How Can I Make My Child To Do As They Are Told?

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Hi, welcome to Talking Sense, a podcast with me, Dr. Marta. I'm a clinical psychologist trained in family therapy and every week I answer one of your real life questions to offer you psychological understandings, ideas and suggestions to guide you. Before we begin, I always like to give you a little moment of pause, something to set you up for the conversation that we're going to have. It's warm here in the UK at the moment, so I would like to invite you to use cold water either on your wrists or around your temples to cool down. This is also a really nice strategy if there is stress around you. So so opening the cold tap and putting your wrists underneath for a few seconds or even a minute can be really powerful. Give it a try and when you're ready, let's begin.

Today's question is about how we engage our children's willingness to do the things that they have to do to look after themselves or the tasks that need to be completed before or after school. Let's have a listen.

Hi Dr. Marta, just wanted to get some advice please on Children that won't listen. So I've got a six, almost seven year old daughter who has to be told multiple times to do the majority of things that she's asked. So she rarely does anything first time. I've tried different approaches. I've tried a reward system where she gets points for every time she does something first time, which does work temporarily, but it's something that's quite hard to sustain because it's kind of like with everything, whether it's getting dressed, brushing her teeth, eating food, you know, staying in bed at night, everything she has to be told multiple times. It's just creating a real tense atmosphere within the household. We're often late for school and other occasions because there's just constant arguing about the smallest things that she's being asked to do. So I just wondered if you've got any advice. Any help would be so much appreciated. Thank you.

