3 yr olds and not listening

[megan sacha]

Perhaps I'm being too hard on my just turned 3 yr old but I really think he's old enough to expect him to listen to me. In fact, it seems that he did so more often when he was younger than he does now. Now he's all about dawdling or doing just the opposite of what you say. We so far have tried to parent without rewards or punishments and now that he's got this new behavior, I'm feeling challenged in that area. I do think there is a difference between punishments and natural consequences and I think I'm ok with consequences but don't want to go against my values in order to control his behavior either.

Here's an example: Tonight I told him he needed to have me "spot check" his teeth, after he brushed them. We do this every night and he's generally pretty uncooperative about it. Tonight I told him my arm was hurting and I really needed him to cooperate. I asked him several times and told him that we were running out of time to read the VERY LONG book he wanted to read. Then I told him we were out of time. I told him he had two minutes to let me do his spot check and if he wouldn't cooperate by then we wouldn't have time for a story at at all. All this time he totally ignored me like he hadn't even heard. This ignoring/deaf ears/talking to a brick wall drives me more crazy than the "disobedience". Finally I said 2 minutes had passed and we now had no time to read a story. He immediately came over, cooperated with his spot check, diaper change, pjs on, etc. He was just great until I turned off the lights and proceeded with the rest of his bedtime routine. Then he went ballistic saying that he NEEDED a story to help him fall asleep and began begging for it over and over. When he refused to stop asking for a story I told him I was leaving the room, not staying as long as I usually do. He just screamed about the book for 20 minutes.

Is he going to "get it" from experiences like this? I know they have a hard time with cause and effect and seeing the future, even when laid it out for them. Is this a good exercise in teaching him he needs to listen/respect me or am I just needlessly harming our relationship?

[meemee]

mama how is your parenting evolving?

are you changing too as he grows up?

so you seriously expect a 3 year old to listen to you?!!! sometimes YES!!! most of the times nope. that is natural. that is what 3 year olds are all about. in fact you might as well get ready from now on. this is the begining of separation as i call it. they are maturing and asking for more independence.

i dont think anyone truly ever listens to everyone. you may have had the urgency to do it then, but what about him?

i have a 7 1/2 year old right now who is going through the 'no one listens to me', i have no say in the family stage. to me it sounds like he would like to have more say. so i would say something like 'i am ready to check your teeth. please let me know when you are ready and i will check then. it has to be done before you go to bed so dont make it too late when you are really sleepy.'

but he has a history of uncooperation. and yet i gather you would be much more comfortable checking his teeth. is he doing a good job. can you check it once in a while? instead of everyday?

or give him more chances to have more say in teh family. at that age dd and i talked about dinner menus and she was in charge of remembering our friuit. i asked her opinion more and more (amazing how many times she has surprised me and i have gone with her logic). i have let her choose outfits for me, clean, do laundry.

i would really look at what i am doing and see if he can do it himself.

even today the only time i expect my dd to listen is when i use the words danger, stop and fire. there is no two ways about it. she has to respond immed.

you can always encourage him to do what you ask him to do, but dont expect it every single time. in fact dont expect him to listen even more so when YOU need him to listen.

also i NEVER expected my dd to listen or logically think anything through if she was hungry, tired or had no challenges that day. even today those things do stand and stop her from listening.

aaaaah congratulations mama i see you are expecting a new one in august.

and please ignore this now if you feel i am lecturing you. but if you are willing i would do all that he asks now while he is an onlie. soon his little sibling will be here and you wont get to have the same quality time you have now.

[snarky]

Megan, I would love to hear answers from others on this. I have the exact same problem you do, right down to running out of time at bedtime and denying story for stalling. The time she spends crying about the lost story equals the time I would have spent reading the story, so in the end I do not achieve my goal of having her asleep by X time.

We would have weeks where something like this would happen every night. The behaviour would go away, and then come back. Sometimes it would come back for one night, she would seem to "get it" the next night, bedtime behaviour would be fine for a week, and then it would recur.

We have talks in the morning after she cries at bedtime and she can talk about cause and effect. I talk to her as well in the bath before we transition to bed about expected behaviour. So she knows the behaviour, she doesn't like the crying either, but yet it persists.

I tried once instituting sticker charts in the AM for cooperative behaviour at bedtime. Sometimes this works, but sometimes this causes sticker negotiation at bedtime, which is not what I want to be doing. However the Hello Kitty stickers are very cute and they certainly cheer me up on the fridge door so I can't say it's a total failure.

