What To Do When Toddlers Don’t Listen
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In this article, learn why your toddler might not listen, how to encourage your toddler to listen, how to respond when your toddler doesn’t listen, and some expert thoughts around toddler discipline.
The toddler years are magical, but for many families, they’re also really stressful. One common concern? “My toddler doesn’t listen!” If you’ve found yourself saying that, you’re not alone. In fact, this is one of the most frequently cited reasons why parents find themselves Googling for answers or seeking extra support from parenting specialists and child mental health experts.
In this article, you’ll learn what to do when your toddler doesn’t listen, how to respond, and when to worry.
Keep reading to learn:
Before we dive into reasons why your toddler isn’t listening, it may be helpful to put yourself in their shoes and learn more about their experience. Here are a few things to consider:
In the toddler years, between ages 1-3, kids are learning to do a lot of new things. One of them is learning how to listen and follow instructions. This is really hard - after all, they’re rookies!
At the same time, toddlers are human beings. They feel complex emotions, which they’re still learning how to describe and manage. They’re also going to be affected by whether they’re tired or hungry, just like older kids and adults.
Toddlers are developing every single day. When toddlers “don’t listen,” it’s not necessarily because they’re being defiant or thoughtless. They’re still learning and practicing how to listen. (This is something you can help them with, as we’ll explore next.)
So as we explore why your toddler doesn’t listen, keep in mind that this is a skill they’re still developing - and it’s just one of many they’re working to gain. That being said, there are a few common reasons why a toddler doesn’t listen to their caregiver:
Communication style: When speaking to a toddler, try to keep your sentences simple. Giving them a list of things to remember can make it difficult for a child to keep track, or dilute the message. It’s typically better to explain things in shorter, simpler phrases to ensure the toddler can listen more easily.
Distractions: Usually when children are engaged in an activity, whether watching something, writing, or playing, they are doing so with their full focus. It’s hard for them to listen to you while they’re doing something else.
Enjoyment: If your child is doing something fun, it may be even more difficult for them to listen. When you try to speak to them, you are asking them to stop what they are doing, which they consider pleasurable, to listen to you. For young children, stopping something pleasurable is often difficult.
Lack of Positive Reinforcement: You haven’t been giving them positive attention when they do listen. Try to reinforce positive listening skills with praise. For example, you might say something like, “I like how you put your shoes in the closet when I asked you!”
Power struggle: If it’s clear that your child is intentionally not listening or cooperating, it’s possible that there’s a power struggle at play. Most children will reject some efforts to control them; in that moment, it’s a matter of their own agency. Some children want to be in control and make it clear that you’re “not the boss.” We’ll offer more guidance on how to navigate these power struggles in a later section with guidance from Claire Lerner, MSW.
If your toddler doesn’t respond when you call for them or ask them to do things, it is possible that a medical issue is at play: they may have a hearing impairment, or a developmental disorder like Autism Spectrum Disorder. If you’re worried that something more than typical toddler behavior is impacting their listening, you may want to speak to your pediatrician or child mental health care provider. Little Otter is also available in select states to provide evaluation and treatment, as applicable.
Want to help your toddler improve their listening skills and prevent conflicts? It all comes down to how you communicate with them. Here are three tips for parents and caregivers for encouraging toddlers to listen:
Give advance verbal warnings before transitions: If you’d like your child to stop watching a show or playing with toys to listen, give them a verbal warning when their activity will end. This will prepare them emotionally and give them time to revert their attention back to you. You can also use timers.
Set clear limits, and be consistent. Set clear limits that your toddler can comprehend. Similarly, consistency in enforcing those limits is key.
Use short, clear statements: Help your child understand exactly what you’re asking for with simple, direct statements.
Say their name: Sometimes, just saying their name clearly and directly can get your toddler’s attention effectively.
Give them eye contact: Try getting to the same height or eye level as your toddler and maintain eye contact while speaking. This ensures that you have their full, undivided attention, allows for better listening, and teaches them that listening is a part of respect!
Get down on their level: As mentioned above, crouching down so that you’re eye-to-eye with your child can help you connect with your child and capture their attention.
Talk in a whisper, or in a song: Sometimes, it can help to lower your voice when sharing something important with your child. They have to focus and pay more attention to understand what you’re trying to say. Likewise, you can try saying the words in a sing-song voice to capture their attention.
Lighten the mood: If you’re noticing a pattern where your toddler refuses to listen to guidance about certain routines, add a fun aspect to the activity. For example, if your child refuses to listen around bedtime, you can set up a reward system or turn the activity into a race between you and your child.
