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Act, Don't Yak - Reimers

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Act, Don't Yak

Every parent wants their toddler to follow instructions and listen. The problem is all toddlers don't want to listen, at least not when mom and dad are wanting them to listen. Parents try to communicate with their toddlers the same way they do with each other and other adults and that is through talking. Parents communicate most of their needs and their wants through talking and asking and providing questions to their spouse, a friend, a coworker.

When it comes to children they are more interested in what are you going to do. Parents talk and talk and talk; a typical scenario is a parent who is asking their toddler to perform some task, it doesn't happen and the parent then asks the question over and over and over, and usually with each time of the question repeated their voice goes up until they are usually at the top of their voice. That's a typical scenario.

Toddlers learn that once that voice gets to a certain octave well then it is time to act. I often parents ask me, “Why do I have to ask my child so many times to get something done?” and my response is usually, “Why are you asking them so many times?” And the bottom line is parents need to act and provide some responses and some kind of consequences, either positive or negative to their child, when they've either listened or a request that has been made, which is usually the case when that happen.