What age should my DD start "listening"?

[Headmeister]

My DD is 21 months old and btwn home and daycare, we both are working on getting her to listen better to requests (like "come here", "stop", "clean up", etc). These are all things that she has heard, understood, and followed through with in the past, but she is SO willful and SO stubborn that at least 50% of the time, she just randomly ignores you and does whatever she wants... while the rest of her daycare class participates, or, while we struggle with her to get her to do whatever we requested.

Being a first time mom, I have no idea how realistic it is to ask a 21 month old to do something and expect her to do it. I can ask her to get her crayons and a coloring book and she's spot on, doing it before I finish my sentence. I tell her exactly where something she left is and she can follow my instruction to find it. However, ask her to "come here" elicits nothing most times.

Help? Thoughts? Am I being unrealistic with my expectations?

[peainthepod]

Subbing! My DS is 19.5 months and can follow basic directions most of the time ("Please bring me _____" or "Go say hi to Daddy" or "Can you find [dog's name]?" or "No touching, please" or "No, please eat that, don't throw it" etc.) but has trouble with others. Like, I keep reading that people have their DCs this age helping them straighten up the room. Say what? I've been trying to get him to "help" me for months and no dice.

[reignbelle]

I think its asking to much for her to beable to obey 100 percent of the time. Some kids are more willing to listen at earlier ages. I use a lot of playful parenting to get toddlers to go along with most things.

[lyra2007]

I think compliance is really a matter of what I want my daughter to do coinciding with what she wants to do, and not much more than that. At 21 months, I think your child is right on track.

[ASusan]

You can try direction games and songs to help her along. My sister taught me this one (sung to Frere Jacques tune) --

Walking, walking
Walking, walking
Hop, hop, hop.
Running, running, running
Running, running, running
Now we STOP!
Now we STOP!

Do the activities with her. My son learned it about your LO's age, and he still (at 30+ mos) has trouble with the STOP! directions.

You might try Green light! Red light! and other stop-and-go direction activities, but my son still doesn't quite get the concepts at 2.5 yrs.

[JMJ]

Can you ever, really? When she's older, she'll be able to say, "Mom, can I finish this chapter first?" or "I hate dusting" and then you can have a respectful discussion. It's going to take time and respect to develop that kind of communication skills, and until she does, her inability to communicate her feelings is disguised to look like disrespect. You have to be the one to help her define how she feels. Traditional discipline of toddlers only looks at whether they are complying or not and ignores why.

I used to work at a daycare, and in the under 2 room, we pretty much expected that teachers would be the only ones picking up. Some toddlers would help some of the time, but usually, to get a toddler to help took a lot more time than doing it yourself. You generally would have to be down 1 on 1 with the toddler, saying "Where does the book go? Over there? Yes! Can you put the book over there? Yes, you see the bookshelf over there. Yes, that book. Oh, you'd rather put the truck away? You can put the truck away instead. Where does the truck go? On this shelf? Yes. You put the truck on the shelf where it goes. Thank you for putting the truck away. Do you want to get another truck to put away?"

I also think that different things develop at different times in different children. There's no way my 15 month old would put her toys away, but she would tear up a paper and then throw all the pieces in the trash and loves to help me unload the washing machine. Just because somebody else's kid can pick up toys doesn't mean that your daughter is behind. Look at all the wonderful things she CAN do!

[crunchy_mommy]

Originally Posted by lyra2007

I think compliance is really a matter of what I want my daughter to do coinciding with what she wants to do, and not much more than that. At 21 months, I think your child is right on track.

I agree with this... 16mos DS is actually getting to be quite a good listener but I really have to time requests according to what he's inclined to do at the time -- i.e. if he wants to tip over the dog's water bowl, asking him to 'come here' is fruitless but asking if he wants to wash his hands or feed the dog (something related to the what he wants to do already) is effective. If he wants to go outside I can tell him to go get his shoes and his shirt... if he wants to read I can tell him to go get his book & come sit... if he's watching me get dressed I can ask him to put something in the laundry & put my shirt in the drawer. Then he's nearly 100% compliant. But if he wants to jump on the couch and I ask him to go get a book, forget it.

[PluggingAway]

My 19 month old DS *can* follow commands. Does he always? No. Do I expect him to? No. Same goes for my 4 year old DS.