July 19, 2024 • 11 mins
In this episode, we dive into the challenges and strategies of teaching children to listen and follow directions. Evelynn Brown shares a humorous anecdote about her mom's unique way of encouraging tidiness, setting the stage for a deeper discussion on why kids have such a hard time listening.
We explore practical tips for parents to help their kids develop the ability to follow instructions, starting with simple chores at a young age. Special guest Erin Coppin provides insights Learn how routines and single-step directions can make a big difference, especially for children with auditory processing issues or ADHD.
Simple games like Simon Says and Red Light, Green Light that can also enhance your child's listening and impulse control.
Join us as we uncover the keys to helping your child become a better listener, setting them up for success at home, school, and beyond.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
One of my friends was talking about how their mom was cleaning their room and
kept moving stuff around.
And I said, what? My mom never cleaned my room. She just stood there and watched.
She used to make me play this game called bend down, pick it up,
where I had to bend down, pick something up, and then put it right away.
It wasn't very fun. Okay, some of my games were not very fun at all.
(00:20):
Cut me some slack. I didn't have Pinterest at the time.
Music.
(01:05):
Music.
My goal as a mom was to teach my kids how to life.
Learning how to listen and follow directions not only helps kids do better in
school, it will help them later in the workplace and even in their relationships.
(01:27):
First, let's talk about following directions and then talk more about listening with empathy.
Some of my kids were good at following directions from the start,
and others struggled for various reasons.
I usually focused on teaching them how to follow directions in the context of doing chores.
I started them out doing chores really early, but I started really small.
When they were two years old, they would have the job of bringing the spoons
(01:50):
from the table to the dishwasher after meals.
Then, when they got good at that, they could do the spoons and the forks,
then the spoons and the forks and the butter knives, and so on.
They were usually clearing the table completely by the age of five.
They gain a sense of competence and importance from helping out,
but it wasn't always was easy.
As you can tell from Evelyn's story about bend down and pick it up in the intro, it took a lot of time.
(02:14):
I remember one chore, brushing their teeth, that I got so frustrated about.
Jackson was 11, and I told him to go brush his teeth to get ready for bed,
and he just didn't want to do it.
After repeated reminders, I just flipped out.
I said, Jackson, how old are you? I'm 11.
How many days are there in a year? 365.
(02:35):
So how many days have you been alive? I made him get a piece of paper and do the math. 4,015.
Then I said, how many times a day do we brush our teeth? Twice.
So how many times in your life have I told you to brush your teeth?
Uh, 8,030. So how long until you learn to do it on your own?
Will I have to ask you 10,000 more times?
(02:56):
Will I have to follow you to college to make sure you brush your teeth?
That thought made him shudder. He did not want me to follow him to college.
I had already followed him to elementary school to be his teacher,
and that was bad enough. I never had to remind him to brush his teeth again.
So, what is it that makes it so hard for kids to listen and follow directions?
(03:16):
Let's explore all the things that are happening in a child's brain for them
to listen and follow directions.
In order to follow instructions, a child has to know enough words to understand what you ask them to do.
If I ask a two-year-old to clear the table, they might not know what clear is,
and they might not understand what you want them to do to the table.
(03:37):
But if you show them a spoon and say, this is a spoon, can you take this spoon
and put it here in the dishwasher?
As you show them the action you want them to do, they are learning the words
spoon and dishwasher, not to mention put and in.
So make sure you are giving instructions that are clear and simple.
One of the hardest parts about getting a child to listen to you is that if they're
(03:59):
focused on doing something else, they might not even register your voice.
One good suggestion is to use eye contact instead of repeating yourself.
Here's a clip from my interview with Erin Coppin about that.
How have you helped your children improve?
So when they were little, I had to understand that they didn't have the capacity
to follow multiple step directions. So I had to give them one at a time.
(04:21):
Because a lot of times we'd be cleaning and I'd be like, okay,
go pick up this and put that away and then come back, do this and this and this.
And I had to learn, okay, put this away, come back, put this away, come back.
And still, even today, I still sometimes have to do that.
Okay, one at a time. If I start giving them too many instructions,
then they start to get overwhelmed, don't want to listen.
(04:43):
The other thing that I had to do was actually take a step with myself and make
sure I actually got their attention before I gave an instruction.
So if they're in the middle of doing something and I tell them to go do something,
they may not have actually paid attention and heard.
And so I have to stop and get their attention, say their name,
or have some sort of clue that they're actually ready to listen.
(05:07):
As they've gotten older, the more that we did a single instruction at a time, they have learned.
