Not Listening

My 4 year old son C has been going through a period where he is not listening to anyone except whatever the little voice in his head is wanting to do. It’s a particularly rough time because even though I remember my 6 year old daughter E going through this exact same thing, it is especially egregious with C. He will look you right in the face and ignore what you said while continuing on his merry way.

It got to a point where this week, there was a day filled with C ignoring everything that was asked of him. Even during dinner where he wanted to eat outside and have a picnic, I was in the process of bringing the food out and he ran away because I asked him to go potty inside (instead of him looking like he was about to do it outside). He ran away from the house so fast that I didn’t know where he went. I called his name and walked all around the house, but he ran away.

I went inside to stop the food from being overcooked and went back outside to look for him. He was nowhere in sight. Eventually, I had to go back to the house and was hoping he would be back soon. He ended up coming back a few minutes later and was screaming to be let inside. I walked back out front and he was banging on the garage door.

I asked C to stop banging on the garage and he wouldn’t listen. He also somehow got stickers and wouldn’t come inside. I went inside and eventually he followed. I asked him to sit and eat inside and he refused. We got into a power struggle where I kept asking him firmly to sit at the table and eat and he kept declining. Eventually I had to tap out because I was getting too frustrated and my wife handled him the rest of the night.

C kept saying he was a bad boy and my wife reminded him that he wasn’t. I also had a talk with him the next day saying that he wasn’t bad at all. I did the same thing as a kid and made bad choices. It’s about learning from the mistakes and then making better choices. It’s a process. I also told him I would love him no matter what. He understood and I feel like things are slowly getting better from that day.

I hope that in the future when C wants more attention, he doesn’t resort to not listening because that gets him a lot of (negative) attention. I need to remind him to ask for attention and then we will try our best to give it to him in the ways that he needs it. Progress isn’t linear and I’ll keep trying to do better so that it’s directionally going in the right way.