July 12, 2024 • 38 mins
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Episode Title: How To Get Your Toddler to LISTEN!
Episode Number: #29
Host: Jon @wholeparent
Timestamps:
- 0:00 - Introduction and Setting the Scene
- 0:38 - The Frustration of Kids who WON'T LISTEN!
- 2:40 - Why Toddlers Have Selective Hearing
- 7:17 - Understanding Toddler Development and Autonomy
- 16:18 - Effective Communication with Toddlers
- 22:24 - Tips for Improving Toddler Listening Skills
- 33:50 - Closing Thoughts and Call to Action
Key Takeaways:
- Toddlers often exhibit selective hearing due to their developmental stage of seeking autonomy.
- Consistent routines are crucial in helping toddlers feel secure and understand expectations.
- Effective communication with toddlers involves giving clear, positive instructions and allowing time for them to process.
- Saying "yes" as often as possible can foster a more cooperative relationship with your child.
Resources Mentioned:
- PDF on Autonomy-Seeking Activities for Toddlers
- How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk
What episode should you listen to next?
Call to Action:
- Never miss an episode! CLICK HERE to subscribe.
- Share this episode with friends or on social media.
- Rate and review the podcast to help it grow.
Contact Information:
- Follow Jon @wholeparent on all social media platforms.
- Email: podcast@wholeparentacademy.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jon @wholeparent (00:00):
Welcome to the Whole Parent Podcast.
My name is John at Whole Parenton all the social medias,
picture this with me, if youwould.
You can close your eyes, unlessyou're driving, then please
don't close your eyes.
It's the end of a long day.
You've been at work, you've hadto deal with some stressors.
Maybe it was not a particularlystressful day, maybe it was.
You finally finished whateveryou were working on.
(00:22):
You packed up.
Maybe you got in your car tocommute home.
Maybe you work from home andyou just need to go pick up your
kid from daycare or from aparent's house or something like
that.
Maybe you made dinner.
Maybe you had to pick it up onthe way home.
You're exhausted.
You're finally to bedtime.
If you're like me, sometimes youcount down the hours to bedtime
until you can have a break andyou're just trying to get your
(00:44):
three-year-old in their pajamasand instead of cooperating, they
are just bouncing off the walls, running around the room,
totally ignoring your repeatedrequests.
Your voice gets a little louder, then it gets a little louder.
Finally you're screaming atthis tiny human and you're
wondering in that moment.
Did I make a horrible decisionbecoming a parent?
(01:05):
I just want to sit down.
I just want to be done.
If that sounds familiar, youare not alone.
You are just like thousands andthousands of parents who just
don't understand why theirtoddler does not listen.
In fact, listening challengesare basically the thing that
(01:29):
made Whole Parent successful inthe first place.
I was going back and reviewingsome old videos.
I try and look at it with ananalytical frame of mind and
especially assess the videosthat have been the most
successful, not just in views,not just in engagement, comments
, likes, but also the videosthat have caused the most number
(01:52):
of people, or the highestpercentage of people who had not
yet followed me, to watch thatvideo and say you know what?
I need help with this and Iwant to follow this person.
And there is one video and I'mgoing to talk about exactly what
I talked about in that video inthis podcast episode but one
video in particular thatoutperforms, as a percentage,
(02:16):
the view to follow ratio by morethan double the next best
competitor.
And in that video all I talkedabout was why toddlers do not
listen and what we can do aboutit.
Today we are tackling thatexact topic.
It's the topic that drivesparents to social media to ask
for questions.
It drives them to Google and itdrives them a little bit nuts.
(02:40):
Why do so many parents of youngchildren feel like their kid has
totally selective hearing whenit comes to them, and what can
you do to solve that problem?
We're going to talk about whythat is, what's going on from a
developmental perspective,what's going on in their brain
and what we can do as parents toimprove their listening skills.
(03:03):
We're going to talk about tonsof stuff in this episode, and so
if you want to hear what I havelearned from child
psychologists, the practicalstrategies to move this forward,
people from all disciplinesdealing with early childhood
education, parenting, childrearing so that you can finally
get your kids to maybe listen toyou once in a while, stay with
(03:27):
us, okay.
So, as I do on this podcast allthe time, and, if you've never
joined this podcast, if this isthe first episode that you're
ever hearing, this is a podcastthat's really all about
(03:49):
providing practical, brain-based, but the goal of this podcast
is to provide parents with someactionable things that can make
their life a little bit easier,make parenting a lot more
(04:13):
effective, all while doing so ina way that's going to raise
their kids to be flourishing fortheir whole lives.
We parent for the long term, notthe short term, and this is one
of those places where, in thisspecific developmental time
frame, we're going to saytoddlers and when I say toddlers
, what I mean is two, three andfour.
Some kids struggle with thiswhen they're six, seven, eight,
(04:35):
nine.
There are different reasons forthat.
Some people say that theirsix-month-old doesn't listen, to
which I respond that's par forthe course, that's just what
life is.
But when your kid is two, threeand four, there are some things
that you can do.
But in order to understand whatyou need to do, the first thing
that you have to kind of takein understand is why it is that
(04:57):
toddlers seem to have selectivehearing where we are concerned,
and so I'm going to talk aboutthe brain, I'm going to talk
about development, and I'm alsogoing to talk about what we can
do to try and improve thatselective hearing so that they
listen and respond a little bitmore easily.
So I'm going to give you somepractical tips, but I'm also
going to give you someneuroscience background.
(05:18):
That's what I always do on thispodcast.
So if you're new, that's what wedo, and if you like this
podcast, please share it witheverybody that you know we're
really just starting out lessthan 30 episodes.
Compare that with the thousandsof social media videos.
This is still a pretty smallpodcast, but it's growing and
we're getting so many amazingpeople on.
We've already had Tina PayneBryson on, who is my personal
favorite parenting guru author.
(05:40):
She is the best selling authorof books like no Drama,
discipline and the Whole BrainChild, which is my personal
favorite parenting book that hasever been written.
We've had other experts onother psychologists.
We've had other parentinginfluencers from social media,
people with hundreds ofthousands of followers, and I am
actively seeking to get somereally, really amazing people,
the cutting-edge top leaders inthe field, and so the best way
(06:03):
that you can help me do that, sothat we can together as a
community, as the whole parentcommunity, ask those tough
questions, learn from thesereally big, experienced voices,
is to share this podcast so itcontinues to grow, and to rate
and review it.
So if you're just listening toit for the first time, please
listen to the end of the episodeand then decide is this worth
your time to rate, review and,of course, subscribe so that you
(06:30):
can get all of the awesomebrain-based tips and tricks that
we talk about on a weekly basis, but the first thing that I
want to talk about in thisepisode, specifically related to
toddlers and selective hearing,is autonomy and specifically,
that children who are two, three, four years old are in an
autonomy-seeking or seeking, orindependence seeking place
developmentally.
Why is this the case?
Well, mammals in general I knownow we're getting really broad
(06:54):
not just talking about kids,we're talking about all mammals.
Come on, john, this is apodcast about kids.
Yes, mammals in general do mostof their growing inside their
mother's bodies.
That's where, you know, onecell becomes two cells and I
don't have to tell you howbabies are made right, but most
mammals do the overwhelmingmajority of their brain
(07:14):
development in utero.
Humans, as compared to othermammals, are born somewhat
prematurely.
What do we mean by this?
What I mean is that, in orderfor our brains, which take up a
massively disproportionateamount of our energy in
comparison to other animals allother animals, not just mammals
(07:37):
our brains take up up to 25 to30% of all of the energy that we
have as people in our body, theenergy that we burn.
25 to 30% of that's taken up byour brain.
That's because our brain ishuge.
It's disproportionately largecompared.
Why?
Because it's disproportionatelycomplex compared to other
mammals.
It's not.
We don't have the biggest brainphysically, but we do have the
(07:58):
most cortical neurons, meaningthe most neurons in our
neocortex, which makes it sothat this is why humans are way,
far and beyond moreintellectually able than any
other species on planet Earth.
Even our closest cousins don'teven come close.
