Listening
This has been a crazy summer and I've been doing a lot of lurking here, but not much else! Anyway, here I am again...asking you mamas for advice.
My older son has started kindergarten, which has been pretty exciting (and kind of sentimental for mama). Something recently came up with his teacher - she mentioned that he hasn't been listening to her in class. This is no surprise. It's been an ongoing issue with us - something I've been working on with him, but it doesn't feel like I'm making much progress.
He's basically a good kid, but he tends to zone out. He's better at listening or following instructions in the morning. As soon as he gets tired/hungry or as the day progresses, pretty much anything you tell him goes in one ear and out the other. I hear that this is pretty typical of a boy who just turned 5, but it seems more pronounced in my kid.
What I typically try to do is to get down on his level, look him in the eye and make a request in a clear, calm tone. If he ignores me, I'll either tell him to do X or give him a consequence. Usually it's go into time out or I'll take one of his toys away for the rest of the day. But there are times when I can't stop what I'm doing and go through the whole routine (like in the middle of cooking dinner when he's running out the front door) and he Just. Won't. Listen.
Any other strategies or ideas would be much appreciated!
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I have a six year old who has had similar problems, and we use the Nurtured Heart Approach. I wrote about it in reponse to another blog, but you can check out the website at www.nhafp.com. It's based on a book written by Howard Glassner, and let me tell you it works miracles. It basically encourages you to break the cycle of negative behavior being reinforced by negative attention. Your child learns that the "prize" of your attention is won by doing positive things, and you amp up your responses to these things while at the same time refusing to give attention for negative behaviors. They use a Reset, a 10 second silent break, with you present, instead of time outs, which can cause fear and anxiety in children from being left alone to stew in their negativity. With a reset you simply wait for your child to sit quietly and then use your fingers to count to ten. Although it seems like 10 seconds would't do anything, if used consistently and in conjunction with the positive reinforcement, it works wonders!
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