Have you ever wondered why when you constantly tell your child not to do something they end up doing the very thing that you just told them not to do? In life, we have all heard of the law of attraction. What you focus on your get.

Some of that principle applies here but for different reasons. With a young child, they will hear the majority of the conversation, usually the last part. Their memories are not as good as ours (except when it comes to something they really want) and their processing skills are not as advanced.

We hear a lot of words, are able to listen to them, interpret them and then respond appropriately. For a young child, their processing is not as developed and so they can only process small amounts at a time. They will hear all of the words, but the parts that get processed are often the last words you said – the ones they don’t have to remember for the longest. So when you say “Don’t touch that toy”, the don’t is the word furthermost away from where they end up and the one that is the most difficult to process because of where it sits in the sentence. They will remember the “touch the toy” far easier than putting the “don’t” in front which changes the whole dimension of the sentence as well. Double processing!

So, if you want your child not to do something, turn it into the positive form of the negative. Instead of “don’t touch the toy” you could say “leave the toy alone.” All words contribute to the same meaning and the last words heard are “toy alone.” Another way of doing things would be to redirect your child and not even mention the toy. If you don’t want to touch a certain toy, simply redirect them by picking up another toy and saying “look at this toy. do you want to play with this one?”

Really take notice of the way you say things when your child appears to not be listening. It could just be that their processing skills are not as advanced and what you are asking is harder for them to hear, process and respond to than you think.

Remember too that processing takes time for a child – we respond in split second timing but for a younger child, it takes longer. Another important point is to not just rely on the auditory pathway. Use eye contact, body gestures, tone of voice etc as well as words to get your child to do what you want them to do.

Play with structuring your sentences differently and see if it makes a difference.

Related posts:

No related posts.

Filed under: Child Discipline

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!