Why Do Toddlers Ignore You? The Secret to Getting Focused Attention

All right, let's talk about why your child is ignoring you. All right, so there's loads of parents who go on Facebook groups and my page or inside of YouTube comments who say my kid is ignoring. He's not responding to his name. Whatever I tell him to do, he doesn't do it. Does the opposite. In fact. He, like when I tell him to do something, he just smirks at me. They might run off. There's a whole list of possibilities. They just don't do what you, you're telling them to do. Right, so what do we do here? Okay, the thing about getting your child's attention is that a lot of times when you say something and repeat, repeat and repeat your command or instruction, it becomes background noise. And why is that? Is because, let's say I'm giving you an example. I hope you understand. Is this right? I have a cat here who's sitting right here beside me. And a lot of times what would happen is that she would respond to me more than she would respond to my wife. And the reason is because every time I call for them, I actually have something for that. Or whether it's a rub, it's a cuddle. They don't really like cuddles that much. You get the point. I'm always having something to give them. One. Okay. Number two is that there's no consequence, right? And the thing is, let me go back to my example. For instance, this cat, let me get her, okay, Nevermind, he's about to attack me. So this, this cat over here, she loves running out, loves the door dash. All right? So not, not the delivering food, you know, I'm saying like she likes to go outside herself. And what happens is that when I am at the door, I open it, she's not going to go out. When my wife open, opens, she will run out. And the reason why is because I have a consequence. Whenever she tries, I hold her back, right? And I tell her that's wrong with my tone. I say, hey, don't do that, right? And whereas my wife is like, ah. And then cat runs off. So there are two reasons that there's two, like I reward, there's something I want to give them and there's a consequence, whereas there's some feedback as to what they're not doing, right? So to get your child to, to, to do what you want to do is very simple. Do not repeat your instructions that many times, right? Because if you repeat your child so many times and they really do do it, right. Let's say you say hey, come over, come over, come over, come over like seven times. And then they do come over the seventh time, what's going to happen? They're going to know my mom or my dad's bottom line is that seven times. So I can ignore the first six, and then at the seventh, I'll come over, right? And we're all human, even animals do it. They're trying to test bottom lines. They're trying to test, where is it that I can go, right? How many lates can I get until I get expelled from school, right? We're always thinking about, about that, right? How many times can I do this, wrong? Until I get my license, you know, canceled. I mean, driver's license, right? How many times do I rush the red light until I lose all my points, right? So in this case, children who are not speaking yet or who don't speak as much as their peers in terms of intelligence, there's probably nothing wrong with them, okay? There's probably nothing wrong. They're probably pretty smart. They know how to open drawers. They know how to get around not being able to speak. They can climb up, they can get chairs, you know, they can turn on your iPad, they remember your passcode. There's a lot of stuff that's going on, right? Even my cat here, she knows how to open a door, right? So, you know, you gotta regard your child with a high. Like, you need to think, oh, he's super smart. So what is he gonna do if he can't talk, right? So what he's gonna do? What if he doesn't want to do what you're doing? He's gonna ignore you, right? So first tip is not to repeat your commands over and over and over again, okay? So what do you do if you say it once and he still doesn't do it? Do you just shut up? No, of course you don't. What you do is that you say, hey, open the door. He doesn't do it. You tell him the consequence. You say, hey, you didn't listen to me. You didn't do it. Let me try again. Open the door. You run up to the kid, take their hand and open it for them, all right? Now, there's a secret too, behind this. Do not take a child from the front. Like, if I take my hand in front of a cat, I'm going to get scratched. What I want to do is go behind, all right, and manipulate them from behind. Because whenever someone's in front of you and they're trying to grab you like that, anyone would have to Guard up, right? Just think about it. And usually how you feel comfortable is that someone would lead you away from. From the side, behind, or they would hold your back. Like, just push it back a little bit instead of pulling you. That would be intrusive. So think about that. Because you're like three times the size of your kid, maybe five, right? So when a giant pulls you forward, think about in their perspective. They're like, dude, what's going on? No, I'm running away, right? So go behind them, take their hand from behind, and teach them how to do it. When you do, the action is a good boy. Nice listening, right? Just think about how easy it is. It would be. And just think about how easy it would be for the child to follow your command every time you say it. They have no choice but to do it because you're gonna. You're gonna get them anyways. You're gonna get them to do it anyways, right? A lot of times parents will like to remote control and think that, oh, it's like a. It's like a Siri. It's like a whatever. It's like a Google or whatever. And it's. It's becoming more and more. Is that like, moms will sit on the sofa and they keep on saying, hey, do it now. Hey, hey, hey, sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down. It's