
serious so it happens. I try not to. No, doesn't get you anywhere. Did your
parents ever have to yell to get you to listen?
No. That's awesome. Yeah. So what was their secret because a lot of parents
have to yell? I think yelling like made us emotional. So
it like didn't work and so I think when they were more direct and more patient
with us, we were willing to do things more because we did out of like a better
spirit than if we were yelled at. It's pretty much unanimous folks. Yelling
doesn't seem to work and it's not something that we enjoy doing as a
parent. So as we replace that with a calm communication, that might lead us into
this next part though we got a particularly good response on, how to
communicate to your kids so that they clearly understand what it is that you
want. Listen to this one. How do your kids know what you're saying is important? I
make them look at me. That's like the main thing. Eye contact and what they want
to wonder like, "No, mom's talking to you. Look at me." And that's the main thing
or I get like down on their level but eye contact for sure. Well, when I would
ask them to clean their room or my son because he's just one, I would say, "Because
if you don't, I will. I'll go through everything. I like that. So yes,
it got cleaned. Don't you love her approach to this? It was very clear. It's
basically a choice. Do you want to clean the room yourself or would you rather
that I clean it for you? This particular mom had done this enough with her son
that he understood. As soon as she said the communication about cleaning the
room, he knew what was going to happen next because she probably had followed
through before. I'm guessing. And that sends a clear
message to kids about what to expect. So let me just add a few observations about
communicating so that kids know what to expect. First of all, what they expect is
what they have experienced. So what you say doesn't matter as much as what
you've done in the past and they probably won't believe you right up
front. If you say, "You know what? You can clean your room yourself or I'll come in
and clean it for you. Now, if they're used to having you just yell at them until
they clean their room, that's what they're going to expect to happen. But
we've just changed the rules on them. So instead of yelling, we're not going to do
that remember nobody likes that doesn't work anyway. Instead of the yelling, we're
going to follow through on what we said. This is a concept that I refer to as
turning your words from garbage into gold. So that you've just increased the
value of your communication. They know exactly what's going to happen because
you've just said what's going to happen and they trust your words. So you say it
calmly, "Son, you can clean your own room or I'll go clean it for you. Either way
is okay with me. And I like to have that last little part.
Remember, raise your eyebrows just a little bit. Kind of a lit to your
voice. No problem, right? Meaning, no problem for me, possible problem coming
up for you. But I trust you to do your thinking about that and you only say it
once because how many times do you want to say it before your kids respond? Once.
So you say it once and then you follow through with the consequence. When you've
done that, once, you've got a precedent now and the next time this comes up
because it will, won't it? Your kids are going to give you another chance to
practice this. The next time it comes up, as those words fall from your lips, your
children will see those as gold instead of garbage. Why? Because of their
experience. They've been there before and they will remember that. That's where the
learning will kick in for future experiences. We train our kids. Well, do we?
Who trains who? Our kids train us and we train our kids. We want to think that
we're the ones doing the training, right? Because I don't know, we've got some kind
of ego tied up in this as parents. Just be humble enough to realize and
recognize. Our kids are training us too and the way you handle your kids is
probably a reflection of what they've trained you to do. How they've trained
you to treat them. So if they don't listen to you until the twelfth time
they've basically trained you to say it 11 times before you get serious. Wow!
Knowing that might sting just a little bit but let that sting open up your mind
to the possibility that you are trainable as well.
Don't be so prideful to think that you're the only one who's training your
kids, your kids are training you too. Being aware of that puts us in a position of
choice and now we can respond differently to the training that's
already going on and probably create some different outcomes too. I'm so
honored to be on your parenting team. My wife and I have collaborated to put
together a positive parenting course where you get to learn more about how to
get your kids to listen without yelling and other important skills that we all
need as parents. Check it out in the description below.