Well, what this means is thatactually, we have to be born
gestationally earlier than othermammals, and this is because
(08:22):
our brains, which are inside ofour skulls, have to be able to
fit through our mother's birthcanal and, as any woman who has
given birth will tell you, it isa tight fit, as it is, at nine
months Especially, you have areally big baby.
Maybe you're a little bit past.
You know, my mom had, I think,one of my brothers like weeks
and weeks after her due date.
(08:43):
You have a really big baby,really big head.
It is a tight fit, right.
And you can imagine if we wereborn even later in our
development, when other mammalstend to be born in their
development.
Giraffes, for example, can walkaround hours after birth on
those long spindly legs.
If you've ever seen Bambi,bambi can walk around almost
(09:05):
immediately, right?
If we, as human beings, wereborn at that level of our
development, we would never beable to fit through our mother's
birth canal.
So what does this mean?
It means that humans are bornprematurely in comparison to
other mammals.
We are, in other words, very,very dependent, because the
development that still has tooccur once we come out of the
(09:27):
womb, once we're into the world,is far more than most other
animals on planet Earth.
So what does this mean?
It means that for the first twoyears of your child's life,
your child has almost noautonomy whatsoever.
We've talked about this inother episodes, about bedtime
and other things and learning,but what this means is, at two
years old, three years old, fouryears old, your child can
(09:48):
finally make decisions, canfinally choose what they want to
do.
Of course, they still need yourhelp for tons of stuff, but
they can choose what they wantto do.
They can say yes, they can sayno, they can decide what foods
they like and what foods theydon't like, what food, what
they're going to eat, whatthey're not going to eat.
They can decide for themselvesat two, three, four years old
and this is the first time thatthey've been allowed to do that
(10:09):
and so, as you can imagine, whenyou get a new skill, when you
get a new ability, you want totest it out.
Just like when you get a newcar, you want to drive it all
the time.
Just like when you get a newtoy, you want to play with it
all the time.
Just like when you're in a newrelationship, you want to spend
all your time with that otherperson.
When your kids develop an actualability to have a sense of
autonomy, all of a sudden theydon't want to listen to anybody
(10:31):
anymore.
They want to seek out and dofor themselves as much as
possible.
And what I've been trying to doin these episodes is not go
super in depth on how to handleevery single problem and instead
create some PDFs that you cango to if you're interested and
say oh, you know what?
I have a two-year-old,three-year-old, four-year-old
and I need to figure out how togive them some autonomy.
(10:52):
So that's what I've done forthis episode.
So if you're looking for sometips, some tricks and some three
or four autonomy seekingactivities that you can engage
in with your child, that you canhave your child engage in more
like that you can.
That's safe for them.
I created a PDF and it's linkedin the show notes so that you
can go and you can say you know,hey, I want to get this, I'll
(11:14):
email it to you so that you haveit forever.
You don't have to like save theepisode so you can keep coming
back to the link.
It'll be in your email so youcan search it and you will have
a PDF where it's just like okay,here's the three things that I
can do.
If you have a kid who's not yettwo, three years old, great,
get it ahead of time, know itnow.
If you have a kid who's olderthan two or three, get it and
share it with a friend, becauseit's going to be, it's chock
full of really good information.
(11:35):
So so, number one, we have tounderstand, developmentally
speaking, they.
They need autonomy, they needplaces to go and things to do on
their own where they feel likeI am in charge and I can do, and
it's my job.
And if you know a two-year-old,three-year-old, especially one
with older siblings, me do, I do, I do it my turn buckle their
(11:58):
own seatbelt right.
All of that stuff comes fromthe desire to be in control, not
because kids are controlling,but because they've never had
this before and they really,really want to exercise it and,
by the way, that's really goodPart of the way that they're
going to learn interdependence,which is the goal.
It's not independence orcodependence, it's
interdependence knowing how todo many things for yourself and
(12:21):
also knowing how to seek helpwhen you can't.
In order to developinterdependence, they have to
test those boundaries andautonomy seeking behaviors at
this stage at which they're at.
And so kids who are justconstantly helicopter parented
and you're not allowed to makeany decisions and I'm just going
to make, I'm still going tobaby you like you're a little
tiny baby at seven, eight, nineyears old.
(12:42):
They don't learn those autonomyseeking things when they're
younger and then they start toact out those and then you know
parents can still have a lot ofcontrol at that age.
All of a sudden you have a 16year old who's doing autonomy
seeking things, and 16 year oldsdo that anyway, but if they
haven't done any of it earlieron, you're in for it.
So the more you can do thisstuff early on, the better, and
(13:02):
that's why I made the PDF sonumber one understanding how can
we support our child's naturaldevelopmental need for autonomy.
And, by the way.
From a brain developmentperspective, this autonomy
seeking behavior also occurs atone of the most emotional times
of childhood, where they'regoing through the most neural
pruning.
So in the last episode wetalked about neural pathways a
(13:23):
lot.
We create thousands, millions,trillions sometimes neural
pathways and what happens overtime is that the neural pathways
that are unneeded are prunedoff, and this is kind of like
what happens in Inside Out.
If you've seen Inside Out 1, Ihaven't seen Inside Out 2 yet.
I'm sitting on the first weekof July here and I feel like I'm
(13:44):
a bad parenting influencerbecause I don't have thoughts on
Inside Out 2 yet.
But in Inside Out you see likethe neural pathways of the
memories, the core memories,being pruned and the memories
that fall down into like thevoid and eventually are lost.
Children's movies have a lot ofdeep insights, especially the
Pixar ones, if you're willing tosee them and look for them.
Well, neural pruning ishappening during this time and
(14:05):
so the kids need to do theautonomy seeking thing to
support that neural pruningthat's happening, the building
of new skills, the building ofnew developmental capacities,
the learning that's happening,massive amounts of learning, but
also the massive amounts ofpruning that takes place.
So autonomy is the first thingto realize when you're dealing
with a kid who won't listen.
Sometimes the selective hearingcomes from I just don't want to
(14:27):
listen to anybody right nowbecause I'm really focused on
doing my own thing.
The thing is, if you give andoffer your child opportunities
to act out that autonomy thestuff that I'm going to talk
about in that PDF then you likeit's going to come out in one
way or another, but you actuallyhave an opportunity to guide
that and show them.
Here's some appropriate placesfor you to show autonomy and
(14:49):
we're going to get into that too.
So that's the first thing thatI want to highlight.
The second thing is that kids dohave a way in which they
understand language which is alittle bit different than many
people.
Many parents, many adultsunderstand.
Kids understand language at amuch lower level, much more base
level than we think.
Their neuro, their neocortex,is not processing nearly as
(15:12):
quickly as ours, yet they justdon't think as fast as we do as
adults and a lot of timesparents don't realize that and
they don't take that intoaccount, especially when they're
at the end of a long day andwe're just trying to get PJs on
and they don't really think itthrough, and because of that,
the listening thing can feellike my kid's not listening,
when in reality, the way inwhich you're communicating is
(15:34):
actually causing your kid to notbe able to hear you.
And so this is where I want tofocus for the rest of this
episode, and it's three thingsthat you can do as a parent in
your communication with yourchild, and it's three things
that you can do as a parent inyour communication with your
child.
Three things that you canchange how you communicate with
your child that will help themonce they have those
autonomy-seeking needs met,because that's kind of the first
(15:54):
thing Help them to actuallylisten to you when it comes time
.
So the first thing is that youdon't always have to communicate
with words.
What do I mean by that?
One of the best ways that wecan communicate with our kids,
our expectations, is throughroutine.
I'm going to say that again Oneof the best ways that we can
communicate with our kids is notthrough words, it's through
(16:17):
routines.
Why?
Because routines, thepredictable routines of our
child's day and life, these arethe things that give them the
freedom to then have autonomyinside of those things.
But when a child develops aroutine, they thrive.
Why do they thrive?
Because their brain is bad atpredicting the future, and
(16:37):
routines allow them to not haveto predict the future.
And so the best way that youcan communicate to your child
that it's time to put their pjson Is to put their pjs on in the
context of a broader routine,every single day the same way.
So the easiest way tocommunicate with your kids
actually is not anything and howyou talk to them.