Praise their listening skills: The most powerful way to manage your child’s behavior is to give them positive attention. When your child does a great job of listening, make sure to commend them for it! That will help show them that you value their behavior and encourage them to do more of it. You want your child to learn that they will receive more attention when behaving appropriately as opposed to throwing a tantrum. Positive reinforcement really works!
Model good listening: A primary way young children learn how to act and engage with others is watching the people around them. Practice developing your own listening skills, and as applicable, saying thank you to others for being a good listener.
Listen to children and acknowledge their feelings: Children are people, too, and toddlers have complex emotions. Sometimes, when they’re not listening, they are processing a big feeling. Listening to them, stating their feelings, and then being quiet can give them the space they need to reset and refocus.
Have realistic, developmentally appropriate expectations: Toddlers are still learning how to listen. This is a skill they’re developing, among others like regulating emotions, learning new behaviors, or trying new things. When your child’s behavior is challenging, consider what triggered the behavior and how your child is feeling. These are important clues to understanding how to help your child manage their behaviors in an appropriate way.
Approach choices carefully: Don't offer choices if there aren't any. If your child is expected to wash their hands before a meal, state your expectation: "Come wash your hands now," rather than asking them, "Would you like to wash your hands now?”
Share control, when possible: It’s helpful to give your child a sense of agency and independence by allowing them to make some choices. Sharing control, within the safe limits of what is developmentally appropriate, can be meaningful.
Stay calm: When adults are able maintain composure, they convey a sense of calm and control to your child. We must regulate our own feelings and behaviors to be able to help our child regulate their feelings and behaviors
Looking for even more fun ways to connect with your toddler? Here are 3 free preschool mental health activities.
In some cases, your child may intentionally not listen to you, or be unwilling to cooperate. If you find yourself in conflict with a strong-willed child, or cajoling them to do the simplest things, chances are you're in a power struggle. In this case, any demands or directions you give them are an opportunity to defy you, and prove that you’re not actually in charge.
Little Otter advisor Claire Lerner, MSW, is an expert in navigating power struggles with children. In these instances, she shared, the struggle for power is exactly what your child is after. Here are a few mindset shifts she recommends to help neutralize the power struggle:
Accept that you can’t force your child to cooperate: They are independent beings, and you can’t actually force them to follow your directions. You can’t make them sit in a chair, eat all their food, sleep through the night, etc. Accept that, and you’re well on your way. The more you try to force your child to cooperate, the more they’ll know there’s power in their defiance (and keep doing it).
Link cause and effect with “have-tos” vs. “extras”: Claire recommends that you communicate with your child (when they’re calm) about things they “have-to” do for their safety and wellbeing, versus “extras” that are fun or just relaxing. A “have-to” would be brushing their teeth, while an “extra” would be screen time. Communicate that the longer it takes them to accomplish the “have tos,” the less time they’ll have for the “extras.” Since the real world has consequences, too, this approach also teaches them important life skills about adaptability, responsibility, and resilience. In these cases, Claire also recommends avoiding “rewards” because children may de-value the reward in an effort to maintain their authority, or begin to only do important activities for a reward.
Set expectations: Again, it can be helpful to set expectations and consequences. You might express that it’s your family’s expectation to listen to each other, to clean up after themselves, to share the television - you name it. For example, you might say something like, “In our family, we clean up after ourselves. When you get your toys out, it’s your job to put them away.” You can frame these responsibilities as part of their “job.” It’s helpful to have an enforceable consequence in mind that you can implement immediately, if necessary.
Acknowledge that you can’t force them to do anything: Sometimes, Claire shares, just saying “We can’t force you to do this. It’s your body, and you decide what to do with it.” This neutralizes the power struggle, and may pave a path for your child to do what you want (on their own terms).
Allow your children to make a choice, with consequences: Claire recommends that you offer your child two choices: cooperate, or don’t and live with the consequences. Here’s an example: “Here are two great choices, and you can make the decision for yourself: Option #1 is you put your toys away. Option #2 is you don’t, which means that we have to do it for you. This takes away time from your “extras,” so there will be 10 fewer minutes of storytime when you choose not to do your job. It's up to you to decide which choice is better for you."
Don’t be deterred if your child doesn’t seem to care about consequences: If your child doesn’t seem to care that they get less TV time, have fewer toys to play with, don’t get to eat the cookies, or don’t get to play with friends for as long, it’s okay. Just stay the course. Over time, Claire advises, children tend to make better choices because they’re not getting anything from the defiance.