It is such a common question for me to be asked how to help children listen to us. And often what we're asking is not easy. It can my child hear me? Of course. The real question is why is my child not complying to what I'm asking them to do? And to answer that question, often it means looking into compliance. So compliance means that children do as they're told. And if you have a child, no matter what their age, you will know children do not always do as they're told. Actually, that is developmentally healthy. And it's important that we offer our children space and a voice to say no, to protest, to be able to stand up for themselves. Why? Because often as parents, when we have small children, we want them to do as they're told. But when we have teenagers, we don't want them to just follow the crowd. We don't want them to necessarily do what their peers are doing. And we don't necessarily want to just follow what somebody tells them to do. We want them to have the ability to think about, is this a healthy choice? Is this something I really want to do, or am I being pressured to do it? And what we want for children who are teens is for them to stand up to themselves. We want teenagers to have a voice. We want teenagers to be able to think for themselves rather than follow their peers into potentially risky or unhealthy behaviors. So if that's what we want, we need to be really careful about the things that we try and instill in our children when they're really little. Because if we instill over compliance children who listen and do everything as they're told, Perhaps out of fear or out of the fact that they're going to get something really positive if they do what we want them to do. They're going to really struggle as teenagers to have a voice and stand up for themselves. And I'm saying this now because I think it's a really important thing for us to think about as parents. When we think about children, particularly little ones, I think we forget that what we're doing is building a brain, building social, emotional, communication and kind of supporting the identity of an entire person. We're not just working on. Please do as you're told right now because I need you to leave the house. Even though in the moment that is your immediate pressure, a parent, we are trying to do something else. And when we really reflect on the skills, long term skills that we want to build in our children, it can help us think about the kind of solutions that we reach out for. So having said all of that, don't worry. I am going to talk about why children might not comply, why children might not do the tasks that you're expecting them to do which are necessary for their everyday well being, such as brushing their teeth or washing or packing their school bags or any of those things that are really important. And I'm going to share the most effective strategies and the things that you can try. I'm also going to share why certain strategies such as rewards, don't really work long term. And I think it is important that we talk about this because rewards and you know, praise in the kind of rewarding praise is something that we use a lot. It's something that I believe lots of parents find really powerful. And yet it doesn't last. If all you ever do is offer your child a treat or a bribe for them doing as they're told over time, first of all, they get bored of it, so you have to keep increasing the reward. And secondly, we're teaching our children to do so something very different. So one of the things that we want to do, first of all, when we want to support our children to learn that there are certain tasks that they have to do every day and that yes, some of these tasks are supremely boring and their motivation to do them might be really low. What we want to build is intrinsic motivation, which means motivation from them, from within them, okay, in seeing side of their bodies, to be independently, individually motivated to do something. This is very different from extrinsic motivation, which is I'm motivated to do something to please another, or because I'm going to get something out of it that is external and it's got nothing to do with me. And particularly the kind of tasks in this question, which for me are like every day important tasks like caring after yourself and your body. Those are things that we should really be helping our children to build intrinsic motivation about because we want them to do it for themselves, we don't want them to do it for us. That is going to get lost when they get older. They're not going to care for their teeth, they're not going to care if they smell. They don't care about, you know, having the right items in their bag when they go to work, when there's no one watching over them or giving them a reward, why would they bother? So this is why it's really key, very, very early on that the strategies that we use are building intrinsic motivation. Okay. Motivation from within. So I'm going to talk a bit about that and give you some strategies that help most usefully in that area. But first, if you've been on this podcast before, you know that I do this, I, I want to tell you something about your child's brain, particularly in the school years. So this age range, okay, seven and onwards, because something really important is happening and it might be affecting some of what you're noticing when you see that your child does not listen to you. Let's talk a little bit about executive function. This may or may not be some words that you've heard before. And for me, it's really key that we understand our children's development in order to make sense of their behavior and their actions and what's going to be the most useful strategy for our children in a developmental sense. So children around the age of seven, like in this question, have very poor executive function. Now what is that? Executive function is something that happens in an area of the brain that we call the prefrontal cortex. It's actually at the front of our brains and it is a really key area. It's key for self regulation, so being able to cope with big emotions. And it's essential for things like initiating a task, completing a task, organizing yourself enough to be able to do this. And it's got a really strong link with memory. 