(16:57):
The easiest way to communicatewith your kids is to create
routines that are consistent,where your child knows what's
coming next, and then actuallythey can feel like they have
some agency in the middle of itto say I know that I'm going to
put on my PJs, but I want tohave say over which PJs I put on
.
If the routine is inconsistent,then your child doesn't know
which things they have say overand which things that are just
(17:19):
going to happen, period.
And so routines are theultimate parenting hack.
They absolutely set kids up tothrive.
They allow kids to.
People think that they're rigid, and then they cause kids to
not have any freedom.
It's the exact opposite.
They actually cause kids tohave more freedom.
So that's number one.
Before I get into number two andthree, I want to pause really
(17:43):
briefly and say a little bitabout rating and reviewing the
podcast, because I do that inevery episode.
So, yeah, you're going to haveto listen to it.
Okay, before I get into numbertwo, number three, the other two
things that you can do tocommunicate with your child
better so that they can actuallybe in a position to listen to
you, I want to give yousomething that I would like you
to do for me, which is to go andrate and review this podcast.
As I've been trying tohighlight in each episode, the
(18:04):
reason that I want you to rateand review this podcast is not
because I need it for my own ego, to hear from people that they
like the podcast.
It's for three reasons, and I'mgoing to run through them much
more quickly than I have inprevious episodes, because I've
gotten feedback that it's takenme too long to talk about this.
Number one Whole Parent is aplatform that, at this stage in
its development, is basicallyentirely on me as the creator,
(18:27):
so I make these episodes thatcome up with what we're going to
talk about.
I reach out to all my podcastguests and hosts.
I respond to every single emailmyself.
There is no one who works forWhole Parent other than me.
I have hired somebody one timeto put a bunch of my videos up
on Facebook, because I don'tknow how to do that.
Other than that, I have neverhired anybody really to work to
(18:48):
do anything for Whole Parent.
It's just me, and occasionallymy wife helps me with stuff and
I really am appreciative to her.
I don't want to belittle that inany way, but because it's just
me, my time is it has to bedivided among the things that
make the most sense for wholeparent and the podcast.
Being new and being muchsmaller than my social platforms
(19:09):
or my email list or things likethat, the podcast a lot of
times has to take a back seat,and I don't want that to be the
case, because I actually thinkand I've gotten this feedback
from many of you as well thatthe podcast actually is some of
the best information that WholeParent gives out, that like this
platform produces, and so whenpeople rate and review the
podcast, it's basically tellingme and it's telling my wife
(19:32):
who's the other person who helpsme manage my time in this way.
Hey, this is something that youshould be continuing to
prioritize and make sure thatyou're getting an episode out
every week.
And you'll notice, I don'talways get an episode out every
week, and the reason for that isthat other things take priority
until this has grown to theextent where it needs to.
And I know it's a chicken or anegg thing where, until I
prioritize it, it's not going tobe at the same level of those
(19:54):
other things that I prioritize.
But you can help me do that.
You can say hey, john, we dothink that you should be
continuing to give a lot of yourtime and attention to this
podcast.
That's number one reason.
Number two reason is that youactually, by doing this, help
the podcast go out to morepeople.
I can't control who this podcastgoes out to.
When it comes to searchingsomething like parenting or
(20:14):
evidence-based parenting orbrain-based parenting or how to
parent on Apple or Spotify, Ican't control any of that.
You control that when you ratethis, especially when you give
it five stars, and when thisshow has more ratings than other
shows.
That's a big factor in thealgorithm of what gets listed,
and so if you want this messageto get out to more parents, not
(20:36):
just you you don't want to justbe the best parent on the block,
because you're listening towhole parent, but you want your
kids to have friends who arebeing raised in the same way, so
that we can change our culturetogether and parent more
effectively.
As a whole, you can rate andreview.
It takes you almost no time andit does help do that to a level
that you would not expect.
(20:56):
Number three because of thenature of podcasts.
Ratings are the way in which aguest can choose which podcast
to go on.
So I have a lot of followers onsocial media and so I can get
in front of some really awesomepeople like Dr Tina Payne Bryson
, who's already been on thepodcast, and others other
authors, other creators, otherthinkers, researchers, child
(21:17):
development experts.
I can get in front of themoftentimes, but then to get them
to come on the podcast, I haveto be able to show them.
Hey, look, lots of people likethis thing, and there's no way
for them to look up the publicdownloads on this or anything
like that.
That information is notavailable.
I don't even have the fulldownload numbers because it's
just estimates.
The platforms don't report backto my podcast host how many
(21:42):
downloads they get.
There's just an estimate basedon number of clicks and things
like that.
And so because of that, it'sreally, really important that I
have a ton of good reviews sothat I can say to a person like
Dr Shefali, who I'm trying toget on the podcast right now, I
have some commitment that shewould.
She would be on.
She's an amazing parentingeducator, she's groundbreaking
parenting author who wrote theConscious Parent.
(22:03):
I can say to her look a lot ofparenting podcasts.
They don't have that manyreviews, but look at how many
amazing reviews we have.
And so we, this, thispopulation of people, are really
dedicated and committed.
So that is that's the threereasons why you should rate and
review this show, and now thatI've given you those, I'm just
going to encourage you to dothat and let's talk about some
other things that we can do tohelp your child to listen a
little bit better.
(22:24):
Okay, number two this is goingto be a little bit
counterintuitive and it does gowith the autonomy seeking thing
that goes back to that PDF thatI created.
This is really important.
I want to really emphasize this.
Toddlers do lots of stuffthat's dangerous, and when our
toddlers do things that aredangerous, we have to hold
boundaries.
I don't want you to become apermissive parent who says yes
to absolutely everything, evenwhen it's harmful to your child.
(22:44):
Not at all, in fact.
When you do that, your child isa lot less safe, for not just
that reason, but because theydon't know what's safe and
what's not safe.
You are the one who decideswhat's safe for your child and
what's not safe.
You are the one who decideswhat's safe for your child.
That said, if you constantlysay no to your child, they will
constantly say no back to you.
If you say yes to your child,they will say yes back to you.
(23:06):
And so find ways with thoseautonomy seeking activities.
But also when your child bringssomething to you, if it's not
dangerous, if maybe they mightget a bump or a scrape or a
bruise, that's okay If it's notlife-threatening or going to
cause them serious harm, andit's not something that, like
you, absolutely cannot say yes.
To try and say yes as much asyou can, because the more you
(23:29):
say no, the more it is modeledto them that this is our
relationship.
It's similar to the siblingrivalry thing.
Actually, you're creatingneural pathways where, like you,
are associated with being theperson who says no, and so
they're going to say no and it'san oppositional relationship.
If your child feels like you'resaying yes as much as you can,
you can even say that.
I say yes whenever I can, and Itell my kids that all the time.
(23:49):
You, as soon as you become theperson who says yes, even to you
, know it's going to take alittle longer to get in the car,
but we can do this silly thingon the way, or you know, oh,
yeah, I want to say yes to that.
Any way that you can say yes,do it, because it creates a
different dynamic between youand your child.
No longer are you in thisoppositional relationship where
it's like I want to do thisthing, no, you can't do it.
(24:10):
Okay, put on your PJs.
No, I'm not going to Now.
It's a collaborativerelationship, and another trick
with this I should make anentire episode just about this
but is the concept of aconditional yes, and so there
are going to be some things thatthe answer is not yes right now
, but the answer is yes in thefuture.
Actually, one of the brain hacksthat you can work with, one of
the communication tips that youcan work with with your kid, is
(24:33):
to say yes and then provide theconditions under which the
answer is yes.
So give you an example my kidsare really into sweets.
Right now, it's just like everysingle time my in-laws come
over, they just load them up onice cream and in the next like
four days, they're like can weget ice cream, can we get ice
cream?
Can we get ice cream?
And I'm not saying ice cream'sbad, right, like it's okay, but
it's just like constant, right?
So when my kids ask me, can Ihave ice cream, I'll say like,
(24:55):
yes, you can have ice creamtomorrow.
Or yes, you can have ice creamafter dinner.
And it might sound like, oh man,that's kind of being
manipulative.
Why did you say yes?
And then the answer is reallyno.
