15. 3 Phrases That Get Your Kids to Listen on the First Try

Have you ever wished there was a magic button you could press to finally get your child to listen?

Few things are more exhausting than having to:

• Repeat yourself over and over
• Nag and remind all day long
• Argue back and forth
• Or feel ignored completely

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone—and there’s hope. This week, I’m sharing calm parenting tips rooted in positive parenting strategies that make a big difference.

By the time you finish listening, you’ll discover:

• The cycle parents often get stuck in when trying to “make” kids listen—and how to break free
• How to shift your energy from frustration to using effective phrases that actually encourage cooperation
•  The 3 steps I teach families that improve listening while still raising confident kids 

 If you’ve been looking for a gentler, more effective way to guide your kids, this episode is for you. 

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Transcript

Flora McCormick: [00:00:00] You're listening to Episode 15 of the Sustainable Parenting Podcast with your host, Flora McCormick, licensed therapist and parenting coach. Hi, friends. I'm glad to see you today. And our topic is how to get kids to listen. This is the most common Question that I get is, why won't my kids just listen? And parents say, with so much frustration, I'll tell him what to do and he will immediately ignore me, or I will explain to them what they need to do better and they don't do that thing better.

Or I'm simply asking them to do the small things of life, like wake up, get dressed, get out the door, eat your dinner, and everything seems to be a battle. If that's true for you, friend. This episode's for you. 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 [00:01:00] 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.

And I want to highlight today's listener of the week who is Jamie. Jamie said, Flora's podcasts are short and sweet, and I find her approach to be very sensible and relatable in today's parenting world. I'm so happy to have more resources that I can quickly listen to throughout my busy days. Thank you so much, Jamie.

Please leave us a personal message in Facebook or Instagram so that we can get you a prize for leaving that great review. And friend, as you listen today, if you found value, please be sure to subscribe and leave a review as well at the very bottom of all the episodes.[00:02:00] 

Now, let me be clear. Getting kids to listen is something I experienced. That's really frustrating too. I mean, I get it. There are times where you're like, this doesn't seem like it's. It's hard. I'm just trying to get you dressed. I'm just trying to get to soccer practice. I'm just trying to get us into the car to go to grandma's house.

This shouldn't be hard. I want to just tell them what to do and have them do it. And let's be honest, part of that comes from our mentality that whether we admit it or not, we would like our kids to act a little bit like the golden retriever. We want to like play and snuggle, but otherwise have them do exactly what we want.

Really, in my truest, most honest moments, that that feels like that would be the most enjoyable relationship. As a parent, but then when I step back from the fact that I'm not just trying to make my life easier in the moment, I'm trying to raise a human that is going to be creative and problem solving and generous and self, um, sufficient and.

Someone [00:03:00] who is able to go out and create things in this world, then I take a step back and realize, okay, no, I definitely don't want to just have a golden retriever relationship because I know that would not be creating a person that has all of those qualities that really matter to me. So there's this juxtaposition.

I want it to be easy, and yet I'm also trying to create these other skills, so we have to be strategic, and I'm going to give you, friend, three key ways that improve your kid being willing to listen, while also honoring those big qualities that we are trying to build in our children to be successful adults.

So three key ways that you can get your kids more likely to listen. The first is to make it matter. The second is to name it and listen before you want to be heard. And the third is when you're about to bark, think of spark. The first thing that [00:04:00] really is going to help your child to listen is to make sure they feel like it matters to them.

So if I do all the explaining, like, Hey, You need to clean up your mess in here. You can't just be leaving cups all around the house. And then when I see that, I say, Hey, pick up your cup. And then I walk away and I come back and it's there. If I just say, Oh, okay, I have to do it again. And I roll my eyes and I do the work.

Then they've created the problem. And I've paid the price instead for our kids to care about listening. It has to matter to them. It has to matter to them. Meaning I have to take that step to be able to, if I see the cup is not cleaned up when I had asked them to do it, I need to step outside, find where they're playing.

Ask them to come inside, have them take care of it, and be clear that we will not be moving on with the [00:05:00] other privileges and fun things in the day until that's taken care of. Or like one amazing mom of young teens told me, my kids just will not put their laundry away. I don't understand. I tell them it's still there.

