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Get Your Kids to Listen Without Yelling | Keeping Calm as a Parent

 

 

If your goal in life is getting your child to listen without yelling, then you are in the right place. 

Nobody wants to have to raise their voice with their kids, but almost every parent does it. Some, unfortunately, find that often the only way to get their kids to listen requires them to yell or even threaten consequences before the kids even look up from what they are doing. This is not a long-term positive way to parent. So, let’s talk today about getting your child to listen without yelling.

For more support on how to get your kids to listen, be sure to click below!

My kids don’t always want to stop their activities and do things they would rather avoid. They are often on their phones or in their rooms and if I’m not careful about attending to a few important things before I give my instructions, there is a chance that my kids will ignore me as long as they can until I’m motivated to raise my voice or yell at them.

Of course, it is frustrating when this happens but more often than not, it is me who has made the error, not the kids.  So, although I offer a full workshop for free called, “How to Get your Kids to Listen without Raising Your Voice or Nagging, for now, I’m going to share with you some simple tips for getting your child to listen without yelling:

Tip #1: Avoid Giving Any Instructions That Are Not Important

The first tip I have for getting your child to listen without having to yell is to avoid giving any instructions that are not truly important. What I mean by this, is if it is not important enough for you to follow the other tips in this blog then it isn’t an instruction you should be giving.

Inundating your child with tons of unnecessary or unimportant instructions that you are going to allow them to get out of if they don’t want to follow, is not helping them know they need to listen and respond to you when you talk to them the first time.

So, if you are willing to do the following few things when you give an instruction then the instruction is important enough for you to give it to your child. If you are not willing to do the following few tips to getting your child to listen without yelling then you are better off not giving the instruction to begin with.

Tip #2: Make Eye Contact

Once you’ve decided that an instruction is important enough to follow through on, then the first step in getting your child to listen without yelling is to make sure you don’t start by yelling your instructions from another room or at a child who is not engaged in other things and instead make sure you are able to make eye contact with your child throughout the process of giving the instruction.

If your child is not looking, there is no way to know if they are listening.  And no way to expect them to cooperate with you without then repeating your instructions, warning them and potentially begin yelling.

Tip #3: Block or Stop Your Child’s Fun Before Instructing

In addition to working to make eye contact with your child when you give an instruction you might also have to block or stop a fun activity they are engaged in before giving an instruction.

If your goal is to give an instruction and your child is playing a video game, there is no way you are going to get full eye contact from them to give them the instruction.  In this setting, your first step is to either tell them to pause the game, or step in front of the screen or pause it yourself before getting your eye contact and then giving your instruction.

Tip #4: Wait Until Your Child Wants Something from You

The best way to get eye contact from your child before giving an instruction is to learn how to wait on your instructions until you have something in your control that your child is interested in or wants from you.

Every time your child comes to you and asks for something to have, do, play with or even eat, this is the best time of highest probability for you to get what you want in return.  The answer can always be yes, but first, I need you to do this thing for me. One of the first most important steps in The 7 Steps to Instructional Motivation is making sure you have your child’s favorite things identified and organized so that you can decide if, when and for how long they have access to them.  If this is being done regularly, then you will have situations where they come to you for those things often throughout the day giving you tons of opportunities to ask for the things you need with their undivided attention.   More on the 7 Steps here.

Tip #5: Refuse to Repeat Yourself

The last tip I can share with you today for getting your child to listen without yelling is if you have done a good job of following the tips up to this point you should then begin to refuse to repeat yourself.

Don’t repeat instructions after you have already given them with your child’s full attention but instead follow them with mini-consequences instead.  Mini-consequences are small demonstrations that their access to favorite things is going to be lost for the moment or harder to get if they don’t currently have them.

If you make eye contact with your child and give an instruction and they don’t do what you’ve asked, rather than repeat the instruction begin to block or remove access to something they are using, want or will want soon.  Let them see this thing happening and be willing to then withhold those items until your child comes to you and asks for them. Then once again explain that they are missing out because they didn’t listen and you can remind them of their instruction to get the item back or to have the next thing they ask for.

I can’t promise that following these tips will mean your child will always listen to you the first time you speak to them or that you will never feel the urge to yell again.  For that kind of information, I again would urge you to click here to check out the free workshop, “How to Get Your Kids to Listen without Raising your Voice or Nagging. But, if you follow these 4 basic tips, whenever you give an instruction, you should see an immediate improvement in your ability for getting your child to listen without yelling.

Let’s Review Those Tips

  1. Only give instructions that are important enough to follow through on.
  2. Make Eye contact when you give an instruction
  3. Block or stop ongoing fun activities before giving an instruction
  4. Wait for a moment when your child wants something from you before giving your instruction.
  5. Don’t repeat instructions but follow them with immediate mini-consequences instead.

If you’d love to learn how you can get your kids to listen WITHOUT yelling or nagging, be sure to click here to get instant access to my workshop.  You’ll be so glad you did!