The answer is yes, you can haveice cream.
I'm not saying no forever.
I'm saying yes, you can.
But here are the conditionsunder you're just going to say
(25:16):
no, right?
Like, can I run in the traintracks?
Like no, the answer is no, theanswer is always no.
But there are other thingswhere you can say, yeah, we can.
But here are the conditionsthat need to be met in order for
that to happen.
So those are the first two.
Number three this is alsoreally important.
I have so many of these.
I'm realizing as I'm sayingthis, I'm like, oh, there's a
fourth one too.
(25:37):
I won't talk about that, I'mnot going to confuse you.
Number three, and this is thevideo that I made that had such
a high rate of people who werelike, yes, this, this is so
helpful to me.
The way in which you communicatethings to your child matters a
lot for them to be able to hearyou and listen to you.
So not just saying no less in amacro sense, but when you're
(26:00):
actually communicating with yourchild, you have to understand
that their brain does notunderstand things as quickly as
you understand them, and so,because of that, you have to be
intentional about how youcommunicate.
So, for example, if your childis running at the pool something
that we've been dealing withrecently because we've been
going to the pool a lot becauseit's been so hot in Chicago we
going up, going to the pool, mykids are running.
(26:22):
I could either say stop running, or I can choose a different
way to communicate that samething to my toddler.
Why does that communication,why does stop running, not work?
Let's start with that, and thenit'll make sense what I'm going
to say next Stop running.
Assumes that your childautomatically knows the
alternative to not running.
(26:42):
That is very obvious for adults.
It is not obvious for kids thatare that young.
They don't directly know aalternative.
And so sometimes, if you have areally great relationship with
your child, you might say stoprunning.
They might stop on a dime.
Maybe they'll try and stop andthey'll slip and fall, but
(27:03):
ultimately they may just stop,but they are unlikely to then
walk.
Now with a seven-year-old youcould totally just say stop
running and it would work.
Now I'm not saying that youshould say stop running.
I think what I'm going to offeryou as an alternative is better
in every case.
But you, I think this, the whatI'm going to offer you as an
alternative, is better in everycase, but you totally could say
that to a seven year old and itwould work.
What doesn't work is doing thatwith a two year old who doesn't
(27:24):
understand yet the alternativeof a negative or doesn't know
the absence of a thing like the.
I don't want to sound likeTerrence Howard trying to
explain some like wackymathematics thing here, but I
guess, seeing that on like theJoe Rogan podcast, I'm not going
to take the diversion.
I'm not going to take thediversion.
Your child can't understand theabsence of a thing.
Your child wants thealternative instead.
So instead of saying stoprunning, you want to say instead
walking, walk please, orsomething like that.
(27:47):
There's two additional thingswith not just not saying the
negative right which I'm notsaying the negative, that's kind
of saying the negative right.
But other than giving them thealternative, there's two other
reasons why this is reallyimportant and that you should
frame your communication.
Keep these things in mind asyou're communicating with your
toddler.
Number one their brain worksslower and that means that
(28:09):
oftentimes, when you say stoprunning, what they're hearing
first is someone's talking to me.
What was it that they weresaying?
They were saying running.
Then they work backwards to oh,and then they said stop.
So, unlike you, who in a splitsecond, a millisecond, is able
(28:30):
to interpret Somebody's talkingto me and I can go back to the
beginning of their sentence andstart there.
When they hear you, they startoften with the end of the
sentence or they start with theverb and then they go backwards.
And so when you say don't dothis, a lot of times they hear
do this first and then don'tafter, and so kids will keep on
(28:51):
doing the thing.
Now here's the other importantpoint to this.
So so, in other words, theeasiest way to communicate with
the toddler is just to tell themwhat you want them to do,
instead of telling them what youdon't want them to do.
Tell them what you want them todo, because they're going to
hear that and then they're goingto go with whatever it is that
you want them to do anyway,provided that they are not just
trying to push back in, becausethey're feeling be able to.
If you communicate everythingin negative, abstract terms,
(29:12):
that assume that they understandthe alternative intrinsically.
So that's number one reason whytheir brains work slow and how
you should communicate.
The second thing is that youhave to pause between repeating
(29:33):
your instruction.
Let me say that again.
You have to pause betweenrepeating your instruction.
Why your instruction?
Let me say that, again, youhave to pause between repeating
your instruction.
Why?
Because, just because you, forexample, if your partner
screamed at you don't touch thatwhen you're reaching for
something on the stove, theycould repeat it right again
Don't touch that, don't touchthat, don't touch that.
And your brain, as an adultbrain, would hear it three times
(29:53):
.
They would go.
Oh, they're saying don't touchthat, don't touch that, don't
touch that.
That's three separate sentences, they're just saying it
repeatedly.
Children's brains don't workthat quickly and so when you
repeat something over and overand over, they don't have time
to cognitively interpret whatyou're saying.
So so what happens is, bykeeping talking and keeping the
(30:14):
steady stream of verbalcommunication coming in, they
have no time to process whatyou're saying.
They're just taking it in.
So just imagine it in the termsof, like you know, taking it in
, understanding it and thenacting like.
These are three separate things.
In adults, this takes one second.
You hear something, youunderstand what it means and
then you take appropriate action.
Sometimes it's less than asecond, but oftentimes it's one
(30:36):
about a second.
Right Half a second to hear itand interpret it.
Another half second to changeyour, your actual body in order
to accommodate that thatinstruction.
Right One second.
For a kid, that whole processmight take a second and a half,
two seconds.
Well, that's twice as long asit does it takes for an adult.
So they interpret what you,they hear what you say, and they
(31:02):
can't start interpreting whatyou say because their brain is
not at a point of development,yet where it can, to interpret
as you're speaking.
As adults we're doing kind ofthree things almost
simultaneously.
They're happening so quicklythat it's almost simultaneous.
We're interpreting whatsomebody's saying as they're
saying it.
Kids oftentimes have to hearwhat it is.
Take a, have to hear what it is, take a beat, interpret what
(31:25):
that is and then adjust theirbody to do that by action, or
follow that instruction orchoose not to follow the
instruction.
So when you repeat things overand over and over and over, you
are actually turning off thepart of their brain.
And so this is actually what Iwas going to get to is the third
one or is the fourth one?
And so I'll give you the bonus.
I'll give you the bonus becauseactually this kind of goes with
what I'm saying here.
The other thing is the way inwhich it said will be
interpreted by different partsof their brain, depending on how
you say it.
(31:46):
What do I mean by that?
If you're yelling at your kids,the part of their brain that
actually can make decisions andchange things is not going to be
active.
So if you're screaming at them,the best you can hope for often
is for them to just freeze, andthat is a helpful tool.
When my kids run in towards thestreet, you don't think I
scream at them.
I scream at them, but my goalin that moment is not to teach
(32:09):
them about the street or to getthem to adjust their behavior in
some way.
I want them to freeze behaviorin some way.
I want them to freeze.
So oftentimes parents willscream at a kid to do a thing,
not knowing that they actuallyshut down the part of the kid's
brain that can do the thing orthat can interpret what they're
saying.
Instead, the kid just freezesand then the adult, who feels
(32:31):
like they're being disrespectedbecause the child is not doing
what they're screaming at themto do, doubles down, doesn't
even allow the child to process,screams again, then screams
again and the entire situationspirals out of control.
And then you have a puddle of amess kid on the floor, panting
and you know, in the fetalposition.
Because you've just yelled theminto a puddle, because you
didn't give them any opportunityto actually process and listen
(32:54):
to anything that you've said.
You've just created a situationout of nothing, and so
understanding how youcommunicate also impacts how
their brain is going tointerpret those things.
So all of these are tips, and Iwill say, too, the same thing
with the neural pathways relatedto autonomy seeking behavior
and being a yes parent who saysyes as much as they can.
(33:16):
Similarly with the yellingthing if your child hears you
constantly yelling, they aregoing to learn how to tune out
the speech patterns that are notyelling, and so the more you
yell, the less likely yourtoddler is to listen to anything
that you're saying when you'renot yelling.
