Why won’t kids listen?

This is a question most parents seem to ask themselves on a regular basis…why won’t kids listen?

Children appear to have an inbuilt ability to switch off from any words to exit a parents mouth that involves tidying, cleaning, getting ready, hurrying up, calming down, chores, doing a less pleasant task, homework or not touching something! Just how do they do it? I wish I could switch off from this too.

Child listening through headphones

Wouldn’t it be great if we had a pound for every time we repeated ourselves, I would be a millionaire, then I could pay someone else to do the cleaning and tidying.

Last weekend, we spent every waking moment reminding the children to be careful of the paintwork (we were decorating) and to walk through doors, not touch them. Do you think this worked? No, the children still managed to get paint on their clothes.

Asking a child to put their clothes and toys away, feels like an impossible task that is never-ending, by the time I have got one child to listen to me, the other two have created even more chaos and so the process starts again. If only all three children would listen at the same time!

It’s not just the not listening when I ask them to do something. If they get cross about something, I like to talk them through the issue to help resolve it, but they are unable to listen to my words and hear what is being said. This can be the most frustrating situation, however, I know children are young and still learning how to deal with their emotions, I just wish they’d let me help.

Every morning, the children are ready for school half an hour or more before we have to leave, that’s great, except the moment the words “it’s time for school, can you put your shoes and coat on” leave my mouth…. nobody moves. For some reason these words get lost in the air. I often wonder if I’m going mad, did I actually say that out loud, or did I imagine saying it in my head?

I am sure I am not alone with this phenomenon. We have our ups and downs with it, but this week seems to be a lot of questioning ‘why won’t kids listen?’