It still needs to be put away. It's still there. It still needs to be put away. She said this would take days and days if the kids Never caring that they needed to put their laundry away. And I said, okay, well, let's dive into this. Did you, you know, what are they, what else are they doing in the time that they're not putting the laundry away?

Well, they're on their phones, they're out with friends, they're on their iPad. And I'm like, okay, so it sounds like they're kind of getting to eat their dessert while you are begging and reminding them to come back and eat dinner. And we know, same with food, that's a really hard equation to have work out.

So, we made this simple shift to make it matter to the kids to say, Guys, let's just be clear. Here's the laundry. As soon as this laundry is done, then you're welcome to have your iPad privilege or then you're welcome to go with your friends. But [00:06:00] until then, those privileges will not be available. Guess what?

When it mattered to the kids, it changed their behavior and they quote, we're listening better. Second key thing that's really gonna change the dynamics of getting your kid to listen is to be able to name it and listen first before you're wanting to be heard. Pause and really think about that. Name it.

Listen first before. You want to be heard. This is what I mean. It's so easy to say, I want my kid to listen to me. And so I'm going to say it louder. I'm going to say it again. I'm going to repeat what they, what I want to get through that tough skull of theirs. I need to say it and say it. And somehow it's going to get in there.

But if there's some resistance in the kid, not listening to you, likely it's because they're not first feeling heard. [00:07:00] So if we can pause and listen, First, name it, name what they're experiencing, name the resistance and listen to what that resistance is about. We are increasing by at least 50%. I'm just throwing that number out there from what I've seen anecdotally in families and in my own family.

We increased by at least 50% the likelihood that the kid is going to listen to us. So name what they're feeling with something like, Hey, I notice that you're just really not wanting to put this away. I notice your shoes still aren't on. I notice you're not wanting to go to school today. Tell me about that.

Something that opens the doorway to say, I want to listen. I want to understand. And then listen, you've named what you see is true for them. And then you're listening. to what more they might have to say about that. And then you can come back to what you want them to hear. [00:08:00] Okay. I hear you. And I really need, you know, it's now only five minutes till we've got to be out the door.

So let's get those shoes on or, okay. So you weren't wanting to go today because you were feeling sad about your friend. Maybe you offer a hug, you solve the problem a bit, and then you move forward. So name it, listen first, and then. You're there more likely to listen. The third very powerful thing that's going to help you is when you're about to bark, think of spark.

When you're about to bark another order at your kids, get your shoes on, get your plate off the table, put your shoes off of the coffee table. Don't jump on that. Instead of barking another order or reminder, think of spark. And by spark, I mean, how can I make this fun or make them think? Making it fun, we can do cooperation in a way that involves fun.

We can be like, do we want to go up to bath time right side up or [00:09:00] upside down? Or we can say, Ooh, I see that you don't have your jammies on yet. Let's set a timer. I wonder if you can have them on before it goes off in two minutes. Ready? Go. We can make things fun, and secondly, we can make them think. We can ask a curiosity question that makes their brain work.

Instead of, Get your teeth brushed, you can say, What do we need to do so your teeth don't feel skezzy? Instead of, Stop whining. We can say, how can you say that? So I can hear you instead of get your coat. We can say. What are you missing on your body? So you'll be warm outside. So I had a client with young kids who would be constantly saying, you know, get your shoes on, get your shoes on.

And instead he used this tool. He combined the second one in terms of being able to listen. First, he would say, I notice you don't have your shoes on. And then he said, What do you [00:10:00] think you need to solve that? And I'm not kidding you. He was flabbergasted by how fast his son looked at him, paused and ran upstairs, got his shoes on and came right back down.

The difference was that instead of just barking another order, he paused, he named what the child was being challenged with or what the problem was. And then He prompted a question. So three key ways that you can get your kids more likely to listen. The first is to make it matter. The second is to name it and listen before you want to be heard.

And the third is when you're about to bark, think of spark. I'd love to hear how these impacted your kids listening this week. So put this into action friend, because here at Sustainable Parenting, we are about action oriented solutions and making parenting easier and more effective so it can finally feel sustainable.[00:11:00] 

Can't wait to see you next week. And as always. Take this week as a new opportunity to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time so that parenting can finally feel sustainable. See you soon.