And now I can say, okay, go do this, this, this, this, and then come back.
But I also still have to be cognizant of don't overwhelm them with instructions.
Sometimes if you give a lot of instructions, your family learns to tune you out.
So you've got to pick your battles. I saw this great meme the other day that
(05:29):
had a Viking that said, pick your battles.
Pick fewer battles than that. Put some battles back. That's still too many battles.
It made me laugh because there's so much for kids to learn that sometimes it
can can be pretty overwhelming.
So especially at first, it might be a good idea to focus on teaching them just one skill.
With my son Jackson, I started by teaching him to help with the dinner cleanup.
(05:50):
You might choose to help them learn to pick up their toys after they play with
them, or to get dressed in the morning.
Another thing to keep in mind is that some children might struggle with auditory processing.
Even if your ears work, your brain might struggle to connect what you hear and analyze it.
According to kidshealth.org, anywhere from 3 to 5% of kids struggle with central
(06:12):
auditory processing disorder.
It's another brain difference that can make it difficult for your child to listen and follow directions.
With central auditory processing disorder, kids can hear perfectly fine,
but their brains struggle to understand and analyze the words.
Another brain difference that can make it hard for your child to listen and
follow directions is ADHD.
(06:33):
This is because of difficulty paying attention or perhaps lack of working memory.
If you remember the movie Inside Out, you might imagine the lighted balls of
information that the emotion characters work with.
Before they're sent down to long-term memory, they're upstairs in their workspace.
Working memory refers to how many pieces of information you can handle at once.
(06:53):
All of us are limited by our working memory, but some more than others.
Young children do not have as much space in their working memory as adults.
Your working memory develops over time, so you need to be patient.
One way to take some of the load off their working memory is to develop routines.
Erin had some really good ideas about developing routines with young children
(07:14):
or children that are struggling to learn to follow instructions.
Distractions like the morning is something that my daughter really struggles
with getting up and getting ready and getting out the door on time.
And so the more that she has a routine, this is the time you get up.
This is what you do first, second, third.
Like when she was little, she had pictures that were get dressed,
(07:35):
you eat breakfast, you brush your teeth, you brush your hair,
you put on your shoes and socks, you get your lunch.
So she had a visual step one, step two, step three.
But yeah, we've had to work a lot and still is not perfect.
And she misses the bus more often than she should, but we keep working on it
and she is better than she has been.
And there's less drama around getting out the door.
(07:57):
These strategies will also work with children who suffer from central auditory processing disorder.
I know I just made the whole thing sound complicated and difficult,
but I want you to get an understanding of why some kids may struggle with listening.
They're not just trying to make you mad. And hopefully this will help you have
a little bit more patience.
But don't give up on giving instructions just because it's hard for your child.
(08:19):
It is vital that your child get better and better at this skill and working
on it at home will help them at school and later in life.
Here are a few games that you can play that make it fun to practice their ability to follow directions.
Do you remember the old game Simon says? This easy game involves choosing one person to be it or Simon.
Simon gives instructions instructions preceded by the words,
(08:40):
Simon says, jump, for example.
Then every once in a while, Simon will give an instruction without saying Simon
says, and if the others do it, they're out.
Another fun one is red light, green light. The person who is it stands far from
the others and turns their back and says green light.
Everyone moves toward the person until they turn around and say red light.
(09:02):
Anyone who doesn't stop immediately has to go back to the beginning.
This helps your child develop another important part of their brain involved
in listening and following directions, their impulse control.
Now, listening to instructions is only one aspect of listening.
Another aspect is listening to understand other people's emotions, thoughts, and ideas.
It's good to reflect with your child often about other people's feelings so
(09:25):
that they start thinking about it.
Talking about other people's feelings is one way to teach empathy,
but the best way is to teach it by modeling it for your child.
This is hard for me because it's not really in my nature. My husband is the
good listener in our family.
But I once read a very good book called How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and
Listen So They Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Maslish. It's been a while
(09:47):
since I've read it, and it's an older book, so there might be some older traditions
in it, but it has some really great ideas.
One I shared with my friend Elizabeth was when Javi really wanted an iPad,
and she didn't want to get him one. He kept begging, and it was frustrating.
So I told her about giving your child their wish in fantasy.
Instead of just saying, no, you don't need an iPad, you could say,
(10:07):
if I had a magic wand, I would conjure up an iPad and a Spider-Man case to go on it.
Then the kid might add something else they want you to conjure with your magic
wand and you happily talk about all the things that you could have if only magic were real.
Yogi and I do a variation of this called, If I Had All the Money in the World.