2. Now, around the age of 6 to 8, executive function begins to develop, but really it doesn't mature until children are much, much older, which Is in their mid-20s. This area of the brain is slow to develop and some children struggle more with executive function. Skills of planning, organizing, impulse control and kind of holding things in short term or long term memory can Be both, but might just be one than others. Why? Individual differences, individual temperaments. Some children might have neurodivergent brains that will obviously also impact on the development of these skills or on the way that they can, like, show up. But one of the things that's really important is to just know that at this age, all kids have poor executive function. And the way that that really impacts on children is that it's hard for them to complete tasks. It's really hard for them to initiate and finish something, whether that be schoolwork or little routines in the morning, like brush your teeth, put on your clothes, come downstairs and have breakfast, put your shoes on, pack your school bag, you get out of the house. Now, to you, these might seem like easy habits that you've put into place, but to a child of this age, they're really challenging because the executive function part of the brain isn't complete and it's not very motivating for them. Okay, so some of these tasks are boring. And their motivation to go to school might be really low compared to your kind of motivation to get them to school. As a parent, we often want to take our kids to the places that they need to go and. Or we need to leave them places so that we can go and do the things that we need to do, like work. So of course, we've got different pressures and different motivations, and it's important that we are aware of it. And it's important that we're also aware about executive function and where our child is at developmentally, because this seriously, it affects everything from how long they're able to take a shower or even get in a shower, to whether they can pack their school bag or pick priorities about what needs to be done in the morning. So if what you see in the mornings is that your child is kind of daydreaming, maybe playing, drawing, doing things that are not priorities, and you've asked them 20 times to pack their school bag. I want you to remember, okay, executive function. My child is really struggling with this task. I don't want you to think my child is ignoring me. My child's not listening. Why is this happening to me? It's not personal. This is very normal. This is very developmentally appropriate and absolutely frustrating for you. I know it's really frustrating for you. And we're going to talk about what to do. But first of all, I really wanted you to know and think about your child's brain because it is, like, the center of everything and all the strategies that I'm going to Offer you on this podcast come from a place of understanding that children really struggle with this. And of course, some children will struggle more than others. So if your child doesn't really struggle with all of this, it's not a problem. Some of these strategies may still be useful. And if your child struggles a lot with this, to the point where you think actually this is outside of what other children are doing, then you can always seek professional support. Around the age of 7 to 10 is when some of the executive problem difficulties can show up in school settings. So teachers may notice that children are very good in a classroom setting, but they might be quite forgetful or they might misbehave a little bit. Right? They might be a little bit fidgety or chat a lot or, or they might always seem to struggle starting something. They might be really slow starters or there might be really slow finishes. And these are little clues that children may benefit from additional support and additional strategies to help develop executive function. And like I said before, for some children it might mean that they're neurodivergent and that also needs to be understood and looked at. So if you're really, really concerned and you think that this is showing up in other areas, particularly somewhere like school settings, do seek professional support, do try and get an assessment. If you're in the uk, you can do this via a GP on the nhs. Yes, there are long waiting lists, but it's okay, just give it some time. It's good for people to know that you're concerned and it's good for teachers to be aware of the things that they might be able to try to support your child. And you can also try and do this privately through specific clinics, usually for something like neurodivergent assessments. We want to see more than one professional so that we get a holistic view about our child, like a really in depth understanding of their strengths and the things that they struggle with. And we want to do this in a place that is appropriate. So if you want to do that privately, there are some clinics and like I said, it should include more than one professional. But for now, let's assume that this is just a neurotypical child around the age of seven who's really struggling to meet the demands of all the tasks that she has to complete in the morning. And I'm sure this parent is not alone because this is so common. So let's have a think about how do we support children with this? What is our role? What can we do?

