I have come to discover that while I was only in labor twice, giving birth to one beautiful girl each time, I actually have 4 kids. I have Briana and Abigail at home and I have Briana and Abigail away from home – totally different kids. Ok, not “totally”, but as it relates to listening to me they are quite differently behaved when we are away from home. That isn’t to say that they are badly behaved when we are out. They are still very much my wonderful little girls, but apparently excitement overrides my authority when we aren’t at home, especially when it relates to my saying it’s time to go home. While I want my kids to have a blast on our outings, I worry that their safety will be compromised if they ignore my instructions. And, to be totally honest with you, I also just hate it when one of my kids is arguing with me or running around crazily while strangers stare disapprovingly at me. I try to turn a blind eye, and depending on the circumstance sometimes I truly don’t care what other people think, but other times it is embarrassing, and my kids have developed a knack for finding the most inopportune times to assert themselves. For example, repeating, “I want a snack now, Mommy!” a little too loudly after being asked to walk quietly with me is fine as we walk out of the gym after gymnastics, but is cringe worthy walking to the front of the church for communion. Like I said, its not really “bad” behavior, but it is correctable…hopefully.
So this week we’re focusing on our listening skills.
One of the great things about my kids is that they are both very conscientious. They want to do the right thing most of the time and love being praised for getting things done correctly. I hope that if I tell them that we’re going to work on listening this week, it will be more top-of-mind to them and therefore they will listen more often. I want them to understand that even when you are having fun, it’s important to listen to Mommy. The tricky thing is that intellectually the kids already know that. I’ve said to listen to Mommy to them many times and heard, “Ok Mommy, I understand. I’m listening.” in response.
So, I developed 3 principles of why the kids should listen and created activities to address those principles. Of note, these principles are ones that I made up so they are in no way an exhaustive list, for any child psychologists or anything like that out there. Also, we didn’t do all of these activities in one day. They were spread out throughout the week.
Why should we listen?:
PRINCIPLE 1- It is Easier to Get What You Want if you Listen First
In order to show the kids why it’s easier to get what you want if you listen to me first, I made up a treasure hunt. Listen to Mommy and you’ll find the prize. Don’t listen to Mommy and there’s no prize.
We get our organic fruits and vegetables delivered every month through a service called GreenBean Delivery. They deliver a big green bin and the kids love opening it and naming all of the contents and putting them away. This week I went out to the bin and slipped a note about a pirate treasure inside for them to find. The note said “Pirate Treasure” on one side, folded over. Bree recognized the word ‘pirate’ and started screaming that she’d found a pirate treasure map in our fruit. She insisted that I read it immediately. Inside it read, “To get clues and find the pirate prize/You must listen to Mommy and find something that drives.”
“Ooooh, Mommy! It’s a riddle!”, squealed Briana. However, my diva didn’t want us to solve the riddle. First, we needed to look like pirates to find the treasure.
Now we’re ready. Off and on Abby also donned a glove (“globby”) and screamed “I Hook! Aargg!”, to which Briana exclaimed, “Aarrggg!”, in return. Cutest Captain Hook impression ever, I think.
Then we revisited the clue. “To get clues and find the pirate prize/ You must listen to Mommy and find something that drives”. Bree solved the riddle quickly. “My Barbie car drives!” We ran to the Barbie car, and sure enough there was the first clue inside its cup holder.
Clue #1: “The next clue likes to sit/Inside some kind of big pit.” Too easy. Both girls screamed “Ball pit! Ball pit!” pretty much as soon as I read the clue. Finding the clue in the ball pit proved to be more difficult. We dug for quite some time. I ditched the camera and helped out.
Finally we came upon Clue #2: “For the next riddle to be beat/ Look in a place that you like to eat”. That one was trickier. First we looked at the kids’ table in the playroom where they snack. Nothing. Then we looked in the play kitchen. Nada. Then Abby started pulling on the real refrigerator door and there was Clue #3 hiding in the cheese drawer. Clue #3: “To find the treasure/You must look/Where you go to/Read a book.” First we ran to the couch. Nope. Then we ran to the kids’ bookshelf in the playroom and buried inside the bottom shelf were…gummies! Our favorite treasure!
The kids were so happy all afternoon about the unexpected adventure. We spent most of the afternoon marching around singing a song Briana made up about going on a treasure hunt where Mommy reads the clues.
