What to Do When Your Kids Just Won’t Listen
- Brainz Magazine
- May 21
- 6 min read
Noreen Chadha is a transformational coach in the field of leadership and conscious parenting. Drawing from her knowledge of mindfulness techniques and fundamental neuroscience, she supports clients all over the world in their quest to move towards a more self-aware, present, and connected way of living, leading, and parenting.
Remember when your kids were babies and you could just lay them somewhere, not that different from a doll? You were completely in control, picking them up for a diaper change or a feed, deciding where to take them in the stroller, when to put them in the bed, or in the bath. It changes quite quickly, doesn’t it? Before you know it, you start to feel that you have less and less control. You put them in bed and they walk straight out. You say, “ok, time to brush your teeth”, and nothing happens. The other day, I said to my 3-year-old son, “Dinner is ready!” and he confidently replied, “I want to break this dinner!” Scary stuff.
I think some of us still operate under the illusion that we have control. We think we can manipulate and orchestrate things in such a way that our child will eventually do or think something. With young kids, we can sometimes get there with bribes and threats. “If you don’t put on your shoes right now, I am going to the zoo without you! Or there is my personal favorite, “let’s do that tomorrow”. However, these don’t last, because eventually they start to see through our little tricks and even use them against us. “I will wash my hands tomorrow!”
So, how do we accept how little control we have, while still balancing that out with teaching them about life and setting healthy boundaries?
Firstly, we need to do some reflecting inwards:
Check your inner craving for control
Is the defiance of your kids messing with a craving for control? If so, it might be a sign that we ourselves are feeling less in control of our own lives. The day you come home yelling at everyone to pick up their socks or finish their homework “right now!” is probably the day you yourself haven’t had a great day. If you’re someone who uses control as a way to feel safe, then it might be very tempting (and very normal) to “use” the tiny people in your family. Unfortunately, however, it is not very effective. Kids can feel when we are trying to control them, and generally, it will just make them push back even more.
When we are in a place of craving control, I would invite you to become aware of it, and maybe notice how it feels to feel out of control. It could be very helpful to make a list of things that you are 100% in control over. What is available to you? What can you do for yourself to feel calm and certain again?
Challenge the fears your kids bring up
Control can also be about stifling fear. When our kids don’t do what we say, it can feel scary. We tend to overdramatize and think way into the future in those scenarios. We create the scariest picture ever of how life could turn out for our kids. The other day, my son yelled, “More pancakes!” and I had this image of him being a rude and spoiled adult one day that nobody likes. One day, they might say, “I don’t want to go to college,” and our minds will paint a picture of them as a homeless drug addict begging on the street.
The majority of parents do this, so you are definitely not alone. Sometimes it helps to just get all your fears out there on paper. I invite you to write down all your fears for your kids and all your nightmare scenarios. Do we have any evidence that those scenarios are going to come true? And how much control do we really have over them? Think about some of the things you did as a young child or teenager, and how you turned out.
More importantly, if we are busy thinking about future worst-case situations, we have taken ourselves out of the present moment. Kids mainly live in the present, so we are then figuratively no longer in the same time zone. This naturally creates a disconnect, and our smart little creatures can feel it. In fact, to reconnect and get more attention, it might encourage them to do more rebelling. Do you see the pattern? We are upset, we leave the present moment, they are upset, and do even more of the “stuff” that upset us in the first place. It’s natural in those moments to crave even more control, but to break this pattern, we need to find a way to reconnect.
Invite curiosity
The best way to reconnect and find yourself in the present moment again with your kids is through curiosity. Curiosity towards yourself, as well as towards them. Curiosity is one of the kindest gifts that you can give yourself. Just being curious about how your body is feeling, your emotions, your thoughts and your behavior, can allow your nervous system to reset back to the present moment.
Instead of focusing on the “what” they are doing or not doing, you could ask yourself, “why?”. What might be going on for them? What’s in the way? What do they want instead? Is there an opportunity to learn something about your child here? Sometimes we get stuck in the “battle,” and we assume they are just rebelling to annoy us. It takes two to battle. If you simply don’t engage in the battle, there won’t be one.
One day I found myself super frustrated and chasing my son all around the apartment with a Q-tip demanding to clean his ears (it wasn’t my finest hour as a mom that's for sure). It was only when I put down my “weapon” and asked, “Why do you not like cleaning ears?” that we reconnected and found another way. The more we come at them from a place of curiosity, the more we invite respect and understanding into the situation.
Accept that their brain is different from ours
It’s tempting to see our kids as mini adults, but it can be very helpful to remember that their brains are really not the same as ours, and there are many skills that they still need to acquire.
If you say something to them and you feel that they are blatantly ignoring you, it could be that they are actually not hearing you. Their prefrontal cortex (the rational part of their brain) is so underdeveloped in the first few years that they will sometimes struggle to listen to “dinner is ready” when they are intensely focused on playing with their favorite toy.
They still need to learn the skill of letting go of doing something fun to do something less fun. If I said to you, “You need to leave this amazing party to go and finish your taxes,” you also wouldn’t love it, right? But you have developed the skill of knowing that doing your taxes is an important task that needs to get done. A child hasn’t developed that skill yet. That pathway in their brain has not been created yet. Imagine fresh snow on a road without any footsteps. They need you to help them learn this, and they need lots and lots of practice. They will need you to hold their hand and walk them through the discomfort of letting go of a toy to sit down for dinner or wash their hands, etc. They will need lots of empathy and understanding along the way. Yet eventually their brain will have cemented the pathway that sometimes we simply need to do certain things, even though we would rather be doing something else.
Here comes the good news. The defiance when they are young (or when they are teenagers) is generally a good sign. They are craving autonomy and they are individuating from you, establishing their own independence and their own identity. This is so important for their growth and development, and also for you to see them as their own people, separate from you. The more we see them as unique individuals, the less pressure we feel for them to act or be a certain way. It is very hard to be a parent nowadays; the pressure we feel is already enormous. I hope you will give yourself plenty of free passes and trust that you are doing the best that you can!
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Read more from Noreen Chadha
Noreen Chadha, Leadership & Conscious Parenting Coach
With almost 20 years of professional experience, Noreen Chadha supports both leaders and parents on their journey to be more conscious, and therefore more at peace and authentic in their day-to-day life. She believes that being truly present is one of the biggest challenges of our time, and also one of the biggest gifts we can give ourselves, our teams, and most importantly, our children.
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