Want Your Toddler To Listen To You? Try This Mindset Trick!

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If you spend time with toddlers, you know how it feels when they just won't listen to you.

Perhaps you've tried being nice, giving them something fun to do, raising your voice, giving a time-out, and/or threatening some pretty dire consequences, but nothing is working, and you can't move forward because of all the fighting, whining, and general chaos.

Welcome to your place of support. We want to make things easier for you today.

Here's a mindset trick that might help you to feel more in control of the situation.

Even if the moon is full and the weather's been keeping you indoors for 5 days straight.

Try thinking about their behavior or misbehavior like this:

What if they're really not trying to wear you down and break you? What if there's an intrinsic mechanism that moves them forward and causes them to make some really questionable choices?

And what if you discovered that intrinsic motivation was simply

to learn!

And maybe to get more attention while doing so.

Here's an explanation.

Humans are goal-oriented. When a child misbehaves, they might not be trying to be "bad" or trying to get you angry. They may be simply trying out new behaviors. Learning about things.

Sometimes those behaviors help them reach their goals, and sometimes they miss, causing "misbehavior". And sometimes that misbehavior causes more attention, which may have been part of their goal to begin with.

For example, a young child tries to learn about the properties of dirt and how gravity works, so she makes a mess of a potted plant. In her mind, she's done nothing wrong; she was just trying to learn about the plant by dissecting it. In her parents' mind, she's wasted their time by making a mess she couldn't clean up herself.

Instead of blaming the child, using anger, punishment, or harsh control, the parent could say this:

I'm frustrated with this mess. Next time you feel like playing in the dirt, we can play outside. Let's clean it up together, and we'll still have a little bit of time to go to the park. Please go get the Dustbuster, and we'll get this done.

Looking at our feelings when a child misbehaves can tell us a lot about how we should behave to correct the behavior. Knowing what we're really trying to teach the child in the long run can help us to maintain good-natured control.

Here's a chart based on Rudolph Dreikurs's work that may be helpful to you. It's important that our goal is to teach, rather than to punish. If you use this chart, pay specific attention to the column on the right labeled "Teach your child to:. That's the mindset trick that works for any misbehavior.

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Nanci J Bradley is an early childhood and family educator, author, teacher, family aerobics instructor, and all-around fun-loving person. She believes in the power of sleep, healthy eating, lifelong learning, and most of all, PLAY!  She studied early childhood education at Triton College and received her BS in education from NIU in 1986. She received her MA in human development from Pacific Oaks College in 2011. She lives and teaches in Madison WI.