Listen to me.

What happens to you when you read that sentence?

Just writing it floods me with memory, frustration, and desire, all at once.

The memory of being small, and hearing it said (or shouted) by my father, usually accompanied by a vice grip on my little arm.

The frustration of saying it to my own child and having him outright ignore me, run away from me, or do the opposite of what I am asking.

The desire to have someone listen to me talk and talk (and cry) about how hard it is to have a child who won’t listen.

To be listened to makes us feel seen, understood, and valued.

To be ignored or have our talking go unanswered makes us feel hurt, afraid, and sometimes enraged.

And, when our kids don’t listen to us, it can trigger a cascade of feelings and worries that reach both backward into the past and forward toward the future.

Let’s take a closer look at listening, and at what happens to us and to our kids when listening falls apart.

Listening as Connection

As humans, we are wired for connection. We need to have not just our physical needs taken care of—food, clothing, shelter—but our emotional ones, too. We know this from studies of babies in orphanages who suffered greatly without loving connection, even when their physical needs were met.

I think that one of the main ways we create connection is by listening.

We often don’t think of what we do as listening. When we want to connect, we offer touch or a smile to a loved one, we laugh with a friend, or we make a meal or a card.

But each of these gestures is made possible because we listened. We heard—in words or facial expressions or body language—that there was a need, and we answered.

There are so many ways to listen, and we humans are experts at it.

Except when we’re not.

Sometimes we’re actually downright terrible at it.

We talk over a friend who is hurting. We dismiss our partner’s pleas for change. We stop our children from crying or yelling.

Or, we simply get distracted by a life that pulls us in too many directions at once, and by the endless demands of parenting, work, and our world as it is.

It can feel unbearable or impossible to listen sometimes.

True listening requires connection. It requires us to engage with empathy; to feel into what is true for the one we are listening to and be there with them.

When we feel filled to the brim with our own hurt, anxiety, or overwhelm—or when we are disconnected—we can’t listen well. If we try, it’s like pouring water into a flooded river—the banks overflow more and more and more, and our feelings or our disconnection intensifies.

Why It Bothers Us So Much

As I’ve talked about before, our kids trigger in us all kinds of unresolved hurts from our own childhoods.

Most of us were raised to obey, first and foremost. Compliance was king—we heard things like “because I said so!” when we asked our parents why, or we got punished for not listening, talking back, or a myriad of other offenses.

Our own child not listening to us can trigger memories of when we were not listened to as children, or when our parents got angry or frustrated at us when we didn’t listen or, conversely, when we needed to be heard (just like their parents likely did with them, and on back it goes).

In addition, for most of us, when our children don’t listen, alarm bells go off in our brains that sound something like:

“Oh my god what kind of kid am I raising he doesn’t even listen to me what if he grows up to be one of those assholes that can’t even listen to other people and just walks around like a total jerk doing whatever he wants and disrespecting women and not listening when people say no oh crap no one will want him around and he’ll never get invited to birthday parties ever again and he’ll definitely fail in school because if you can’t listen you go nowhere everyone knows that and I’ll be visiting him in jail and people will think I’m a terrible parent blerrrrrrrgggghhhhhhhhh”

Does that sound vaguely familiar by any chance?

If so, you are not alone. Most parents have these fears at least some of the time.

Why Kids Don’t Listen

A friend of mine who is a mom to twin five-year-olds recently asked me about kids not listening, and what she called the “broken ears” syndrome.

Why were these lovely kids suddenly refusing to listen to their parents? They clearly COULD hear, and would listen when it mattered to them—during special times as a family, or if the words “ice cream” were uttered at any volume within a one-mile radius.

This good mama noticed that listening seemed hardest for her kids when they were engaged with something—TV, reading, or certain kinds of play. She also observed, with some frustration, that the kids seemed to expect immediate responses from their parents when their requests were made.

Can you relate? I certainly can.

There are so many things that can impact a child's responsiveness. One of the main reasons our kids seem to suddenly have broken ears or selective hearing as they get older is that—if we are lucky—their ability to focus deepens as they grow.

This mama was able to see that her kids have the hardest time when they are deeply involved in something, which (if it didn’t drive us so crazy!) most of us would say is a quality we want our children to develop.

Our kids want to be helpful. They want to be “in good” with us as often as possible. That is what feels best to them and what helps them feel a sense of safety and belonging in our family.

And, they also don’t yet have a fully developed capacity to switch gears quickly, or to listen with one ear while they engage in play or read (something we develop incredibly fast when we become parents!).

Sometimes, our kids also struggle to listen to us simply because they feel disconnected from us. This happens throughout the day without us doing anything wrong as parents; it’s the nature of our relationships to come in and out of periods of connection.

And, our kids feel it intensely, whether they can articulate it or not. Usually we notice it in their behavior more than in what they say.

We can recognize it when things like being flexible, listening well, or complying with simple requests suddenly get hard for them.

Read on for some ideas for how to help your kids reconnect and listen.

What You Can Do

The first thing you can do when you get triggered—frustrated or angry—by your kids not listening is take a deep breath, and reconnect with a simple truth:

Your children are good.

Not only are they good, but they want to DO good. It’s in their nature, and it’s reinforced every day by the ways you treat them well and do good by others.

You can also remember that your child’s struggle to listen well in this moment does not portend a lifetime of bad listening or selfishness. It doesn’t mean that your child will grow up to be a jerky adult.

It means your child is still learning to listen well.

If you’ve stopped long enough in the moment to talk yourself down a bit, here’s what you can do next.

You can ask yourself, “would any of this listening problem be helped by connection?”

If the answer feels like it might be yes, then make your move. Get close to your child, and touch him gently. This alone can help a ton. We become real to them again when we touch them.

Say your child’s name, and try to make eye contact. If he is really deep into what he’s doing, this will help him reconnect with you and what you are trying to communicate.

Or, if the regular way of asking isn’t working, you might playfully sing your request in a ridiculous operatic voice. In addition to getting her attention, you will make her laugh, which is instantly connecting. Suddenly she’s asking you to do it again, and you’ve got traction.

You can also ask yourself, “what is my real concern here?”

Let’s say you need your children to get ready to go but they are deep into a Lego project.

Yes, it’s irritating that they are not listening when you say it’s time to get ready.

But your real concern might actually be that you will be late to meet your friend, and that will reflect badly on you. What will she think if you’re late again?

Would a text to let her know that you’ll be 10 minutes late due to needing to wrap up Very Serious Lego Work help her understand, and help you relax around the kids’ struggle to pull themselves away?

The final thing I’ll recommend here is that, if you are struggling with this issue right now in your home, you find a way to get some listening time on what comes up for you when your children don’t listen well.

It can help so much to talk with a supportive listener about what happened to you when you didn’t listen as a child, what you feel the urge to say to your children when they don’t listen, or just to vent about how hard it is right now.

All you need is a listener who can remember, like you do with your children, that you are good. And that you can figure this out.

Images by freestocks-photos and Sofía López Olalde from Pixabay