Other games that you could play to make listening to you indispensable:
§ Listening Medals. I’m not a big fan of this idea, but in the interest of completeness a lot of people do recommend this. In fact, this was the most commonly recommended idea for teaching listening skills to toddlers. Make medals with your child that they earn for listening to you at key times. You can also get a jar and add a marble to the jar every time the child listens and acts appropriately. When the jar is full or all medals are won, you can redeem them for something the kid/s want. I’m not the biggest fan of incentivizing kids to do what they should do. Mostly because I want my kids to get personal satisfaction from a job well done or from a simple, verbal acknowledgement like “thank you”, so we aren’t doing this, for now anyway.
§ Cook. Especially with younger kids who can’t read the directions themselves, you tell them what to do step by step. If you’re multitasking by playing a listening game and getting dinner made that’s fine, but ideally you want to try to pick recipes that won’t turn out as well if a step is skipped or rushed, so you’re better off making a snack that can be missed out on if no one listens. Baking is the best for this. Then give 2 or 3 directions at a time so that the kids have to remember what you said to do as they go or they have to stop and ask you to repeat the directions.
PRINCIPLE 2- It is Informative to Listen
To show the kids all that they can learn by listening, and to take advantage of the warmer weather, we went outside. I told the kids that we were going to play close your eyes and open your ears. I lay a blanket down on our deck and told the kids to close their eyes and listen. We talked about all of the sounds we heard – birds chirping, the wind whooshing, the squirrels “runnin’ feet, an airplane flying by”.
Then we brought the game inside. It’s not quite that warm out yet and we were freezing. I had the kids lie down in the playroom and close their eyes and open their ears. We took turns talking about what we heard – the washing machine running, someone sneezing, the phone ringing, someone’s feet stomping. This was a great activity for me today, as I was very tired, and lying on the floor talking and snuggling my babies was just my speed.
I had planned to get different toys they had and have them guess what I was playing with, because I assumed, incorrectly, that they wouldn’t lay down and listen for more than a minute. Surprisingly, the kids and I listened to the sounds of a quiet house for a while and then Abby went and got a book so we read instead. They were listening to the book – that counts!
Other games for showing how much you can learn if you listen:
§ Secret word of the day. Create a secret word that you use to stop your child’s behavior or just a silly secret word for them to listen for all day. If they catch you saying it, they get some kind of reward or applause. This could help build your kid’s vocabulary too.
§ Create a rhyme for the rules of the house. I came across one piece of advice that I had to share. I think it’s kind-of ridiculous, but I’ll let you decide for yourself. The idea is that when creating rules for your children, always try to make it rhyme because it will stick in their minds even if they are pretending to ignore you. Also, make sure you include the punishment if there is one. For example, “if you hit, you must sit” or “hold hands in lots or no fast food stops”. I don’t think I’m creative enough, nor do I have the time, to come up with a rhyme for all of the house rules, but maybe you can. As I think about it, maybe it is very effective because if you’ve never had a high calorie snack and thought “a moment on the lips/a lifetime on the hips” you’re probably…well…male. If anyone out there does this, I would love to hear the rhymes!
PRINCIPLE 3- It is Fun to Listen
We sing silly worded songs for the rest of an afternoon of errand running. In fact, all week we sing songs with messed up words. The kids escalate the silliness as they go, so this morning at breakfast Bree and Abby work together to create “The meals on the bus go round and round/All through the poo poo.” It was an appetizing breakfast song to say the least.
Other games for having fun while developing listening skills:
§ Clapping rhythms. We do this verbally in music class. The teacher says a unique rhythm to each kid, “ba ba baaaa ba” and the kid has to listen and then repeat it. In music class we also do a similar exercise for tonality and the teacher sings “AAA…FFF…DDD” and sees if the kids can match the notes. The kids think it’s fun, so we do it in the car a lot. We also try to clap the rhythm of songs on occasion.
§ Story repeat. Tell a story to the kids and then have them tell the story back to you. To make it more fun you can have them tell it back to you with one big change and see if you can catch what they changed. Kids love doing things to trick Mommy and Daddy so you’ll have to listen closely to their stories too. Bree tries to trick me by changing numbers in a story mostly.
After all of this, I know that they know how to listen. Now it’s just of a matter of hoping that they are willing to listen when I need them to…that and knowing that the Terrible Twos and Threes are going to be over in a few years. Yeah, I know, teenagers are famous for listening to their parents, but by then I’ll be an expert in managing my kids, right? ;)
<3 Pedigreed Housewife
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