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I'm going to start with how you communicate when you need your child to do something. And this may sound really, really simple, but I know that as adults, me included, we sometimes drift off into less helpful language or less helpful ways of communicating when something needs to be done. So one of the things I want you to think about and focus on is about being really specific with the things that you need your child to do. So, for example, if you need your child to brush their teeth, you know they've got a skill to do this. Or rather than saying, can you please brush your teeth now? Which is a question and therefore your child might think, no, not now. I can't do it right now because actually I'm drawing or I am looking at the floor and something really interesting here. You want to say something that sounds more like, hey, it's time to brush your teeth. Let's go. Okay, you want to show a little bit of assertiveness. You want to show that this is not a can you do this or can you not? It is not a request. You are saying, it's time to brush your teeth. And when we want to be really specific, we want to offer each task one by one. So it's much better to ask your child to brush their teeth right now. Let's go and try and be a bit confident and chirpy with it rather than can you Please brush your teeth and get dressed. It's nearly time for breakfast. Can, can, can. Question, question, question. Multiple tasks. Yeah. Some children get really overwhelmed. And yes, you might think, but come on, we do this every day. Doesn't matter. Children really struggle with the concept of time at this age and up to the age of around eight, Time is so abstract. What feels like, you know, ten minutes for you is like one minute for them. Okay. They get so engrossed in the here and now that time just passes. Okay. They really don't have that sense of time. And remember, procrastination is a real thing with little ones because they don't have that motivation to get out the house. So my first very simple strategy, but something to really hold in mind is be very, very specific and about the things that you need your child to do and offer one demand at a time. Okay. If possible, you know your child's struggles, it may mean that you need to be available to help them initiate the task. Again, executive function initiation, really tricky. So you may need to be around to help them brush their teeth. And the way that I would do that, particularly in the mornings, is you brush your teeth with them. You know, brushing your teeth is also a healthy thing to model. So when it's time for you to brush your teeth, get your child involved. Do it together. Now for times when you have certain tasks that repeat every single day and you want your child to do them right. Brushing your teeth, getting dressed, getting your school back ready, something like that in the morning. I very much suggest in the school years that you have prompts and checklists. These are for your child, but they are also for you. They can be so useful in offering you reminders, particularly on days where something is different. Like, your child might have pe, so they have to take their PE kit, or it's their book day, so they need to take their book back to the library or whatever that is. Now, these are really useful things that you can create yourselves very cheaply. You don't have to spend any money on this if you don't want to. You just need, like, a plain piece of paper and some, like, boxes, and you write down or you draw the items your child needs every day, and as your child does them, they can cross it out. You may prefer something like a whiteboard. You can get magnetic ones on the fridge. I know lots of parents have these for themselves, but these are not for you. These are for your child. And what you want to do is help your child learn. There are certain tasks you need to do in the morning and when you do them, you can cross them out. These aren't reward charts, okay? We're not going to reward them with a sticker or anything like that. These are tasks that need to be completed within a particular time frame before you go to school or before you have to leave. So think about having some kind of visual chart or timetable, a checklist that allows your child to know what is required of them on a daily basis. Like I said, they do wipeable ones. There are some magnetic ones if you prefer that. And you can make your own. If you make your own, I would involve your child. It's really nice for them to feel like they own something and, you know, visual timetable for the morning because the steps are usually pretty much the same apart from the one or two days where you're taking a book or a PE kit or something different to school, like a non uniform day. Rather than just having to redraw them, just have one that they get used to seeing somewhere really obvious and visual. Most of the time I would say it could go in their room or it could go on their door, somewhere that they're going to see see and they're not going to miss. But you could also put it in a communal area. Now, the way to use these checklists is first of all to show your child what they're for and how to use them. These are the steps that I expect of you in the morning that you need to complete. I would not add more than five steps. If you have more than five steps, it's too many. And you might be thinking, but they need to do more than five steps in the morning, that's fine. We, we're just not going to add that responsibility to young children. Some of the steps are going to have to be things that you do with them and some of the steps might be things that you feel they're able to do, capable to do on their own with a simple prompt. That's what this timetable is for. Okay? Because if we do more than five steps, I promise kids are not going to do it. They're just not going to do it. They get overwhelmed with responsibility and you know, in the morning, let's accept this. We're all tired, we're all feeling exhausted and children are the same as us and often we're feeling the pressure and our children are absorbing that pressure, the time pressure of having to do things in the morning from us. So the less they have to do, the more likely it is that they're going to get it done. Okay, so Five tasks maximum. And help them see that when they do it, they can cross it out and they're nearly ready to go. Now, my next strategy goes alongside this, which is about using a timer or an alarm. I've talked about this before, but if as a parent you sometimes feel like you're nagging your kids a lot, it doesn't feel very nice. And you know, your kids do shut off a little bit. So the not listening is also about, oh, my parents repeated this so many times, I've just zoned them out. That's real. Okay, this does happen. They're not doing it from a place of intentionally trying to wind you up, but when you repeat something over and over and over again, your child will zone out, actions are louder than words. I say this a lot. And telling your child that you've gone to set a timer for something, like, when the timer goes, it's breakfast and I expect you to have done, brushed your teeth and got dressed before, for example, two simple tasks you can say to your child. When this alarm goes off, it means it's time for breakfast. And when you come to eat, I expect you to have brushed your teeth and got dressed. Is that okay? Then you set the timer, make it an auditory timer so that everybody can hear it. And when it rings, you say something like, the alarm's going off, it's time for breakfast. It's no longer you nagging your child, it's the alarm. Okay, the alarm is ringing. If need be, and you're under pressure in the morning, save your energy by rather than shouting or keep yelling, are you dressed yet? Are you dressed yet? Just go to your child. Use your body. Your actions, again, they're louder than your voice. So, so go with your body, Go and check in on your child and say, where are you at? How can I help you? And for some parents, this can feel really hard because I've just said, how can I help you? And I know that what you want is for your child to do these things automatically, independently. But I want you to remember your child is still really little. Their executive function is really poor. And if you as a parent want to get things done on time, you may have to use some of your time supporting your child to do it. This is not creating a rod for your own back. This doesn't mean your child is going to do this forever. Trust me, teenagers are not going to want you to come and help them get dressed. But for now, they may need you to assist them to help them a little bit. Do so not with an Attitude of, ugh, fine, I'll help you, but try and stay positive, okay? We want to create a positive atmosphere during these tasks. So what we're doing is teaching children that doing these things is good and feels good. So you might go into the room and go, oh, you're nearly ready. Shall I help you with your top? Come on, let's do it quickly so we can eat breakfast together. You want to make it positive and you want to use praise. So I talked before about rewards not really working because they don't. They're so ineffective. However, praising effort and encouragement is really helpful when your child is doing the things that you're expecting them to do. So if you've got a checklist, the alarm has just gone off. You've just helped your child to begin to get dressed or finish getting dressed. Hopefully what you might say to your child is, yay, well done. And now we've got loads of time before the next alarm goes off, which means it's time for school and we can have a lovely breakfast together. Well done for putting on your trousers. You're nearly ready. I think next time, tomorrow, I think you might be ready on time. What do you think? Use to your advantage the things that you know about your child. If you know your child quite likes a little bit of a competition or quite like seeing how quickly they can do things, use it to your advantage. Adapt this information I'm offering you in a way that works so you know, you might say, how quickly can you do it? Before the alarm rings, for example. And then they can check how much time was left.