So that's what I have for youtoday on the Whole Parent
Podcast why kids don't listen,why this is a problem for so
(33:36):
many parents out in the world,and some brain-based advice,
some tips on how you can getyour kid to listen a heck of a
lot better.
If this episode has helped youparent better, would you share
it with a friend?
Would you share it with 10friends?
Would you post it to your story?
If you're on Instagram, wouldyou make a TikTok video about it
and tell people I love thiswhole parent podcast thing?
And if you don't feelcomfortable doing any of those
(33:57):
things, if you're not really onsocial media or whatever, just
go and rate and review the show,tell me.
Tell me that you love it andI'll.
Then I'll keep doing it becauseI really do appreciate all the
amazing feedback that I get fromyou guys.
Okay, until next time.
This has been the whole parentpodcast.
Welcome to the Whole Parent Podcast.
My name is John at Whole Parenton all the social medias,
picture this with me, if youwould.
You can close your eyes, unlessyou're driving, then please
don't close your eyes.
It's the end of a long day.
You've been at work, you've hadto deal with some stressors.
Maybe it was not a particularlystressful day, maybe it was.
You finally finished whateveryou were working on.
(00:22):
You packed up.
Maybe you got in your car tocommute home.
Maybe you work from home andyou just need to go pick up your
kid from daycare or from aparent's house or something like
that.
Maybe you made dinner.
Maybe you had to pick it up onthe way home.
You're exhausted.
You're finally to bedtime.
If you're like me, sometimes youcount down the hours to bedtime
until you can have a break andyou're just trying to get your
(00:44):
three-year-old in their pajamasand instead of cooperating, they
are just bouncing off the walls, running around the room,
totally ignoring your repeatedrequests.
Your voice gets a little louder, then it gets a little louder.
Finally you're screaming atthis tiny human and you're
wondering in that moment.
Did I make a horrible decisionbecoming a parent?
(01:05):
I just want to sit down.
I just want to be done.
If that sounds familiar, youare not alone.
You are just like thousands andthousands of parents who just
don't understand why theirtoddler does not listen.
In fact, listening challengesare basically the thing that
(01:29):
made Whole Parent successful inthe first place.
I was going back and reviewingsome old videos.
I try and look at it with ananalytical frame of mind and
especially assess the videosthat have been the most
successful, not just in views,not just in engagement, comments
, likes, but also the videosthat have caused the most number
(01:52):
of people, or the highestpercentage of people who had not
yet followed me, to watch thatvideo and say you know what?
I need help with this and Iwant to follow this person.
And there is one video and I'mgoing to talk about exactly what
I talked about in that video inthis podcast episode but one
video in particular thatoutperforms, as a percentage,
(02:16):
the view to follow ratio by morethan double the next best
competitor.
And in that video all I talkedabout was why toddlers do not
listen and what we can do aboutit.
Today we are tackling thatexact topic.
It's the topic that drivesparents to social media to ask
for questions.
It drives them to Google and itdrives them a little bit nuts.
(02:40):
Why do so many parents of youngchildren feel like their kid has
totally selective hearing whenit comes to them, and what can
you do to solve that problem?
We're going to talk about whythat is, what's going on from a
developmental perspective,what's going on in their brain
and what we can do as parents toimprove their listening skills.
(03:03):
We're going to talk about tonsof stuff in this episode, and so
if you want to hear what I havelearned from child
psychologists, the practicalstrategies to move this forward,
people from all disciplinesdealing with early childhood
education, parenting, childrearing so that you can finally
get your kids to maybe listen toyou once in a while, stay with
(03:27):
us, okay.
So, as I do on this podcast allthe time, and, if you've never
joined this podcast, if this isthe first episode that you're
ever hearing, this is a podcastthat's really all about
(03:49):
providing practical, brain-based, but the goal of this podcast
is to provide parents with someactionable things that can make
their life a little bit easier,make parenting a lot more
(04:13):
effective, all while doing so ina way that's going to raise
their kids to be flourishing fortheir whole lives.
We parent for the long term, notthe short term, and this is one
of those places where, in thisspecific developmental time
frame, we're going to saytoddlers and when I say toddlers
, what I mean is two, three andfour.
Some kids struggle with thiswhen they're six, seven, eight,
(04:35):
nine.
There are different reasons forthat.
Some people say that theirsix-month-old doesn't listen, to
which I respond that's par forthe course, that's just what
life is.
But when your kid is two, threeand four, there are some things
that you can do.
But in order to understand whatyou need to do, the first thing
that you have to kind of takein understand is why it is that
(04:57):
toddlers seem to have selectivehearing where we are concerned,
and so I'm going to talk aboutthe brain, I'm going to talk
about development, and I'm alsogoing to talk about what we can
do to try and improve thatselective hearing so that they
listen and respond a little bitmore easily.
So I'm going to give you somepractical tips, but I'm also
going to give you someneuroscience background.
(05:18):
That's what I always do on thispodcast.
So if you're new, that's what wedo, and if you like this
podcast, please share it witheverybody that you know we're
really just starting out lessthan 30 episodes.
Compare that with the thousandsof social media videos.
This is still a pretty smallpodcast, but it's growing and
we're getting so many amazingpeople on.
We've already had Tina PayneBryson on, who is my personal
favorite parenting guru author.
(05:40):
She is the best selling authorof books like no Drama,
discipline and the Whole BrainChild, which is my personal
favorite parenting book that hasever been written.
We've had other experts onother psychologists.
We've had other parentinginfluencers from social media,
people with hundreds ofthousands of followers, and I am
actively seeking to get somereally, really amazing people,
the cutting-edge top leaders inthe field, and so the best way
(06:03):
that you can help me do that, sothat we can together as a
community, as the whole parentcommunity, ask those tough
questions, learn from thesereally big, experienced voices,
is to share this podcast so itcontinues to grow, and to rate
and review it.
So if you're just listening toit for the first time, please
listen to the end of the episodeand then decide is this worth
your time to rate, review and,of course, subscribe so that you
(06:30):
can get all of the awesomebrain-based tips and tricks that
we talk about on a weekly basis, but the first thing that I
want to talk about in thisepisode, specifically related to
toddlers and selective hearing,is autonomy and specifically,
that children who are two, three, four years old are in an
autonomy-seeking or seeking, orindependence seeking place
developmentally.
Why is this the case?
Well, mammals in general I knownow we're getting really broad
(06:54):
not just talking about kids,we're talking about all mammals.
Come on, john, this is apodcast about kids.
Yes, mammals in general do mostof their growing inside their
mother's bodies.
That's where, you know, onecell becomes two cells and I
don't have to tell you howbabies are made right, but most
mammals do the overwhelmingmajority of their brain
(07:14):
development in utero.
Humans, as compared to othermammals, are born somewhat
prematurely.
What do we mean by this?
What I mean is that, in orderfor our brains, which take up a
massively disproportionateamount of our energy in
comparison to other animals allother animals, not just mammals
(07:37):
our brains take up up to 25 to30% of all of the energy that we
have as people in our body, theenergy that we burn.
25 to 30% of that's taken up byour brain.
That's because our brain ishuge.
It's disproportionately largecompared.
Why?
Because it's disproportionatelycomplex compared to other
mammals.
It's not.
We don't have the biggest brainphysically, but we do have the
(07:58):
most cortical neurons, meaningthe most neurons in our
neocortex, which makes it sothat this is why humans are way,
far and beyond moreintellectually able than any
other species on planet Earth.
Even our closest cousins don'teven come close.
Well, what this means is thatactually, we have to be born
gestationally earlier than othermammals, and this is because
(08:22):
our brains, which are inside ofour skulls, have to be able to
fit through our mother's birthcanal and, as any woman who has
given birth will tell you, it isa tight fit, as it is, at nine
months Especially, you have areally big baby.
Maybe you're a little bit past.
You know, my mom had, I think,one of my brothers like weeks
and weeks after her due date.
(08:43):
You have a really big baby,really big head.
It is a tight fit, right.
And you can imagine if we wereborn even later in our
development, when other mammalstend to be born in their
development.
Giraffes, for example, can walkaround hours after birth on
those long spindly legs.
If you've ever seen Bambi,bambi can walk around almost
(09:05):
immediately, right?
