# My child won't obey, what can I do? > Parents often complain that their children don't obey them or that they have to repeat things many times and the children don't listen, so they have to insist... - **Author:** mireia-navarro-vera · **Category:** Infantil - **Published:** 2018-02-22 · **Updated:** 2018-02-22 - **URL:** https://elteuespai.com/en/my-child-wont-obey-what-can-i-do/ - _Translation pending clinical review._ --- Parents often complain that their children don't obey them or that they have to repeat things many times and the children don't listen, so they have to insist and even end up getting angry about it. Until they reach a point where they no longer know what to do. This situation tends to be common in households and happens many times: fights between siblings, talking back, not wanting to go to sleep, not wanting to get dressed alone, or having to tell them a thousand times to go take a shower, among others… **Disobedience is a refusal to do something we have been asked to do within a limited period of time and/or to follow a series of established rules, whether set by parents, teachers, or other people, so that the functioning of the school or home runs correctly.** ## Why doesn't our child obey? There would be countless reasons why children don't obey; some of them would be: - To **get attention**: a child may be disobedient so that their parents pay more attention to them. - They feel insecure - It may be to **show jealousy**; sometimes there are various situations that generate jealousy, such as the birth of a sibling, and they may engage in negative behaviors to get their parents' attention so that they have and spend more time with them, since the arrival of a sibling means the loss of the attention they previously had. - Some children **don't know how to wait because they are immature** and still have to learn to take their turn. - Around the **age of 2-3 it is normal for children to have oppositional behaviors** since it is an age at which children test their [parents' authority](/en/authority-through-respect-vs-authority-through-fear/). - But above all, **the most important and the most frequent one is:** **because what we ask them to do is a drag and they have to stop doing something they like to do something they don't like** (it happens to us too!). Usually when **a behavior is learned it tends to be because that behavior has positive consequences**, for example gaining the parents' attention, which is only given when the child behaves badly or doesn't listen and not when the child behaves well. In other words, **children learn to be obedient depending on the stimuli that adults offer them and on how adults react to their behavior**. This is why it is very important to value and take into account all correct behaviors and not only the negative ones. **If they are only given attention when they behave incorrectly, our child thus has a great reinforcer to keep behaving badly.** When trying to modify behavior, it is very important to analyze both the child's conduct and behavior as well as that of the adults. ## The steps to modify behavior would be: When our child doesn't behave the way we want, we have to: ![mother talking with child on sofa](/images/blog/2018/02/El-nino-no-obedece_ampliacion-300x235.webp)Before using any technique, **the most important thing is to make sure that the order we have given has been heard, processed, and understood**. If from the kitchen I tell my child, go brush your teeth, while he is on the sofa watching cartoons, the probability that he will obey is 0.000001. If, on the other hand, I go to the living room, get close, and tell him: go brush your teeth, I greatly increase the probability, but I will still be very far from obedience. If, in addition to telling him up close and looking him in the eyes, I take him by the hand and say: come on, let's go to the bathroom, you have to brush your teeth, he will probably listen to me in 90% of cases. What I mean by this is that I cannot expect my child to obey me if I give the order from the other end of the house, because he won't have even heard, processed, or understood it, and he will keep watching cartoons placidly. If, having reached the last step, he still doesn't obey us, which will happen rarely, then we will have to use other techniques: - **Withdraw attention**, that is, not offering our attention or speaking to him while he disobeys us. If it is very difficult for us, we can leave the room. And once the disobedient behavior ends, offer our attention again (looking at him, talking to him). - At the same time, **all the correct behaviors** that your child performs must be **reinforced** systematically, whether verbally or, if necessary, in the form of a reward. - On the other hand, if extinction or withdrawal of attention were not enough, there could be some **negative consequence, such as the withdrawal of activities they like**, such as: watching television, playing with the computer or tablet, or taking away their toys. It is important to highlight that, in the beginning generally, the frequency and amount of disobedient behavior tends to increase if we follow these guidelines, since children are used to usually getting what they want this way, but **if we persevere and are consistent, the behavior will subsequently decrease.** ### When giving instructions and orders, one must keep in mind: - They must be sentences that children can understand. - The orders must be clear, short, and specific. - They must be given one at a time. - They must not contradict one another. ## Strategies so that our child behaves well: - **Surprise them when they behave well**. Show interest, praise, acknowledge, and congratulate every time we see that our child behaves well, such as when he is calm or when he is with his sibling without fighting, or is eating well while seated. - **Acknowledge any improvement even if it is small.** It is impossible to go from a bad behavior to a good one, but if we pay attention we will see that there are usually small improvements, and these we must also acknowledge, so the child will be motivated to keep improving. - **Present alternatives so that your child can choose.** Instead of ordering him to do a particular task, two alternatives can be offered, and that way he will choose which one and will do it more happily. For example, if we want him to do his homework we can ask him, do you want to do your homework before or after your afternoon snack? - **Use distraction.** When our child has oppositional behavior, the best thing is not to give explicit and direct orders. For example, if we want him to get dressed, the best would be to tell him, which story do you want me to tell you while you get dressed to go outside? Later on, and once this is resolved and **our child is fairly obedient, he will know how to do things and little by little family coexistence will become more peaceful and harmonious. Remember that most children don't listen the first time!**