Even if you’re doing everything perfectly, chances are that there will be moments when your toddler (or older child) doesn’t listen. By now, you know a few tactics for encouraging your child to listen, and a few tips for navigating power struggles if that’s the real reason they’re not listening. But what shouldn’t you do? Here are three responses that tend to be unhelpful if your child isn’t listening:
Don’t criticize! Criticizing is often counter-productive. Instead of encouraging them to listen to you, criticizing or taking a negative tone may result in kids either tuning it out or having an emotional reaction that escalates the situation. Little Otter co-founder Dr. Helen Egger shared the following: “If I’ve learned anything in my 30 years as a psychiatrist, it’s that our words have power. Words have the power to help or to discourage. Therefore, make sure you are using a firm yet pleasant tone with them. “
Do not order, beg or ask! When you want your toddler to do something, begging, ordering or asking will (most likely) not work. They’ll likely say “no,” and don’t generally respond well to begging or ordering. Instead, you can be firm and tell them to complete the task, with positive reinforcement if they do, and a consequence if they don't.
Don’t say “don’t”: We recommend using “do” phrases as much as possible. Try reframing your reprimands into a positive light. Instead of saying “stop running,” you might want to say “use your walking feet.” Instead of saying, “don’t do that,” you might say “make good choices.” Rather than “don’t hit your sister,” say “use your gentle hands.” Rather than “don’t jump on the couch,” say “sit down on your bottom.”
Children don’t want to be bad. They want to have a relationship with you and make you happy. We hope these approaches help.
If your toddler isn’t listening to you, particularly if they’re doing something that could harm themselves, you might start to wonder about disciplining them. Should you discipline a toddler who doesn’t listen? And if so, how?
The truth is, discipline isn’t just about stopping children from engaging in unwanted behaviors. Discipline is about giving them the tools to learn to control their own behaviors and emotions, and to make good choices. It’s important to think about discipline as “teaching,” not “punishing.” You’re not trying to teach your child “fear,” you’re trying to teach them how to behave differently in the future.
When we talk about discipline, we mean providing clear expectations and consequences for failure to meet them. We don’t mean yelling, getting physical, or forcing your child to do something. We mean positive parenting.
There’s a wealth of knowledge about effective positive parenting strategies. These strategies help:
Respond to children’s behaviors.
Teach children the skills to manage their own behavior.
Teach children how to regulate their emotions.
Prevent harm to the child.
Support the child’s development of the crucial skills in thinking, feeling, and planning.
Teaching these skills with the help of positive parenting strategies can enable children to grow up to be effective and happy adults. Remember, you are trying to help children learn self-control!
We also have clear science that shows that physical punishment doesn’t work in the long term. While physical punishment may momentarily stop problematic behavior, because children are afraid of being hit or hurt, it’s not effective in the long term. In fact, it may be counter-productive. Science shows multiple negative outcomes and no positive outcomes, including:
Increase in externalizing behaviors
Increase in aggression
Increase in antisocial behaviors
Increase in anxiety and depression
Increase in stress reactivity including in brain scans
Increased involvement in child protective services
Here are 7 alternatives to spanking and other physical punishment.
What about consequences for behavior? There are some key things to keep in mind when considering consequences for negative behavior. In particular, it’s helpful to think of the ABCs:
What are the Antecedents of the behavior (before);
What is the behavior (during); and
What are the consequences of the behavior (after).
It is important to understand the Antecedent (before), because then we can begin to predict when the behavior occurs. That way, we can change the child’s environment to prevent the behavior. For example, if you know that your child gets upset when you tell them to get off the iPad, plan ahead. Be clear with your child about how much time they can spend on the iPad, set a timer for that amount of time, give them a warning that the time is almost up (this is called “priming”), and then do something enjoyable or distracting when the time is up (for example, “Hey, I’m glad you are done with the iPad. Let’s go feed the goldfish.”)
Also keep in mind that the consequences need to make sense in relation to the behavior.
Make the consequence immediate; little children in particular don’t have a sense of time. So if you’re going to take away a privilege, remove the privilege quickly, make it clear why it’s being removed, and remove it for a short enough time that the child can remember why you took the privilege away.
Little Otter exists to help empower parents like you, and connect you to the right support and care when you’re worried. If your toddler isn’t listening, and you’d like to get support, Little Otter would love to be considered.
We provide parent coaching, child mental health diagnosis and treatment, and even referrals to psychiatrists as necessary - all delivered via our state-of-the-art family telehealth app.
Learn more and register below.