If we, as human beings, wereborn at that level of our
development, we would never beable to fit through our mother's
birth canal.
So what does this mean?
It means that humans are bornprematurely in comparison to
other mammals.
We are, in other words, very,very dependent, because the
development that still has tooccur once we come out of the
(09:27):
womb, once we're into the world,is far more than most other
animals on planet Earth.
So what does this mean?
It means that for the first twoyears of your child's life,
your child has almost noautonomy whatsoever.
We've talked about this inother episodes, about bedtime
and other things and learning,but what this means is, at two
years old, three years old, fouryears old, your child can
(09:48):
finally make decisions, canfinally choose what they want to
do.
Of course, they still need yourhelp for tons of stuff, but
they can choose what they wantto do.
They can say yes, they can sayno, they can decide what foods
they like and what foods theydon't like, what food, what
they're going to eat, whatthey're not going to eat.
They can decide for themselvesat two, three, four years old
and this is the first time thatthey've been allowed to do that
(10:09):
and so, as you can imagine, whenyou get a new skill, when you
get a new ability, you want totest it out.
Just like when you get a newcar, you want to drive it all
the time.
Just like when you get a newtoy, you want to play with it
all the time.
Just like when you're in a newrelationship, you want to spend
all your time with that otherperson.
When your kids develop an actualability to have a sense of
autonomy, all of a sudden theydon't want to listen to anybody
(10:31):
anymore.
They want to seek out and dofor themselves as much as
possible.
And what I've been trying to doin these episodes is not go
super in depth on how to handleevery single problem and instead
create some PDFs that you cango to if you're interested and
say oh, you know what?
I have a two-year-old,three-year-old, four-year-old
and I need to figure out how togive them some autonomy.
(10:52):
So that's what I've done forthis episode.
So if you're looking for sometips, some tricks and some three
or four autonomy seekingactivities that you can engage
in with your child, that you canhave your child engage in more
like that you can.
That's safe for them.
I created a PDF and it's linkedin the show notes so that you
can go and you can say you know,hey, I want to get this, I'll
(11:14):
email it to you so that you haveit forever.
You don't have to like save theepisode so you can keep coming
back to the link.
It'll be in your email so youcan search it and you will have
a PDF where it's just like okay,here's the three things that I
can do.
If you have a kid who's not yettwo, three years old, great,
get it ahead of time, know itnow.
If you have a kid who's olderthan two or three, get it and
share it with a friend, becauseit's going to be, it's chock
full of really good information.
(11:35):
So so, number one, we have tounderstand, developmentally
speaking, they.
They need autonomy, they needplaces to go and things to do on
their own where they feel likeI am in charge and I can do, and
it's my job.
And if you know a two-year-old,three-year-old, especially one
with older siblings, me do, I do, I do it my turn buckle their
(11:58):
own seatbelt right.
All of that stuff comes fromthe desire to be in control, not
because kids are controlling,but because they've never had
this before and they really,really want to exercise it and,
by the way, that's really goodPart of the way that they're
going to learn interdependence,which is the goal.
It's not independence orcodependence, it's
interdependence knowing how todo many things for yourself and
(12:21):
also knowing how to seek helpwhen you can't.
In order to developinterdependence, they have to
test those boundaries andautonomy seeking behaviors at
this stage at which they're at.
And so kids who are justconstantly helicopter parented
and you're not allowed to makeany decisions and I'm just going
to make, I'm still going tobaby you like you're a little
tiny baby at seven, eight, nineyears old.
(12:42):
They don't learn those autonomyseeking things when they're
younger and then they start toact out those and then you know
parents can still have a lot ofcontrol at that age.
All of a sudden you have a 16year old who's doing autonomy
seeking things, and 16 year oldsdo that anyway, but if they
haven't done any of it earlieron, you're in for it.
So the more you can do thisstuff early on, the better, and
(13:02):
that's why I made the PDF sonumber one understanding how can
we support our child's naturaldevelopmental need for autonomy.
And, by the way.
From a brain developmentperspective, this autonomy
seeking behavior also occurs atone of the most emotional times
of childhood, where they'regoing through the most neural
pruning.
So in the last episode wetalked about neural pathways a
(13:23):
lot.
We create thousands, millions,trillions sometimes neural
pathways and what happens overtime is that the neural pathways
that are unneeded are prunedoff, and this is kind of like
what happens in Inside Out.
If you've seen Inside Out 1, Ihaven't seen Inside Out 2 yet.
I'm sitting on the first weekof July here and I feel like I'm
(13:44):
a bad parenting influencerbecause I don't have thoughts on
Inside Out 2 yet.
But in Inside Out you see likethe neural pathways of the
memories, the core memories,being pruned and the memories
that fall down into like thevoid and eventually are lost.
Children's movies have a lot ofdeep insights, especially the
Pixar ones, if you're willing tosee them and look for them.
Well, neural pruning ishappening during this time and
(14:05):
so the kids need to do theautonomy seeking thing to
support that neural pruningthat's happening, the building
of new skills, the building ofnew developmental capacities,
the learning that's happening,massive amounts of learning, but
also the massive amounts ofpruning that takes place.
So autonomy is the first thingto realize when you're dealing
with a kid who won't listen.
Sometimes the selective hearingcomes from I just don't want to
(14:27):
listen to anybody right nowbecause I'm really focused on
doing my own thing.
The thing is, if you give andoffer your child opportunities
to act out that autonomy thestuff that I'm going to talk
about in that PDF then you likeit's going to come out in one
way or another, but you actuallyhave an opportunity to guide
that and show them.
Here's some appropriate placesfor you to show autonomy and
(14:49):
we're going to get into that too.
So that's the first thing thatI want to highlight.
The second thing is that kids dohave a way in which they
understand language which is alittle bit different than many
people.
Many parents, many adultsunderstand.
Kids understand language at amuch lower level, much more base
level than we think.
Their neuro, their neocortex,is not processing nearly as
(15:12):
quickly as ours, yet they justdon't think as fast as we do as
adults and a lot of timesparents don't realize that and
they don't take that intoaccount, especially when they're
at the end of a long day andwe're just trying to get PJs on
and they don't really think itthrough, and because of that,
the listening thing can feellike my kid's not listening,
when in reality, the way inwhich you're communicating is
(15:34):
actually causing your kid to notbe able to hear you.
And so this is where I want tofocus for the rest of this
episode, and it's three thingsthat you can do as a parent in
your communication with yourchild, and it's three things
that you can do as a parent inyour communication with your
child.
Three things that you canchange how you communicate with
your child that will help themonce they have those
autonomy-seeking needs met,because that's kind of the first
(15:54):
thing Help them to actuallylisten to you when it comes time
.
So the first thing is that youdon't always have to communicate
with words.
What do I mean by that?
One of the best ways that wecan communicate with our kids,
our expectations, is throughroutine.
I'm going to say that again Oneof the best ways that we can
communicate with our kids is notthrough words, it's through
(16:17):
routines.
Why?
Because routines, thepredictable routines of our
child's day and life, these arethe things that give them the
freedom to then have autonomyinside of those things.
But when a child develops aroutine, they thrive.
Why do they thrive?
Because their brain is bad atpredicting the future, and
(16:37):
routines allow them to not haveto predict the future.
And so the best way that youcan communicate to your child
that it's time to put their pjson Is to put their pjs on in the
context of a broader routine,every single day the same way.
So the easiest way tocommunicate with your kids
actually is not anything and howyou talk to them.
(16:57):
The easiest way to communicatewith your kids is to create
routines that are consistent,where your child knows what's
coming next, and then actuallythey can feel like they have
some agency in the middle of itto say I know that I'm going to
put on my PJs, but I want tohave say over which PJs I put on
.
If the routine is inconsistent,then your child doesn't know
which things they have say overand which things that are just
(17:19):
going to happen, period.
And so routines are theultimate parenting hack.
They absolutely set kids up tothrive.
They allow kids to.
People think that they're rigid, and then they cause kids to
not have any freedom.
It's the exact opposite.
They actually cause kids tohave more freedom.
So that's number one.
Before I get into number two andthree, I want to pause really
(17:43):
briefly and say a little bitabout rating and reviewing the
podcast, because I do that inevery episode.