It helps kids feel heard and validated.
They know deep down inside that you can't give them everything they want,
(10:30):
but somehow it feels good to know that you care about their wishes.
That is just one of the great suggestions the book gives for learning to show
more empathy for your child without spoiling. But the premise of the book is
very true, that as you learn to listen to your child, they will become a better
listener to you and to their teacher.
(11:13):
Music.
One of my friends was talking about how their mom was cleaning their room and
kept moving stuff around.
And I said, what? My mom never cleaned my room. She just stood there and watched.
She used to make me play this game called bend down, pick it up,
where I had to bend down, pick something up, and then put it right away.
It wasn't very fun. Okay, some of my games were not very fun at all.
(00:20):
Cut me some slack. I didn't have Pinterest at the time.
Music.
(01:05):
Music.
My goal as a mom was to teach my kids how to life.
Learning how to listen and follow directions not only helps kids do better in
school, it will help them later in the workplace and even in their relationships.
(01:27):
First, let's talk about following directions and then talk more about listening with empathy.
Some of my kids were good at following directions from the start,
and others struggled for various reasons.
I usually focused on teaching them how to follow directions in the context of doing chores.
I started them out doing chores really early, but I started really small.
When they were two years old, they would have the job of bringing the spoons
(01:50):
from the table to the dishwasher after meals.
Then, when they got good at that, they could do the spoons and the forks,
then the spoons and the forks and the butter knives, and so on.
They were usually clearing the table completely by the age of five.
They gain a sense of competence and importance from helping out,
but it wasn't always was easy.
As you can tell from Evelyn's story about bend down and pick it up in the intro, it took a lot of time.
(02:14):
I remember one chore, brushing their teeth, that I got so frustrated about.
Jackson was 11, and I told him to go brush his teeth to get ready for bed,
and he just didn't want to do it.
After repeated reminders, I just flipped out.
I said, Jackson, how old are you? I'm 11.
How many days are there in a year? 365.
(02:35):
So how many days have you been alive? I made him get a piece of paper and do the math. 4,015.
Then I said, how many times a day do we brush our teeth? Twice.
So how many times in your life have I told you to brush your teeth?
Uh, 8,030. So how long until you learn to do it on your own?
Will I have to ask you 10,000 more times?
(02:56):
Will I have to follow you to college to make sure you brush your teeth?
That thought made him shudder. He did not want me to follow him to college.
I had already followed him to elementary school to be his teacher,
and that was bad enough. I never had to remind him to brush his teeth again.
So, what is it that makes it so hard for kids to listen and follow directions?
(03:16):
Let's explore all the things that are happening in a child's brain for them
to listen and follow directions.
In order to follow instructions, a child has to know enough words to understand what you ask them to do.
If I ask a two-year-old to clear the table, they might not know what clear is,
and they might not understand what you want them to do to the table.
(03:37):
But if you show them a spoon and say, this is a spoon, can you take this spoon
and put it here in the dishwasher?
As you show them the action you want them to do, they are learning the words
spoon and dishwasher, not to mention put and in.
So make sure you are giving instructions that are clear and simple.
One of the hardest parts about getting a child to listen to you is that if they're
(03:59):
focused on doing something else, they might not even register your voice.
One good suggestion is to use eye contact instead of repeating yourself.
Here's a clip from my interview with Erin Coppin about that.
How have you helped your children improve?
So when they were little, I had to understand that they didn't have the capacity
to follow multiple step directions. So I had to give them one at a time.
(04:21):
Because a lot of times we'd be cleaning and I'd be like, okay,
go pick up this and put that away and then come back, do this and this and this.
And I had to learn, okay, put this away, come back, put this away, come back.
And still, even today, I still sometimes have to do that.
Okay, one at a time. If I start giving them too many instructions,
then they start to get overwhelmed, don't want to listen.
(04:43):
The other thing that I had to do was actually take a step with myself and make
sure I actually got their attention before I gave an instruction.
So if they're in the middle of doing something and I tell them to go do something,
they may not have actually paid attention and heard.
And so I have to stop and get their attention, say their name,
or have some sort of clue that they're actually ready to listen.
(05:07):
As they've gotten older, the more that we did a single instruction at a time, they have learned.
And now I can say, okay, go do this, this, this, this, and then come back.
But I also still have to be cognizant of don't overwhelm them with instructions.
Sometimes if you give a lot of instructions, your family learns to tune you out.
So you've got to pick your battles. I saw this great meme the other day that
(05:29):
had a Viking that said, pick your battles.
Pick fewer battles than that. Put some battles back. That's still too many battles.
