# Why does my 4 year old ignore me?



## monkeybum (Jan 1, 2005)

I feel like I am talking to myself most of the time. DS just plain ignores me and DH constantly. I'm not sure what to do. I ask him if he's done dinner, he'll ignore me. I'll throw it out or put it away, and he'll have a meltdown. I ask him to get his shoes on, put his kleenex in the garbage, put his socks in the laundry, stop hitting his brother, get in the car, you name it. He ignores me. Most of the time I end up giving up and doing it for him or carrying him to the car, etc.

We used to always do the "do this or else", (i.e. get in the car or you are not going to the party, store, park, whatever) but now everything he does is "do this or else", (mom, get me some milk or else I will kick you; if you don't come and help me colour this picture, I'm going to spill my milk all over it...).









So we're giving up on that tactic.

Sometimes if he's in a really good mood, he'll be so agreeable and will listen, and do what he's supposed to do, but most of the time he just ignores us. I am at my wits end. I can't get over how every other kid I see seems to actually listen to their parents, and I'm honestly VERY embarassed everywhere we go that he ignores us - we usually end up carrying him kicking and screaming to the car b/c he won't come when it's time to leave school, a friend's, the park, a party, relative's house, etc. I'm also darn tired of picking up after him. But if I don't our place would be a pig stye.

Any advice out there?


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## momtokea (Oct 27, 2005)

Have you had his hearing checked?


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## Kellie_MO4 (Jan 14, 2006)

I was just going to ask that.. it could possibly be that he isn't ignoring you, but may just not be hearing you? or be concentrating on something else/thinking about something else that he's just zoned out, maybe?


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## Kellie_MO4 (Jan 14, 2006)

Or... he could just be being a 4 year old... I do know my kids have their days where I have to repeat myself 5 times before they actually listen.. but then, they get that from their dad... LOL


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## hippiemommaof4 (Mar 31, 2008)

he could just be being 4 LOL! we call age three the trying threes and four the frustrating 4's sometimes because well they can be at those ages but its normal. Mostly its a battle of wills...it gets old I know and I have 4 ages 5 and under so I understand. My kids are notorious for ignoring me and I know they can hear me well, because I could mention candy at a whisper and bam everyone is at my feet LOL. I always tell myself "this too shall pass" whenever they are giving me a hard time. That age is just full of fun little surprises that drive us a lil crazy sometimes though.







:


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## eccomama (Oct 6, 2005)

just being a 4 year old. dd has selective hearing. i would chalk it up to just a phase. kids are testing boundaries at this age so dont get frustrated.


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## abeliamama (Feb 5, 2007)

Possibility of Sensory Processing Disorder or Auditory Processing Disorder? Sounds like my 5 year old, and it has improved somewhat from age 4. He takes a long time to process information and put it into words to give an answer. Meanwhile I was getting exasperated and moving into "do this or else" mode. Occupational Therapy and a lot of reading on my part has helped tremendously.


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## Kellie_MO4 (Jan 14, 2006)

I would suggest maybe getting his hearing checked, if anything just to rule that out, because it would just stink if you were getting frustrated with him when it's not something he can really control, you know? and then go from there... at least then you'd know if he really is just ignoring you


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## mamakay (Apr 8, 2005)

It's a strategy to avoid dealing with something he doesn't want to deal with. My newly 5yo still does that, as well as suddenly losing about 40 IQ points when I try to get him to talk about his behavior.

No advice on how to deal with it. Sorry.
But I think it's pretty common.


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## lightheart (Jul 2, 2005)

Stick with it and ask him to do XYZ but try not to cave in and do it for him him, if he's anything like my guys he will train you to do things for him







even if you are helping him to do it, make sure he is doing it also.