So, yeah, you're going to haveto listen to it.
Okay, before I get into numbertwo, number three, the other two
things that you can do tocommunicate with your child
better so that they can actuallybe in a position to listen to
you, I want to give yousomething that I would like you
to do for me, which is to go andrate and review this podcast.
As I've been trying tohighlight in each episode, the
(18:04):
reason that I want you to rateand review this podcast is not
because I need it for my own ego, to hear from people that they
like the podcast.
It's for three reasons, and I'mgoing to run through them much
more quickly than I have inprevious episodes, because I've
gotten feedback that it's takenme too long to talk about this.
Number one Whole Parent is aplatform that, at this stage in
its development, is basicallyentirely on me as the creator,
(18:27):
so I make these episodes thatcome up with what we're going to
talk about.
I reach out to all my podcastguests and hosts.
I respond to every single emailmyself.
There is no one who works forWhole Parent other than me.
I have hired somebody one timeto put a bunch of my videos up
on Facebook, because I don'tknow how to do that.
Other than that, I have neverhired anybody really to work to
(18:48):
do anything for Whole Parent.
It's just me, and occasionallymy wife helps me with stuff and
I really am appreciative to her.
I don't want to belittle that inany way, but because it's just
me, my time is it has to bedivided among the things that
make the most sense for wholeparent and the podcast.
Being new and being muchsmaller than my social platforms
(19:09):
or my email list or things likethat, the podcast a lot of
times has to take a back seat,and I don't want that to be the
case, because I actually thinkand I've gotten this feedback
from many of you as well thatthe podcast actually is some of
the best information that WholeParent gives out, that like this
platform produces, and so whenpeople rate and review the
podcast, it's basically tellingme and it's telling my wife
(19:32):
who's the other person who helpsme manage my time in this way.
Hey, this is something that youshould be continuing to
prioritize and make sure thatyou're getting an episode out
every week.
And you'll notice, I don'talways get an episode out every
week, and the reason for that isthat other things take priority
until this has grown to theextent where it needs to.
And I know it's a chicken or anegg thing where, until I
prioritize it, it's not going tobe at the same level of those
(19:54):
other things that I prioritize.
But you can help me do that.
You can say hey, john, we dothink that you should be
continuing to give a lot of yourtime and attention to this
podcast.
That's number one reason.
Number two reason is that youactually, by doing this, help
the podcast go out to morepeople.
I can't control who this podcastgoes out to.
When it comes to searchingsomething like parenting or
(20:14):
evidence-based parenting orbrain-based parenting or how to
parent on Apple or Spotify, Ican't control any of that.
You control that when you ratethis, especially when you give
it five stars, and when thisshow has more ratings than other
shows.
That's a big factor in thealgorithm of what gets listed,
and so if you want this messageto get out to more parents, not
(20:36):
just you you don't want to justbe the best parent on the block,
because you're listening towhole parent, but you want your
kids to have friends who arebeing raised in the same way, so
that we can change our culturetogether and parent more
effectively.
As a whole, you can rate andreview.
It takes you almost no time andit does help do that to a level
that you would not expect.
(20:56):
Number three because of thenature of podcasts.
Ratings are the way in which aguest can choose which podcast
to go on.
So I have a lot of followers onsocial media and so I can get
in front of some really awesomepeople like Dr Tina Payne Bryson
, who's already been on thepodcast, and others other
authors, other creators, otherthinkers, researchers, child
(21:17):
development experts.
I can get in front of themoftentimes, but then to get them
to come on the podcast, I haveto be able to show them.
Hey, look, lots of people likethis thing, and there's no way
for them to look up the publicdownloads on this or anything
like that.
That information is notavailable.
I don't even have the fulldownload numbers because it's
just estimates.
The platforms don't report backto my podcast host how many
(21:42):
downloads they get.
There's just an estimate basedon number of clicks and things
like that.
And so because of that, it'sreally, really important that I
have a ton of good reviews sothat I can say to a person like
Dr Shefali, who I'm trying toget on the podcast right now, I
have some commitment that shewould.
She would be on.
She's an amazing parentingeducator, she's groundbreaking
parenting author who wrote theConscious Parent.
(22:03):
I can say to her look a lot ofparenting podcasts.
They don't have that manyreviews, but look at how many
amazing reviews we have.
And so we, this, thispopulation of people, are really
dedicated and committed.
So that is that's the threereasons why you should rate and
review this show, and now thatI've given you those, I'm just
going to encourage you to dothat and let's talk about some
other things that we can do tohelp your child to listen a
little bit better.
(22:24):
Okay, number two this is goingto be a little bit
counterintuitive and it does gowith the autonomy seeking thing
that goes back to that PDF thatI created.
This is really important.
I want to really emphasize this.
Toddlers do lots of stuffthat's dangerous, and when our
toddlers do things that aredangerous, we have to hold
boundaries.
I don't want you to become apermissive parent who says yes
to absolutely everything, evenwhen it's harmful to your child.
(22:44):
Not at all, in fact.
When you do that, your child isa lot less safe, for not just
that reason, but because theydon't know what's safe and
what's not safe.
You are the one who decideswhat's safe for your child and
what's not safe.
You are the one who decideswhat's safe for your child.
That said, if you constantlysay no to your child, they will
constantly say no back to you.
If you say yes to your child,they will say yes back to you.
(23:06):
And so find ways with thoseautonomy seeking activities.
But also when your child bringssomething to you, if it's not
dangerous, if maybe they mightget a bump or a scrape or a
bruise, that's okay If it's notlife-threatening or going to
cause them serious harm, andit's not something that, like
you, absolutely cannot say yes.
To try and say yes as much asyou can, because the more you
(23:29):
say no, the more it is modeledto them that this is our
relationship.
It's similar to the siblingrivalry thing.
Actually, you're creatingneural pathways where, like you,
are associated with being theperson who says no, and so
they're going to say no and it'san oppositional relationship.
If your child feels like you'resaying yes as much as you can,
you can even say that.
I say yes whenever I can, and Itell my kids that all the time.
(23:49):
You, as soon as you become theperson who says yes, even to you
, know it's going to take alittle longer to get in the car,
but we can do this silly thingon the way, or you know, oh,
yeah, I want to say yes to that.
Any way that you can say yes,do it, because it creates a
different dynamic between youand your child.
No longer are you in thisoppositional relationship where
it's like I want to do thisthing, no, you can't do it.
(24:10):
Okay, put on your PJs.
No, I'm not going to Now.
It's a collaborativerelationship, and another trick
with this I should make anentire episode just about this
but is the concept of aconditional yes, and so there
are going to be some things thatthe answer is not yes right now
, but the answer is yes in thefuture.
Actually, one of the brain hacksthat you can work with, one of
the communication tips that youcan work with with your kid, is
(24:33):
to say yes and then provide theconditions under which the
answer is yes.
So give you an example my kidsare really into sweets.
Right now, it's just like everysingle time my in-laws come
over, they just load them up onice cream and in the next like
four days, they're like can weget ice cream, can we get ice
cream?
Can we get ice cream?
And I'm not saying ice cream'sbad, right, like it's okay, but
it's just like constant, right?
So when my kids ask me, can Ihave ice cream, I'll say like,
(24:55):
yes, you can have ice creamtomorrow.
Or yes, you can have ice creamafter dinner.
And it might sound like, oh man,that's kind of being
manipulative.
Why did you say yes?
And then the answer is reallyno.
The answer is yes, you can haveice cream.
I'm not saying no forever.
I'm saying yes, you can.
But here are the conditionsunder you're just going to say
(25:16):
no, right?
Like, can I run in the traintracks?
Like no, the answer is no, theanswer is always no.
But there are other thingswhere you can say, yeah, we can.
But here are the conditionsthat need to be met in order for
that to happen.
So those are the first two.
Number three this is alsoreally important.
I have so many of these.
I'm realizing as I'm sayingthis, I'm like, oh, there's a
fourth one too.
(25:37):
I won't talk about that, I'mnot going to confuse you.
Number three, and this is thevideo that I made that had such
a high rate of people who werelike, yes, this, this is so
helpful to me.