It made me laugh because there's so much for kids to learn that sometimes it
can can be pretty overwhelming.
So especially at first, it might be a good idea to focus on teaching them just one skill.
With my son Jackson, I started by teaching him to help with the dinner cleanup.
(05:50):
You might choose to help them learn to pick up their toys after they play with
them, or to get dressed in the morning.
Another thing to keep in mind is that some children might struggle with auditory processing.
Even if your ears work, your brain might struggle to connect what you hear and analyze it.
According to kidshealth.org, anywhere from 3 to 5% of kids struggle with central
(06:12):
auditory processing disorder.
It's another brain difference that can make it difficult for your child to listen and follow directions.
With central auditory processing disorder, kids can hear perfectly fine,
but their brains struggle to understand and analyze the words.
Another brain difference that can make it hard for your child to listen and
follow directions is ADHD.
(06:33):
This is because of difficulty paying attention or perhaps lack of working memory.
If you remember the movie Inside Out, you might imagine the lighted balls of
information that the emotion characters work with.
Before they're sent down to long-term memory, they're upstairs in their workspace.
Working memory refers to how many pieces of information you can handle at once.
(06:53):
All of us are limited by our working memory, but some more than others.
Young children do not have as much space in their working memory as adults.
Your working memory develops over time, so you need to be patient.
One way to take some of the load off their working memory is to develop routines.
Erin had some really good ideas about developing routines with young children
(07:14):
or children that are struggling to learn to follow instructions.
Distractions like the morning is something that my daughter really struggles
with getting up and getting ready and getting out the door on time.
And so the more that she has a routine, this is the time you get up.
This is what you do first, second, third.
Like when she was little, she had pictures that were get dressed,
(07:35):
you eat breakfast, you brush your teeth, you brush your hair,
you put on your shoes and socks, you get your lunch.
So she had a visual step one, step two, step three.
But yeah, we've had to work a lot and still is not perfect.
And she misses the bus more often than she should, but we keep working on it
and she is better than she has been.
And there's less drama around getting out the door.
(07:57):
These strategies will also work with children who suffer from central auditory processing disorder.
I know I just made the whole thing sound complicated and difficult,
but I want you to get an understanding of why some kids may struggle with listening.
They're not just trying to make you mad. And hopefully this will help you have
a little bit more patience.
But don't give up on giving instructions just because it's hard for your child.
(08:19):
It is vital that your child get better and better at this skill and working
on it at home will help them at school and later in life.
Here are a few games that you can play that make it fun to practice their ability to follow directions.
Do you remember the old game Simon says? This easy game involves choosing one person to be it or Simon.
Simon gives instructions instructions preceded by the words,
(08:40):
Simon says, jump, for example.
Then every once in a while, Simon will give an instruction without saying Simon
says, and if the others do it, they're out.
Another fun one is red light, green light. The person who is it stands far from
the others and turns their back and says green light.
Everyone moves toward the person until they turn around and say red light.
(09:02):
Anyone who doesn't stop immediately has to go back to the beginning.
This helps your child develop another important part of their brain involved
in listening and following directions, their impulse control.
Now, listening to instructions is only one aspect of listening.
Another aspect is listening to understand other people's emotions, thoughts, and ideas.
It's good to reflect with your child often about other people's feelings so
(09:25):
that they start thinking about it.
Talking about other people's feelings is one way to teach empathy,
but the best way is to teach it by modeling it for your child.
This is hard for me because it's not really in my nature. My husband is the
good listener in our family.
But I once read a very good book called How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and
Listen So They Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Maslish. It's been a while
(09:47):
since I've read it, and it's an older book, so there might be some older traditions
in it, but it has some really great ideas.
One I shared with my friend Elizabeth was when Javi really wanted an iPad,
and she didn't want to get him one. He kept begging, and it was frustrating.
So I told her about giving your child their wish in fantasy.
Instead of just saying, no, you don't need an iPad, you could say,
(10:07):
if I had a magic wand, I would conjure up an iPad and a Spider-Man case to go on it.
Then the kid might add something else they want you to conjure with your magic
wand and you happily talk about all the things that you could have if only magic were real.
Yogi and I do a variation of this called, If I Had All the Money in the World.
It helps kids feel heard and validated.
They know deep down inside that you can't give them everything they want,
(10:30):
but somehow it feels good to know that you care about their wishes.
That is just one of the great suggestions the book gives for learning to show
more empathy for your child without spoiling. But the premise of the book is
very true, that as you learn to listen to your child, they will become a better
listener to you and to their teacher.
(11:13):
Music.
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