Some days I get frustrated and leave the room at bedtime, telling her that I don't want to help her fall asleep if she doesn't cooperate with me. Again, sometimes this works and sometimes this escalates the situation.

I can't find a pattern to when she will throw. I tried putting her to bed earlier, she stalls until default bedtime. Can't figure out if it's related to napping/not napping.

So if somebody has a magic way for kids to "get it" I am all ears, but it could just be that 3 year olds will have power struggles and moms can try all the right things and kids still won't get it.

[BellinghamCrunchie]

At that age, all the power struggles are amplified in the evening. This is because a tired child is a regressed, cranky, illogical, dwaddling child.

Its hard to expect good cooperation from a 3 year old in general, but especially unrealistic in the evenings.

For DD, we started the routine much earlier so that dwaddling and playfulness were built in. She really did need that storytime/cuddling time before bed, so that was not something she would lose by not being cooperative. Actually, she didn't lose anything by not being cooperative in the evenings. We didn't use natural or logical consequences for that time of the day. Instead we focused on getting through it in a way that was the least frustrating for everyone.

[Drummer's Wife]

3 yo's are even more challenging than 2 yo's, so getting them to really listen and 'get it', is going to be dependent on a lot of variables (including their mood, how tired they are, if it makes sense in their own little world, and so on). Power struggles are common b/c they are a lot more independent and vocal than they were the first couple years. I think you really have to pick and choose your battles, as to not get frustrated and stress yourself out.

FWIW, my youngest just turned 3 and it's very difficult at times to reason with him. He is very ego-centric, and can't see things from other viewpoints. I am sure he wouldn't understand that b/c he took so long with the toothbrushing, that we don't have enough time to read stories. In his world, time just doesn't really matter, yk? All he knows is he was ready to read stories.

[sarahdavida]

I don´t necessarily have great advice, but I have noticed that since my DS approached 3 yrs. old (last Saturday :-), he seems to have entered into a stage most would call the Terrible Twos.

He is normally pretty responsive, but I have noticed more recently his trying to assert more autonomy over his daily activities - and it has become very challenging at times to follow the "flexible routines" we have for a while - and yes, mostly the bedtime stuff. For instance, he has always LOVED his bath - and we never did it EVERY night, because his skin seemed to respond better to bathing every 2 or 3 nights, with cloth wash-ups in between. But last week, he all the sudden went ballistic at the idea of taking a bath - I just didn´t get it - and the tooth brushing became pretty rough, too. After three non-bath nights, I decided to put on my bathing suit (we are weaning, so i wanted to cover up) and get on in there with him - he didn´t necessarily go for that either, but I got through the bath and he came out and was completely fine. He seems to be calming down, but it´s become difficult. Do you want to go to the park? (which he normally loves) - NO. Do you want to look at the fish pond? - no, etc. - just becoming generally resistant to everything - regardless of what it is.

We are trying to be patient, sympathetic and flexible, within reason - he has never lost his mind for too long, but it´s tough sometimes. The feeling I have is that this is the Terrible Twos (or Threes) that he never really went through before - trying to exert control and independance over his activites - trying to find his way within the circumstances we lay out for him.

We try to be understanding, not to punish for it and go with the flow. For instance, one might think, o.k. he didn´t cooperate with the tooth brushing and I´m angry, so no book - but if he´s asking for a book and he´s not even thinking about the tooth brushing anymore and the book normally a part of a positive bedtime routine - one that we helped create, I´ll probably read him the book even though I´m frustrated about what happened with the tooth brushing, because at the end of it all, my main desire is that he goes to sleep calmly and willingly.

At this age and stage I try to take it moment by moment, because even though I feel like he should also be learning action and consquence, I also feel I need to be sympathetic to what else is going on in his growth and development: in our case - weaning, recently starting a new preschool and also having recently leaped into a higher level of understanding and being able to communicate with language more effectively, which is a powerful thing, also. It´s something we are watchful of and curious to see how it plays out over the next few weeks - or months.

[Rico'sAlice]

I don't think I would really expect my DS to "get it" in the scenario you described.

