Sustainable Parenting

71. 3 Steps That Get Kids To Listen

• Flora McCormick, LCPC, Parenting Coach

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Frustrated that your child ignores you, does exactly what you just told them NOT to do, or worse - laughs at your directions/corrections?

This episode I'm pulling back the curtain, to show you a glimpse of the structure I teach in my Sustainable Parenting Transformation group.  So join us, as we look at the 3 key steps that have helped transform hundreds of families each year, as they master the C.E.O. steps of loving leadership.

This method doesn’t just encourage better behavior; it brings clarity and relief in those challenging moments, and improves your relationship with your child.

🌟By the time you finish listening, you'll know:🌟

  • How to get your child's defiance to melt
  • How to encourage cooperation effectively
  • How to stop yelling, and move into calm confident leadership.

✨Want more?

1) Use this link for a FREE 20 min clarity call with Sustainable Parenting.

2) Download the FREE pdf. on getting kids to listen

Flora McCormick, LCPC:

You're listening to Episode 71 of the Sustainable Parenting Podcast with me, flora McCormick, and I'm so glad you're here today as we're tackling how to get our kids to listen. I know that life can feel very, very frustrating and you may say I don't need to listen to this podcast. My kid needs to listen to this podcast If it's going to be about how to get them to listen, and I hear you and I've actually got some solutions today that give a lot more power to you and put the power into your hands. So I'm really excited to give you those strategies. It's a three-step recipe that I have designed and use with my clients all the time, and when they master it, I quickly see parents saying oh my gosh, I didn't know it could be this easy. I didn't know we could have so much more calm. I didn't know my kids could just go do the thing I'm asking quick and snappy. I thought it was impossible. I thought we would just be having never-ending battles and it feels so good to have the opposite. So, friend, let's dive in. As we step into this topic around getting kids to listen, I think of one of my clients, jess, who had a four-year-old boy and was a stay-at-home mom and said, after she used the recipe that we're talking about today, that she was on a drive with her husband without their son present just the two of them and discussing their relationship with their kid. And she said I remember just turning to him and saying gosh, I've been a lot happier as a mom, my relationships felt a lot better and I'm doing better at not having meltdowns like I used to. And he turned to me and said yeah, I've noticed and I think you've been more firm with him. He isn't walking all over you. And this mom laughed as her partner said that and was like he was so right and it feels better to be in this place. So let's give you these same tools today and perhaps you'll have a similar result.

Flora McCormick, LCPC:

Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Parenting Podcast. Let me tell you, friend, this place is different. We fill that gap between gentle parenting and harsh discipline that's really missing, to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time, and give you the exact steps to be able to parent in ways that are more realistic and effective and, for that reason, finally feel sustainable Welcome. So there's three key parts to getting a child to listen, and it, as you might guess if you've been following along with me very long here is that it includes this balance between kindness and firmness. It's not all about just being firm and saying what has to happen and then threatening what they're going to lose and throwing out consequences. No, it's not all firmness. We have to also have kindness. But it's not all kindness. It's not just all listening and validating feelings and saying, well, what do you want to do to solve the problem? That can lead to them walking all over us. So it has to have both legs to stand firmly and effectively.

Flora McCormick, LCPC:

So the recipe I want to give you today is what I call the CEO model to have effective, loving leadership. Be that CEO that is the wise boss that you respect and you appreciate. You feel connected to you, feel motivated to do your best because of the way they both care for you and support you and also have very clear boundaries and expectations. So we can be the CEO in our family with this CEO model and that's an acronym for the three parts. First we use strategies of C, then E, then O. Now this is all about how to get kids to listen, and this just to be fair. I want to make sure you understand that my four month transformation parenting group is all about mastering and fully understanding in depth all of the tools that I found are most effective in these three areas. So I'm going to give you an overview today, but please know it is not all inclusive and if you find yourself knowing and hearing and saying to yourself some echo in your heart is like oh gosh, this is what I need, then we should definitely talk, because it takes three to four months of learning the tools, using the tools and getting feedback where you're able to share what isn't working and what is working so that we can fine tune what's not working and build on what is Okay. So what are the three steps that I find super effective of getting kids to listen? C-e-o friends, here it is. The C is that when our kids are not listening to us, there's some form of defiant or resisting what we're asking them to do.

Flora McCormick, LCPC:

We start with connection. We start with connection. This is often the least intuitive and most effective place that people learn to start. What I mean by that is I think of Abby, one of my clients, who said this is never what I want to do and she's not listening to me. I want to just repeat what has to happen, I end up just getting angry. Or I end up explaining why it's important that she needs to listen to me and do what I say. I never first instinct think to connect. But then she said to me after we worked together but Flora, every time I do, it's such a better outcome, like nine times out of 10, that's all it takes for us to go down a very different road and my daughter her daughter was eight at the time and for my daughter to be more cooperative. So what do I mean by that?

Flora McCormick, LCPC:

There's various ways that we can connect before we correct, but one of my favorite pieces of this that I'd love to share with you today is well, I'll give you two pieces. They are to either just pause and offer a 30 second silent hug. You know, if a child's not getting dressed for school and they're resisting and you've left and you come back and they're still messing around, or they're just moping, or they're groaning and saying I don't want to go, just pausing and saying come here, hold them on your lap 30 second hug and then try again. Hold them on your lap 30 second hug and then try again. Sometimes the child will start crying and explain to you. I'm just so sad. Well, there we go. Now we know more how we can get out of this hole instead of just being frustrated at the kid for being stuck.

