“Are you listening to me?” How many times a day do you find yourself saying these five little words to your kids? Sometimes your kids aren’t listening because they are engaged in a more exciting activity but many times kids simply tune you out. One reason for this is because we spend a lot of time telling our kids to “do this” and “do that” or we lecture (i.e. nag) them. When we open our mouth they have grown to expect that what we are about to say won’t be pleasing, so they will tune you out.
What you have to do is teach your child how to listen to you again. The technique is called, Attending To Play and is a found in the book, Try and Make Me, by Ray Levy and Bill O’Hanlon.
If you have a child over the age of 8, the technique probably will not work well according to the authors. They also caution that it takes a lot of time and is not very exciting for the parents, so perseverance is key. However, if you are able to stick with the technique you will have a child who starts to listen to you again.
Here’s basically what you do. The next time your child is involved in play, you should narrate what is happening. You should get down to his level and simply start giving a play-by-play narration of what he’s doing. If your child is at a table, you should pull up a chair. If he’s down on the floor, get down there with him. The key is not to ask questions (“What are you doing sweetie?) but to simply narrate what is happening. For instance, “Tyler’s putting the green Lego on top of the red one. Looks like he’s building, wait, yes, it’s a barn.” If your child is playing basketball, you can narrate like a sports announcer. The point is to give your child positive attention. Once he realizes that not all your comments are negative he will then start to listen when you talk. The purpose of the exercise is to teach your child to “learn to tune you in.”
Initially your child will probably think you’re weird but most will be amused by this attention. In order for this to work, you have to do it for about 20 minutes. But you don’t have to do it everyday, a few times a week should be sufficient.
Finally, if your child starts to misbehave you should not punish or even note the misbehavior. Simple walk away and try again later. However, the authors note that kids rarely misbehave when they are receiving this type of attention. They claim that in their 50 years combined clinical experience, they have yet to find a child who did not enjoy this technique.
See also:
Positive Reinforcement: Non-material Rewards Are Just As Effective