How to Make Children Like and Listen to You

Hey, today we're going to talk about how to make children like and listen to you. First of all, I want to tell you this is quite going to be a longer video and why I'm making this is because I feel like if you have a good relationship with your kid, you can basically teach your child anything. I can speak this with conviction because there are a lot of parents all over the world who I've taught before and I've coached. And the biggest hurdle I see parents climbing cross and achieve the results they want to with their children is when the children start listening to them. As a matter of fact, yesterday I was talking to a mother who lives in the UK and the occupational therapist and the speech therapist thought that she was not therapy ready. She couldn't sit on the chair, she couldn't focus or anything. But as a matter of fact, she has been working with her mother, which is our client, for two and a half, maybe three years now. And we only got to a point where she conquered speech and became verbal just to make her sit down and work with the mother. And the reason why we were able to do this was because the mother became a good companion teacher therapist for the kid herself. And to give you some context, why I've decided to make this video too is because I just came back from Australia and there I saw a longtime friend that I haven't seen for a few years and now he's got this kid who was also a little bit speech and language delayed. And in the beginning we were just talking over WhatsApp and I finally got to see him in person and not to chew my own horn. I'm just telling you that the kid really liked me. And it happens to me a lot of times that, you know, whenever I engage with a kid, they tend to like me a lot. And then when I left, the 5 year old actually cried. So that's, that's nice for my ego. But I'll tell you some things that I know that maybe will help you with your child and maybe if you're a therapist or an educator, then these points will help you a lot. These are actually very soft skills most parents will focus on what are the actual goals I need to go for? What do I need to see? Because I'm an Asian, I'm Chinese. So naturally parents who watch this and resonate with me are around the same like ethnicity as I am, although I know there are loads of different people. Like 30% of the people watching this are Americans. So thank you for watching. If you're from The Western world. Thank you so much. So here we go. Sorry, it's very long caveat, but here we go. The first point is that you shouldn't have any expectations going in, even if you do. And therapy is all about what goals are we trying to achieve and whatnot. But at the same time, you cannot let your child smell it. And we've talked about this quite a bit inside of our previous video about teaching autistic children to speak naturally. So if you haven't watched it, go watch that. But to add on to that video, what it means to have no expectation is that you do the opposite of what's not working. Let's talk about those parents I see a lot who are Asian and they keep on saying, oh, you gotta do that, you gotta do that. Hey, don't do that, don't touch, whatever. Hey, don't be so loud. Play like this. So it's very command like language. Right. So instead what I do, I don't know if this will work for you. It certainly worked for most of our clients, our coaching clients. So talk to them as if we don't really care about how the performance would be. It doesn't matter if a kid is like, he spilled something, he knocked something over, he isn't listening or whatever. We don't really care that much. We should make ourselves look like we don't really care. And we care about the person himself or herself, the child himself. Right. We go into the whole interaction by being a little bit nonchalant. Right. Whilst we're looking after the child. It doesn't mean that if they hit their head or whatever, we're not going to go over and talk to him and like try to make sure he's okay. Right. And it's very hard to say in words how this is done. And obviously you can see us in action as well. Of which you can go to w.agentsofspeech.com course, you can grab all the free courses. We have, we have some demonstration videos there. I'm sorry, we can't make it public here. But at the same time, the no expectation thing is you need to get rid of the goals of what you want the child to do first. Because your first job is to be to have a relationship. And of which. Which comes to my second point, even when I teach or we teach, parents do. Look, you've got to just think about building rapport with a kid and have no expectation whether he or she will actually talk. A lot of times it still reflects in their tone. So their tone in their mind, like parents, especially those who are working professionals, they're very single minded and they go, they think, yo, I got to solve this, how do I do this? And their tone reflects that. You know, like, oh, you got to listen to me, you got to try the best to uplift the tone so that the kids will like them. And some parents will say, ah, try to be a little more bubbly and stuff and go higher tone and whatnot. So we also talked about this in previous videos and some parents commented saying, yo, I, I, I know I'm doing this, I can't help it. So my best advice to you is to treat your kid just like a friend, right? Just like someone who isn't a kid. Treat them as an adult. If you want them to have adult like characteristics, you treat that person as an adult and you don't treat them as a kid, right? Don't talk down to them, don't do whatever, speak as if you're trying to just have a chat. So it's very difficult to tell you again because there's a lot of nuances and soft skills. Each child is different. But good for you because if you're watching, you're a parent, you only have one child to master. So that's good. So you're going to change your tone but instead of going hyperactive and going, wow, look at that, or whatever, go down a notch and find your natural tone. Like how I am talking to you right now is like how I would speak anyways if you see me in real life, right? And that's how I talk to children as well. I would say, hey, that's good job, right? Oh, that's really good of you to think about it that way. Nice talking by the way. Hey, I really like that, I really like the way that you play with the toy just now. Can you show me how? Oh, that's really great. Thank you so much. These are the things that you should be using as feedback and telling your kid, okay? And then the third point is to lead your child subtly. So a lot of times when we go into a situation where we're trying to teach the child something, we tend to push our agenda too quickly. You would slap something out, oh, play this or do this, look at these flashcards, whatever, right? Look at this toy. And it makes it very difficult for you to establish authority that way. Because if you establish authority that way, it