Right.

And in that time they might get to do something they really want to do. Play, draw, watch a bit of tv, if this is allowed in your household, whatever. Think about how you encourage and praise your child. Think about coming to assist them in completing their tasks. Doesn't mean you have to do everything for them, but do join them when necessary. And it's going to help you feel in control of time management and also decrease pressure on yourself. But make sure you do this in a positive way. So the way that your child receives it is, these tasks make me feel good rather than, these tasks are a chore and a bore and I hate doing them and my parent gets angry with me when I do them or don't do them and it's just awful and I'm just gonna shut down and zone off, because when that happens, that's when what you witness is not listening to you. Children don't wanna listen to things that don't feel Good. And they don't wanna do things that are boring or emotiv. So it's our job as adults to support our children in developing these intrinsic motivational skills to do tasks that will keep them well and healthy every day. As hard as it is on you and on them, I want you to know it's a process. This is a learning curve, and it does match up with development. So as their executive function grows, these skills will also grow. And the more you use these little prompts and these little aids, the more you are instilling life skills in your child. There are so many adults who still now struggle leaving the house with all the things that they're supposed to take with them for work because they've never had to use a checklist or they've never used a prompt, or they've never learned how to really organize or initiate a task in a way that's useful. So I want you to see these skills as foundations for your child, not just for now, but growing up and into adulthood. And the time that you spend on this, you're going to reap the benefits as your child gets older.

Finally, I really want you to know that when children feel supported by their parents, even in everyday tasks like this that are quite monotonous and, and boring, but what they perceive is that you are helping them, that you are seeing a struggle and you're finding ways forward to make things better and easier for you and for them. What it does is grow your relationship and it really helps them learn to positively listen to you. Because when we listen to our kids, it is role modeling, an idea that they should also be listening to us. But remember, this isn't about setting lots of commands on your child. Children won't always do as they're told. And part of what we do as parents, or can do as parents, is to allow them to say, I don't want to do this. Listen to what they're struggling with, rather than landing in a power battle that looks like, I've just told you to do something, so do it. And your child is saying, nah, I refuse. I want you to join your child. Truly listen to their. No, empathize with it. I know you don't want to do this. Brushing your teeth is so boring. And it does mean that you were one step closer to getting to school. Is something going on? Is school not something that you're really keen on at the moment? Do you want to talk about it? This might slow you down in the morning and it may offer you some solutions and it may offer you some time to connect with your child in a way that makes them listen to you. Because when a child feels heard, they open up and when they feel like their parent is understanding and looking for solutions to help them together rather than pushing a battle of I'm right and you're wrong and do as you're told. It changes. It changes your family atmosphere and it changes your relationship with your child. So give these things a try. Really reflect on how you're positioning yourself with your child and use evidence based strategies like I've shared with you today that help executive function, skill building and help all children. You might be really surprised as well about how much it helps you too. And we're coming to an end. Thank you so much for joining me on another Talking Sense podcast. If you haven't pre ordered my book yet, how to Be the Grown up, you still have time. Remember that pre orders are a promise between you and I. A promise that I will deliver a book that is useful and you enjoy, and a promise that you are will buy it when it comes out. Your card does not get charged when you do a pre order until the book gets released in February, so you can pre order it now and know that you'll be one of the first people to hold a copy when it comes out. As always, I like to end on a little bit of a mantra just to hold you for the rest of the week. This week, my mantra to you is this too shall pass. Remember that children grow and develop and the challenges that we experience as parents change over time. I so look forward to speaking with you again on another Talking Sense podcast. Until then, see you soon.

You may have heard that your home equity was off limits, but more and more people are using it to reach their goals. A home Equity investment from HomeTap gives you cash in exchange for a share of your home's future value, and you can use it for anything from paying down debt to making renovations to handling emergency expenses. All without monthly payments. HomeTap get more from homeownership get more from life. Visit hometap.com to see if you pre qualify in seconds. That's hometap.com subject to eligibility. Terms and conditions apply.

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