The way in which you communicatethings to your child matters a
lot for them to be able to hearyou and listen to you.
So not just saying no less in amacro sense, but when you're
(26:00):
actually communicating with yourchild, you have to understand
that their brain does notunderstand things as quickly as
you understand them, and so,because of that, you have to be
intentional about how youcommunicate.
So, for example, if your childis running at the pool something
that we've been dealing withrecently because we've been
going to the pool a lot becauseit's been so hot in Chicago we
going up, going to the pool, mykids are running.
(26:22):
I could either say stop running, or I can choose a different
way to communicate that samething to my toddler.
Why does that communication,why does stop running, not work?
Let's start with that, and thenit'll make sense what I'm going
to say next Stop running.
Assumes that your childautomatically knows the
alternative to not running.
(26:42):
That is very obvious for adults.
It is not obvious for kids thatare that young.
They don't directly know aalternative.
And so sometimes, if you have areally great relationship with
your child, you might say stoprunning.
They might stop on a dime.
Maybe they'll try and stop andthey'll slip and fall, but
(27:03):
ultimately they may just stop,but they are unlikely to then
walk.
Now with a seven-year-old youcould totally just say stop
running and it would work.
Now I'm not saying that youshould say stop running.
I think what I'm going to offeryou as an alternative is better
in every case.
But you, I think this, the whatI'm going to offer you as an
alternative, is better in everycase, but you totally could say
that to a seven year old and itwould work.
What doesn't work is doing thatwith a two year old who doesn't
(27:24):
understand yet the alternativeof a negative or doesn't know
the absence of a thing like the.
I don't want to sound likeTerrence Howard trying to
explain some like wackymathematics thing here, but I
guess, seeing that on like theJoe Rogan podcast, I'm not going
to take the diversion.
I'm not going to take thediversion.
Your child can't understand theabsence of a thing.
Your child wants thealternative instead.
So instead of saying stoprunning, you want to say instead
walking, walk please, orsomething like that.
(27:47):
There's two additional thingswith not just not saying the
negative right which I'm notsaying the negative, that's kind
of saying the negative right.
But other than giving them thealternative, there's two other
reasons why this is reallyimportant and that you should
frame your communication.
Keep these things in mind asyou're communicating with your
toddler.
Number one their brain worksslower and that means that
(28:09):
oftentimes, when you say stoprunning, what they're hearing
first is someone's talking to me.
What was it that they weresaying?
They were saying running.
Then they work backwards to oh,and then they said stop.
So, unlike you, who in a splitsecond, a millisecond, is able
(28:30):
to interpret Somebody's talkingto me and I can go back to the
beginning of their sentence andstart there.
When they hear you, they startoften with the end of the
sentence or they start with theverb and then they go backwards.
And so when you say don't dothis, a lot of times they hear
do this first and then don'tafter, and so kids will keep on
(28:51):
doing the thing.
Now here's the other importantpoint to this.
So so, in other words, theeasiest way to communicate with
the toddler is just to tell themwhat you want them to do,
instead of telling them what youdon't want them to do.
Tell them what you want them todo, because they're going to
hear that and then they're goingto go with whatever it is that
you want them to do anyway,provided that they are not just
trying to push back in, becausethey're feeling be able to.
If you communicate everythingin negative, abstract terms,
(29:12):
that assume that they understandthe alternative intrinsically.
So that's number one reason whytheir brains work slow and how
you should communicate.
The second thing is that youhave to pause between repeating
(29:33):
your instruction.
Let me say that again.
You have to pause betweenrepeating your instruction.
Why your instruction?
Let me say that, again, youhave to pause between repeating
your instruction.
Why?
Because, just because you, forexample, if your partner
screamed at you don't touch thatwhen you're reaching for
something on the stove, theycould repeat it right again
Don't touch that, don't touchthat, don't touch that.
And your brain, as an adultbrain, would hear it three times
(29:53):
.
They would go.
Oh, they're saying don't touchthat, don't touch that, don't
touch that.
That's three separate sentences, they're just saying it
repeatedly.
Children's brains don't workthat quickly and so when you
repeat something over and overand over, they don't have time
to cognitively interpret whatyou're saying.
So so what happens is, bykeeping talking and keeping the
(30:14):
steady stream of verbalcommunication coming in, they
have no time to process whatyou're saying.
They're just taking it in.
So just imagine it in the termsof, like you know, taking it in
, understanding it and thenacting like.
These are three separate things.
In adults, this takes one second.
You hear something, youunderstand what it means and
then you take appropriate action.
Sometimes it's less than asecond, but oftentimes it's one
(30:36):
about a second.
Right Half a second to hear itand interpret it.
Another half second to changeyour, your actual body in order
to accommodate that thatinstruction.
Right One second.
For a kid, that whole processmight take a second and a half,
two seconds.
Well, that's twice as long asit does it takes for an adult.
So they interpret what you,they hear what you say, and they
(31:02):
can't start interpreting whatyou say because their brain is
not at a point of development,yet where it can, to interpret
as you're speaking.
As adults we're doing kind ofthree things almost
simultaneously.
They're happening so quicklythat it's almost simultaneous.
We're interpreting whatsomebody's saying as they're
saying it.
Kids oftentimes have to hearwhat it is.
Take a, have to hear what it is, take a beat, interpret what
(31:25):
that is and then adjust theirbody to do that by action, or
follow that instruction orchoose not to follow the
instruction.
So when you repeat things overand over and over and over, you
are actually turning off thepart of their brain.
And so this is actually what Iwas going to get to is the third
one or is the fourth one?
And so I'll give you the bonus.
I'll give you the bonus becauseactually this kind of goes with
what I'm saying here.
The other thing is the way inwhich it said will be
interpreted by different partsof their brain, depending on how
you say it.
(31:46):
What do I mean by that?
If you're yelling at your kids,the part of their brain that
actually can make decisions andchange things is not going to be
active.
So if you're screaming at them,the best you can hope for often
is for them to just freeze, andthat is a helpful tool.
When my kids run in towards thestreet, you don't think I
scream at them.
I scream at them, but my goalin that moment is not to teach
(32:09):
them about the street or to getthem to adjust their behavior in
some way.
I want them to freeze behaviorin some way.
I want them to freeze.
So oftentimes parents willscream at a kid to do a thing,
not knowing that they actuallyshut down the part of the kid's
brain that can do the thing orthat can interpret what they're
saying.
Instead, the kid just freezesand then the adult, who feels
(32:31):
like they're being disrespectedbecause the child is not doing
what they're screaming at themto do, doubles down, doesn't
even allow the child to process,screams again, then screams
again and the entire situationspirals out of control.
And then you have a puddle of amess kid on the floor, panting
and you know, in the fetalposition.
Because you've just yelled theminto a puddle, because you
didn't give them any opportunityto actually process and listen
(32:54):
to anything that you've said.
You've just created a situationout of nothing, and so
understanding how youcommunicate also impacts how
their brain is going tointerpret those things.
So all of these are tips, and Iwill say, too, the same thing
with the neural pathways relatedto autonomy seeking behavior
and being a yes parent who saysyes as much as they can.
(33:16):
Similarly with the yellingthing if your child hears you
constantly yelling, they aregoing to learn how to tune out
the speech patterns that are notyelling, and so the more you
yell, the less likely yourtoddler is to listen to anything
that you're saying when you'renot yelling.
So that's what I have for youtoday on the Whole Parent
Podcast why kids don't listen,why this is a problem for so
(33:36):
many parents out in the world,and some brain-based advice,
some tips on how you can getyour kid to listen a heck of a
lot better.
If this episode has helped youparent better, would you share
it with a friend?
Would you share it with 10friends?
Would you post it to your story?
If you're on Instagram, wouldyou make a TikTok video about it
and tell people I love thiswhole parent podcast thing?
And if you don't feelcomfortable doing any of those
(33:57):
things, if you're not really onsocial media or whatever, just
go and rate and review the show,tell me.
Tell me that you love it andI'll.
Then I'll keep doing it becauseI really do appreciate all the
amazing feedback that I get fromyou guys.
Okay, until next time.
This has been the whole parentpodcast.
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