Flora McCormick, LCPC:

Second thing that you can do in the connection form is name it to tame it. I know this feels counterintuitive, but it's like picture a power struggle, rope them pulling one way, you pulling the other way, and it's like when they pull and say no, I don't want to, and you say you have to, they say no, you say yes. It's like letting go of your agenda and just naming what you see as their difficulty. Name it to tame it. Like boy, I can tell you just really are having a hard time getting dressed this morning. Boy, I can see that you are just really not wanting to go to school today. Just naming it, not with a butt energy, like, but you need to get going, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all these other things, just holding the space for a moment, holding their side of the rope. Let go of your side, let go of your agenda, and just name the resistance. It's so weird. I know it's counterintuitive. It's one of those like what it's almost like you're telling me to like lean into a dog, bite or something. But that's kind of a good analogy. They say if you get bit by a dog, you're supposed to like lean, push into their jaw so that it releases their jaws grip. I know that may seem like a weird analogy, but it's kind of the similar thing. Sometimes, when we can lean into our child's resistance, name it and say am I getting that right? Is that what's going on for you? It loosens their grip on the resistance.

Flora McCormick, LCPC:

Okay, first part connect. Second part encourage cooperation instead of just staying stuck in what I call the cuckoo cycle. So we're turning to CEO instead of what I call cuckoo, which is commands and consequences, being our only two tools. Like, get your shoes on, that's it. I'm going to not let you go to your friend's house today if you don't get those shoes on in the next five seconds. That's just commands and consequences.

Flora McCormick, LCPC:

When I find parents stuck in this cuckoo cycle command, consequence, cuckoo it's like they typically say to me my kid doesn't care about my consequences, it doesn't even matter, or they just don't listen. They just don't care what I have to say. They have no remorse for their consequences, even when they have them. All of these are usually indicators that you're stuck in the cuckoo cycle. So instead, let's get clever, and I offer many different strategies of how you can be more clever to encourage cooperation, but it's the simplest form is to have a lot more creativity than just repeating a command you know none of us like to be spoken to with. Just get your shoes on, grab your plate. You know you can listen to my episode. Go back to episode 68. That gives you my secret weapon to speedy cooperation and you'll get one of my favorite tools that helps encourage cooperation instead of just repeating yourself. Okay, get more clever instead of just repeating commands.

Flora McCormick, LCPC:

And then, third of all, find ways to have ownership be in the right hands. So when a kid is not listening and I'm saying we got to get out the door for school, and then I come in and I see that they aren't doing anything to get dressed, if I just start yelling like oh, are you kidding me? You're driving me crazy, you're going to make me late, and this annoys me every single day. I don't know why we're always doing this. Why can't you just get dressed and make this easier? I'm owning the problem. Usually, when we're yelling a lot, it's a symbol that we're owning. The problem we're taking more ownership than the child is. See the opposite of me owning it with my anger and yelling is having a way to name for the child that they have two roads and how that's going to work out for them.

Flora McCormick, LCPC:

Okay, buddy, let me be clear. We're now at the point in the morning where you're going to find a way to get those pants on and shirt on and shoes on and out the door in the next 10 minutes and we'll be able to grab a toy to bring with us in the car. Or if you don't, we won't Okay, that could be an agreement in advance. Then it's his motivator to want to know if he's going to be able to. You know, and I'm not saying we're going to buy a toy, but have a little basket of goodies that are fidget toys that we could grab to bring one with us in the car, and that's available when we've gotten dressed quick and snappy and it's not available when we haven't or it could be. Let me just be crystal clear Like you chose a shirt and pants and now you're saying you don't want that shirt and pants but you don't like anything I suggest. So we're now at the point where you can choose between this shirt and this shirt, or I will choose for you Three, two, one. Okay, I guess I'm choosing for you, and then that may not be their favorite and you use the phrase that I love saying well, I hear that you're not liking this and I bet you'll make a different choice tomorrow.

Flora McCormick, LCPC:

That's giving ownership, ownership, ownership, and we have many more tools that make sure that we are having effective, related, loving consequences that are just about ownership. They're not about punishment, they're not about pain. They're not about punishment, they're not about pain, they're not about shame. They're about how can I effectively put the ownership in my son or daughter's hand that if they're going to choose to not do the thing that works for the family system trying to get where we need to get or do what we need to do then that's going to have an outcome more on them than on me. Ownership, my friend, when you master the steps of being able to walk from C to E to O every time your child's not listening. It unlocks Cooperation, less stress for you, because you've got a plan.

Flora McCormick, LCPC:

You're not like I don't know. Am I supposed to be tough? Am I supposed to be loving? I'm like bouncing all around and don't have a systematic process for this and it and you have that systematic process that feels so much more just relief and ease and and what I've had parents say like it just has taken the pressure off of me. Feeling like I have to grab for how I'm supposed to walk through this moment and knowing the nuances of all the real specific ways to do that makes all the difference. So if any of this speaks to you, reach out, let's talk. I have a new group that's just starting this week with Sustainable Parenting Transformation Group, and I also have a few ongoing one-on-one openings in my schedule. I'd love to connect with you and get you on the fast track to mastering how to be the CEO in your family. Talk soon.