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Listening Skills in Toddlers
6 Surprising Ways to Get Your Toddler to Listen
By Amy Henry
Nelsen also suggests capturing your child's imagination by offering two toddler-intriguing choices. "Ask, 'Would you like to hop like a bunny or walk like an elephant to get to the car?' Invite their cooperation by giving them some power," she says. "The sleight-of-hand your toddler won't see: Both choices accomplish the goal you desire."
Let's face it. Toddlers have to take a lot of bossing from the big people in their lives. And, like all of us, they'd like a little respect for their autonomy.
A solution to avoid the tug-of-war? "Externalize the controlling force," Dr. Wyckoff says. "Use a timer. You can't have a power struggle with a timer."
Dr. Wyckoff's daughter-in-law, Sasha Wyckoff, a Cottonwood Heights, Utah, mother of two boys, ages 4 and 1, says the timer rules in her house. "It sounds simple but it works really well," says Sasha Wyckoff. "When we need to end something and then clean up, I give the boys a warning. Then I tell them that I am setting the timer and for how long." When the timer dings, she says, "it is incredibly easy to say, 'OK, time to clean up now.'"
Nelsen offers another idea for diffusing power struggles: Create a "routine chart" like the one she and her granddaughter designed for bedtime. If bedtime means toy clean up, bath, pajamas, tooth brushing and a story, you take a picture of the child doing each of these things, then arrange the photos, in order, on a wall or poster board. "When one task is done, you say to the child, 'Let's see what's next.' Their routine chart is the boss, not the parents," Nelsen says. Her granddaughter so loves the chart, she insisted Nelsen take a picture of her sleeping "because that's the last thing I do."
