Terrible Twos: One Thing I Do to Make My Crazy Toddler Listen 900% of the Time

This one thing made the terrible twos easier

When I was little, my mom would tell me I never listened.

She said my sister never listened either.

It was the terrible twos!

She was pulling out her hair TRYING to get us to listen.

She tried consequences; Nope!

She tried rewards. Only lasted a few days.

She tried punishment. Not consistent and really doesn’t work.

But, then she tried something simple. And it was effective. So much so, that we turned into little angles. Okay, I’m oversimplifying this, but I totally remember being a sweet little girl growing up 🙂

My little guy is three and I’m having a hard time getting him to listen. He runs, hides, is loud and seems to never EVER listen to me!

When I try to reason with him or try to “teach” him, it never pans out. In one ear and out the other. It wasn’t until my mom came over to visit that she told me her secret.

The one thing that got me and my sisters to listen EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

Terrible Twos: Boys Are Hardwired NOT to Listen

Boys just aren’t “cooked” enough when they are little. They still need to baste and roast for a couple more years (like until they are 15).

They are just not wired to listen and this contributes soo much to the terrible twos. Too many exciting things are around the corner. For my son, it’s a toy in the corner that caught his eye.

Parenting says this about boys and listening:

“Why don’t boys seem to listen? Turns out their hearing is not as good as girls’ right from birth, and this difference only gets greater as kids get older. Girls’ hearing is more sensitive in the frequency range critical to speech discrimination, and the verbal centers in their brains develop more quickly. That means a girl is likely to respond better to discipline strategies such as praise or warnings like “Don’t do that” or “Use your words.””

See? Boys ARE different, moms 🙂

How Do You Get Toddler Boys to Listen?

It turns out what my mom was doing to us as little girls, is the same method that works well for boys in their terrible twos.

It gets them to stop what they are doing, look at you and hear you. They don’t see the distractions anymore and they aren’t running around in circles laughing (ahem…not my son of course ;-).

Parenting goes on to say this:

“Boys tend to be more tactile—they may need to be picked up and plunked in a time-out chair,” Gurian says. They’re also less verbal and more impulsive, he adds, which is especially evident in the toddler and preschool years.”

Ah! You see that trick?

Use a physical touch to get your toddler to listen right away and all the time!

Hands down, as soon as my mom told me this (she also told me to get down to my son’s eye level too) he stopped what he was doing and listened.

I couldn’t believe it.

It worked.

But, would it work again?

The answer is yes! It did.

This Tips Isn’t 100% Conducive to Your Life Though

So, the catch with using this for the terrible twos?

If you are anything like me, I probably give 1,000 instructions to my son in a day. #parentfail right?

There’s no way I can get down at his eye level, or touch his shoulder or pick him up EVERY time I ask him to do something.

But, I’m working on not giving him so many instructions and making the ones I do count.

I also make sure he isn’t playing or running around when I tell him to do something (which is hard since he is a boy and that’s the nature of boys!).

Does This Works for Girls in the Terrible Twos Too?

I say yes it does! Like I mention, my mom used it on us and it worked like a charm.

Tell me what you do to get your little one to listen!