just like whenever I see it, I die a little bit inside because I'm like, no wonder he's actually ignoring you because you are annoying that kid, right? He's annoying you. The reason why he's doing it is because he wants you to stop annoying him. That's the wrong reason to actually go through with it, you know? That's literally the wrong reason. You want him to do it because he wants to and he has no other choice, and he's already in the mood of listening anyways, right? You don't want to do it because they think you're. You're being very annoying. Okay, I don't mean this in a bad way. I'm just telling you what I observe. And it's. If you're doing it already, you're sitting down and you're like pointing and telling them to do something, or you want to get the response for no particular reason, and you want them to do something with no consequence, no anything that you want to give him or whatever, no praises, no whatever, then that's not going to work. Because most of the time what parents would do is like, put that in. Throw it, throw it. Hey, hey, hey. And you get louder and louder. Louder, louder, louder, louder, right? Not only you are repeating, you are progressively getting louder. And that's teaching the child that the louder you get, the more irritated you sound. The more times you say it, it means that he's supposed to do the thing. When you hit a certain volume, when you hit a certain irritation level, when you hit. When you hit a certain number of times of repetition, right? That's why some kids see you irritated. They're actually happy, right? They smirk at you and they laugh and they do the opposite, right? And then when they do the opposite, you get even more irritated and it actually, like, rewards the behavior. Okay, so to boil down all this, all what I said just now is this. Tell them one time, and if they don't do it right, you tell them the feedback. Hey, you didn't do it yet, I didn't do it right? Say it one more time. Take their hand and do it for them, okay? Don't let them just run off, because that's never a good thing. They learn how to ignore you, and maybe they will start liking you getting annoyed because at the end of the day, you're annoying your kid. All right, as much as I like to like to say it, because at the end of the day, like, I see a lot of parents, they. They call the names of their kid, right? They say, Alvin, Alvin, Alvin, like hundreds of times. And then Alvin looks over, and then the mom just go, so what's the point of calling them if all you wanted to do was, was the child to look at you or respond to you or care? And when they do look, your response is so minimum. It's like, okay. And, you know, I catch myself doing this with my cats as well. In the morning, I want to talk to them, and I just call her name. And then she looks at me. I was like, okay. And I'm like, oh, man, I should give her a rub right now, right? So I go over and I give her a scratch, right? So that's the. That's what you need to do, right? Call the name or tell them to do something and reward them. Remember to praise. Don't take their actions for granted. Because you might think that, oh, he's my kid, or she's my kid, of course she's going to listen to me. Of course she needs to, like, care. But it doesn't mean if they don't care, they don't love you, right? What I mean is, do not take it for granted that their attention and. And listening to you as something that they should be doing. It's not. They have other things to do in the house as well. They could be playing with trains. They could be, like, playing with the faucet, right? There's a lot of stuff going on at home. There's a lot of things that they like to play. So remember that, okay? So at the end of the day, adjust your expectations. Adjust how you operate at home. Don't annoy your child, all right? Cherish their attention, okay? Give a consequence, whether it's a good or a bad one, okay? Do not repeat yourself so many times. Think about how to interact with a kid. Treat them as a human, right? Don't treat them as a pet. A lot of times I see it because I have a pet, and I feel like some parents really do treat their children as pets. And, of course, children are super cute, right? I could look at them all day. I could squeeze the cheeks a lot all day. All I hope is that, you know, when I call them, they look back at me and they smile, right? And then I feel good. I feel happy inside, right? It's like a. It's like a, you know, having a child at home or having a child at work, it instantly elevates your mood whenever you call them and they're, like, smiling at you, right? It's so easy. And that's why it's like an instant gratification for a lot of parents to call them to tell them to do something. But then when you don't get it, you feel like you feel betrayed, and you're like, I feed you. I give you so much stuff, and you don't listen to me. Don't take that for granted, all right? They. Because you feel like they are taking you for granted, and therefore you also take them for granted. That. That's a pretty toxic relationship in my. In my books, right? Don't let that happen, because if your child is already delayed, you don't want that relationship to be here because you want to teach them stuff. You need to be someone who cares and really regard them as a human being, right? And therefore, always respond with praises and tell them when they're wrong. Be firm. You need to be firm. You need to know when you say something that means directly that when they ignore it, you will go there and hold their hand and do it for them. And therefore, there's no margin of error. Okay, okay, enough of me talking. It's been a rant, so if you haven't, please go to agentsofspeech.com checklist for a free list of tools and toys if you want to start home therapy today. All right, so that's all for today. I'll see you in the next week. Bye. Bye.