Can you phrase things, make it seem like he's either being the 'good example' to his brother (is he the older one?) or teaching/showing brother how things are done.

leaving places... start giving warnings, "we are leaving in 5 minutes" or when you go someplace before you get out of the car ask him to tell you how many minute warning he wants before it's time to leave... sometimes you will have to fib because he might ask for 50 minutes and your only going to be there 30 but until the whole time concept is actual... Sometimes I will set the alarm on my cell phone so that "it" is telling us when we have to leave and not "mommy" the kids never whine when the alarm tells us it's time to go but always with mom.... (we do set the alarm then push the snooze so the 1st is their warning then the snooze is the actual we are leaving, no questions asked)

We do warnings, planning ahead a bunch with our little guy, If we have errands to run I will tell him step by step what we are planning for the day then at each transition I will say, now we are going to X store to get food, or we are going to stop at the bank and go inside or we are going to go through he drive through.

Little things where he gets to make the descision like which door to the grocery store do you want to go in? Or which gas pump do you want mama to go to? which check-out ailse to go through... little things like that where he is 'in control' helps, sometimes it means we have to wait just a little bit longer but oh well.... Be careful though not to let him do it everytime because when you are really in a hurry it can backfire so sometimes throw in a mommy is going to go to checkout 3 or whatever.


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## limabean (Aug 31, 2005)

Do you bend down and touch his shoulder to make sure he's listening? Not in an "I am talking to you, mister!" kind of way but in a "Hey sweetie, mommy has a question" kind of way.

Also, I've found that DS tends to listen to me better if I use a quiet voice rather than a loud one (obviously you'd want to get your DS's hearing checked too to eliminate any possible physical reasons for his behavior).

But my 4yo has rather selective hearing too -- in fact, I had his doctor check it at his last appointment (it was normal). For stuff like asking whether he's done with dinner, if he doesn't answer me I say, "I didn't hear an answer, so I think you must be done -- I'm going to take your plate over to the sink." At that point, sometimes he'll say, "No, I'm still eating" and sometimes he'll let me take it, but either way at least I've told him what I'm going to do so that he has some warning.

For leaving places, we've started talking about it on the way TO the place, and I've been amazed at how well he's responded -- knowing what my expectations are is huge for him. For example, we have dinner at a restaurant with our friends every Friday, and most of the time we go back to their house afterwards so our kids can play together. But sometimes we don't have time and go straight home after dinner, and my DS would always throw a huge fit on those nights. So finally it dawned on me (duh!) that the poor kid assumed he was going to get to play with his friends and then at the last minute got the rug yanked out from under him -- of course he was upset! So last Friday I wasn't feeling well and knew that I wouldn't feel up for visiting after dinner, so on the way to the restaurant I told DS that we'd be going home after dinner. He was a little upset, but we talked and I told him that I didn't feel good and needed to rest, and that I know it's sad when we can't see our friends as much as we want to, but at least we'd get to see them at dinner and we'd get together again soon, and he actually seemed okay with it. And then when it was time to go he just said good-bye to his friends and got in the car! It was incredible. I think having his feelings validated and knowing the expectations ahead of time really really helped, so I've been using that a lot lately -- we use the car-ride there to talk about what we're going to do and not do, when we're going to leave, etc.

Anyway, sorry this is so long, but hopefully there's something useful in all that -- good luck!


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## Lohagrace (Sep 21, 2006)

In "talking so kids will listen" they say to just ask the kid to repeat back to you what you just said. for example:

me: "i'd like you to put your shoes on. we are leaving in 5 minutes"

dd: no response

me "can you please pick out the shoes you are going to wear today in a minute or two?"

dd: no response

me: "can you tell me what i just said?"

dd: "to get my shoes on in a minute."

me: "ok, thank you."

i know my dad did this with me as a teen because i rarely acknowledged what he was saying. it annoyed me at the time because *of course* i heard him







. NOW that i'm a parent, i can understand how annoying it is to make a request, or ask a question, and just get NO response!







basically, my dad got to the point where he was like "i just want some kind of acknowledgement. even a grunt will do!"

it seems like asking them to repeat back what you asked is a good strategy for any age, and then you can step back and not nag. i'm really trying hard to not nag lately.


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