Everything You've Been Told About Getting Little Kids to Listen Is Wrong

My mom FaceTimed me yesterday.

“Hey. He is not listening. What do we do about it?”

My 5yo and 7yo were hanging out with my parents for the day and I laughed because I knew exactly what she was talking about. My 5yo is not hitting. Not running. Not throwing a fit. Just... tuned out. Full la-la-land 😂.

She’s talking, and my 5 year old is somewhere else entirely, doing his own thing in his own little world.

Sometimes I find myself getting frustrated as a mom of 4, when it comes to my kids actually LISTENING.

Does this sound familiar? ⬇️

“Hey. Hey! HEY! Can you focus your brain and your eyeballs on me, please? I’m trying to tell you something.”

It’s not that my mom did anything wrong.

It’s that listening is a skill — and my kid, specifically, has to be taught to turn his attention on like a light switch.

My 7yo? Super strong willed, yelled NO a lot when she was a toddler lol.

My 3yo? Golden retriever energy, trots along with zero prompting.

Same house. Same parents. All of them need different strategies to get them to listen consistently, without me losing my damn mind.

So no, there’s no one hack to get your kid to listen. But there is a framework. Grab your oat milk latte — here’s everything I’ve discovered as a mom of 4 + parent coach about getting little kids to listen.

Before we dive in, let’s get some things clear about expectations.

I don’t care what random parenting account told you your kid should listen the first time, every time, with a smile on their face. That’s not a kid, that’s a robot.

Their brain literally does not work that way yet.

Does that mean we just give up and let our toddler do whatever the fuck they want and shrug saying “Oh well!” 🤷‍♀️

NO. Duh.

What you can build is a home where listening is a skill you’re actively teaching over time.

Real talk, go clock yourself for a sec:

• Do you repeat the same instruction 5, 10, 15 times before anything happens?

• Do you count down from 5 like it’s a hostage negotiation?

• Do you throw out a random threat on the spot because you’re panicking?

None of that is a discipline strategy.

That’s you teaching your kid, one repetition at a time, that they don’t actually have to listen until you hit meltdown mode. They’re not ignoring you to be a jerk. You trained this.

(btw, I do this too. No judgement, sometimes you’re just trying to survive with a baby crying, a toddler getting into stuff and running a whole ass household 😅.)

I’m going to walk you through the exact steps, what works for different temperaments and what is realistic for you to expect.

→ Breaking it down: it’s actually stupid simple.

1. Say the instruction / boundary clearly.

2. Help them listen.

Listen or read! By the end of this post, you’ll know what to do that makes a difference in the next 7 days (yes, better listening literally within a week).

Upgrading to paid for less than the price of a new Yoto card 👉 because here's the deal… I could keep giving you the surface-level stuff or 2min version in a TikTok video, but that's the part you probably already knows. The actual how, that’s what I’m sharing below.

• The exact jingles I use to get my kids to do things they hate (teeth brushing, car seat buckling, bedtime) without repeating myself

• My “first this, then that” script that kills power struggles dead, and why threats backfire even if the consequence is identical

• What to do when your toddler won’t listen or do what you say (spoiler: this is not a negotiation, and here’s exactly how I handle it without losing my mind)

• The listening games (yes, actual games) that build this skill in kids as young as 18 months, including the dumb one we play literally every day called “Eyeballs” 😂

• Why giving your kid a thousand instructions a day is setting you both up to fail, and how I decide what’s actually worth the fight

Ready to dive in??!