Have you read Playful Parenting? Not that it can *always* work, but most of the time you get to skip the "how to make him do XYZ" when you turn into a game.
For the post-brush teeth check we do a game of looking for all of the food he ate over the course of the day. I work from the front and backwards in time- Look there's the chicken, oh, some sweet potatoes, etc. oh no where is the banana? I'll have to check way back here, open really wide!" and he totally gets into it. I can't imagine DS possibly being "convinced" to cooperate with me on that particular item using any sort of stick & carrot system. [Not that we never resort to that for anything, ever, but I just can't imagine any way it would work in this scenario.- Just to further clarify that our carrot vs. stick is generally for stuff that must be done and either he can do it himself in a manner he choses within a semi-reasonable amount of time or else I will just make it happen- like him climbing in the carseat vs. me putting him into it. Not talking about traditional punishment type thing.]
But the find the food game totally cracks him up so I have no trouble getting into his mouth.

[newbie_mary]

3 is so hard!! We have just reached 4 and I'm so thankful to have the 3's behind us!! At 4, my DS definitely can "get" that he will lose a book if he doesn't cooperate...however, at 3 he couldn't. I would say that somewhere in the last few months he has reached an age where he can understand that sort of thing.

The Playful Parenting ideas are definitely the way to go. We used that for toothbrushing a lot - let me see inside your big crocodile mouth and clean out the extra pieces of fish floating around...I think I saw some bugs in there, let me count them, etc. Totally worked for us. We had our first visit to the dentist when he was 3.5, and the dentist told him to let Mommy or Daddy brush his teeth at night, and then he could do his own in the morning. For whatever reason, DS totally grabbed onto this idea and quotes the dentist almost daily...he will comply with what the dentist says!

[megan sacha]

Thanks everyone. It sounds like my expectations of him are a little too high right now. Maybe I'll try to lay low and survive this year and work on the cooperation stuff more next year when he's 4.

I haven't read playful parenting but we have many games around toothbrushing that we use at different times and he gets a kick out of them at times and almost cooperates but much of the time, those games such as searching for food he ate or other more individual games we've come up with don't work.

And, obviously he's going to be at his worst at bedtime, but that was a mere example. That kind of behavior can be seen at any time of the day, not just when he's hungry, tired, etc. I guess he's just 3!

[Pumpkin_Pie]

We are right in the middle of this too. My DS turned three at the end of March, and he will not listen to anything, but was doing extremely well for about six months prior to his birthday. Yesterday, he was SCREAMING just for fun in the kitchen, and I was trying desperately to make a few phone calls that had to be made. I asked him to not scream, I asked him to go into the living room to scream, I said I needed to go outside to make the calls if he wouldn't stop, nothing worked. I put him in time-out and that finally got him crying for about a minute (a little less loud) and then he finally stopped. I feel terrible for the time-out, but he just will.not.listen.

Three is going to be a long hard year, I am afraid...

[Tjej]

On days when I know the kids are extra tired or sick or whatever I adjust as necessary, but in general I do expect my 2yo and 4yo to listen when I speak to them and to do what needs to be done.

I empathize with their frustrations, I don't repeat myself, I get eye contact, I try to keep things fun, etc. But we do what needs to be done.

I also expect a decent attitude. My 4yo totally understands what that is, and she can be lippy, and if she is about getting ready for bed I will have her sit until she is ready to do it with a good attitude. My 2yo can even understand how to change his "NO. I no WANT to" into actually washing his hands with decent attitude if I call him on it as well.

I find that in general it goes better when I get the kids ready for bed than when DH does, and I think it is because when I hear him talking to them he barks orders at them (take off your clothes - go potty - stand still - etc.). Nothing mean, but he doesn't give them the time they need and he doesn't say please and I don't think he gets eye contact (but I'm usually cleaning in the kitchen so I can't see to know he doesn't).

So maybe consider how you are talking to your child (are you barking? are you talking and not really expecting a response the first time? - unless there is a hearing problem there is no need to repeat!).

HTH

Tjej

[sarahdavida]

Originally Posted by Tjej

I also expect a decent attitude. My 4yo totally understands what that is, and she can be lippy, and if she is about getting ready for bed I will have her sit until she is ready to do it with a good attitude. My 2yo can even understand how to change his "NO. I no WANT to" into actually washing his hands with decent attitude if I call him on it as well.

I wonder if in this case the 2 yo´s behavior has to do with the fact that they have a 4 yo sibling to look up to as a model - individually and with regard to relating to the parent, whereas those of us whose kids don´t have older siblings don´t have that. I notice quite a few differences in the other kids of DS´ age who have older siblings and it seems to stem from that.

Just a thought...not a definitive conclusion...

I think at the end of the day kids are individuals and are not always going to respond the same way to the same set of circumstances...but I also agree with the PP that eye contact and being clear but patient is definitely helpful.