becomes a task and it feels like you're the superior person inside the room, which is okay. But what I'm trying to tell you Is that you need to subtly make your child know that you're the alpha. All right? And you, like, just as a lot of times, like respect is given is not like, say, yo, respect me, and you'll get respect. It doesn't work that way. So it's the same with children. You have to lead them subtly push them towards that way, show them that you're resourceful, show them that whatever. So how do you do it? So it goes down to the next thing, which is like to praise first. Whenever you're praising first, it means that you're thinking about what things can you pick out to actually praise about the child. So actually, a lot of the parents that we, we teach, they are lacking in this department because as a child, they were never really praised that much anyways. It was taken for granted. Or the other way is true. I see for parents in the Western world where they praise children for practically everything. And this is where praising needs to be learned. All right? When you praise, it needs to be exact or else it sounds just like lip service. So instead of saying, hey, that's good job, that's excellent job. Whoa, awesome. Yeah, that's just like anyone would be like that. And I remember in my first job that I was taught to just like think about 10 Ways to Praise a kid. That's great. But at the same time, you need to be very direct and exact about what kind of praises you can say. So for instance, if I see this cat, if she understood English or any type of human language, even though she was right in my way, I would praise her saying, hey, I really like it that you're sitting so nicely. Right? Sitting so still and not touching my stuff. That's really good. Yeah. And so like, you need to think about these praises in a very direct way. And then I'll take good girl, nice standing in front of me. Oh, nice going away. Good job. So, you know, it needs to be exact about the. What they're. What your child is doing, what they're trying to achieve. Can you praise about that? Is it like unnatural when you praise that way? And it only works if you start recording yourself and watching yourself, seeing what kind of stuff you're saying. So for myself, I used to say thank you a lot for no particular reason with kids, don't know why. Some parents, they really like to say, okay with a question mark, you gotta praise in a wide variety kind of way. And also be very exact and specific about the behavior. And don't just praise anything. It needs to be something that is right here Right now. And that is something you truly appreciate. And that's something I guess every parent is gonna have a problem with. And I only became understood how strong this was when I felt it myself. I went to America to learn. We played like shooting something I forgot, like with a shotgun. And then the instructor was so exact about his praise and his feedback. It was like, oh, your hips are not centered, you know, like you're not squared off. And then he was like, oh, yeah, your aim is really good now. You got this all day. And I felt really good because he was praising me and it's how he was giving me feedback while. Whilst telling me what I'm doing correctly and what I was doing not so good. And I feel like if everyone has that kind of instructor in their life, they would feel a lot better about themselves. So be like that for your kid. And then the last point, I could go on for this forever, right? The last thing I want to talk about is to be a good companion. And a lot of times being a good companion doesn't mean a lot of parents will say, yo, my kid doesn't like sitting next to me. He doesn't like to play with me, he doesn't like to do whatever. Xyz. All right, so you need to think about what it is that's causing that discomfort. Is it your physical distance? Is it your physical touch? Are you talking too much? Are you like trying to engage inside of the toys too much? That's making them a little bit unhappy about that, about that. So be a good companion means think about what is their comfort? Like, where's the comfortable distance that they're able to endure. Maybe it's, you know, just one foot away, one meter away, whichever metric system you use, and slowly increase there is it that you're talking too much, talking too loud? Again, having videos about, like just shooting your interaction is actually really good. In fact, a lot of the after the pandemic, a lot of the government services around the world start to mimic what we do at Agents of Speech. And you know, this whole video shooting thing with parents, parent training has been around for quite some time. Obviously Agents of Speech, we do a lot more like video feedback for coaching than anyone else, basically. But at the same time, this thing is finally catching on because we don't have the resources to provide one on one therapy to everyone after the pandemic. Right? So you need to see why you're not a good companion. And you can learn this by looking at your pets. And I mean this in a straight face. You Know, like, think about yourself as a, as a cat, as a dog, as a whatever. Why is it that they're good companions? And the number one reason is because they sit beside you as if they don't go through all the points. Right. They have no expectation whether you touch or pet them. They don't care. Well, some of them do. They try, but they don't force you. Right. Because they can't. Second of all, their tone, it's always friendly. It's always trying to get your attention in a good way. Right? Right. Third of all, they don't really lead you that much. In fact, they think that you're the alpha. But that's something that's wrong in a parent child relationship. But you get what I mean, right? They don't know how to praise you, but they always think the best of you. So be a good companion to your child. Right? Be quiet sometimes. Sometimes talk. Have pauses. Don't be rushed. Don't have expectations. I know you have goals in your mind, but think about that after your child listens to you anyways and you know, like, that's how you should do it. So in fact, I think I know about this subject quite a lot and I feel like it's just something I never put into words myself because after nine years working with children, I feel like I truly know how to engage with children and I'm thinking about writing a book about it. So anyways, if this long video has added any value to you, you can go to agentsofspeech.com course to watch our courses that used to be paid and it's all now free. Okay. We only do this because I feel like information should be free anyways. And the only way we're making money is through coaching. But we only accept parents who have gone through at least some of the free courses and have tried things at home. We don't want a completely blank slate parent who has done not much at home. Hopefully this video has been helpful. And that's it for today. I'll see you next week. Bye bye.