Do you have to ask your child over and over before they finally do what you asked? They may have heard you the first time.
In this episode of Little Moments, Lasting Impressions, Dr. Bethany Heyne looks at what happens between hearing an instruction and actually following through.
You’ll learn how developing executive-function skills, including working memory, task initiation, attention shifting, and transitions, can make a child look like they aren’t listening, even when they know exactly what they’re supposed to do.
Using Notice It · Name It · Nurture It, you’ll learn how to identify where the process is breaking down and help your child build the skill they need instead of simply repeating yourself.
Because there’s a big difference between asking: “Why doesn’t my child listen?”
and: “Where between hearing me and doing it is their brain getting stuck?”
You say: “Put your shoes on.”
Nothing. You say it again. Still nothing.
By the tenth time, you’re standing at the door yelling: “SHOES. NOW.”
And you’re wondering: Why doesn’t my child just listen?
But your child may have heard you the first time.
Between hearing an instruction and following through, a child’s brain may need to stop what it’s doing, shift attention, hold the instruction in working memory, initiate the new task, remember what comes next, and stay focused long enough to finish it.
In this episode, we’re looking at the executive-function skills underneath that frustrating gap between: “I know what I’m supposed to do” and “I’m doing it.”
You’ll learn how to stop simply repeating the instruction and start watching for where the process breaks down.
Did they hear you?
Did they remember?
Could they shift away from what they were doing?
Did they know where to start?
Did they start and then get distracted?
Because once you know where they’re getting stuck, you have something much more useful than: “My child doesn’t listen.” You have a skill you can nurture.
Chapters
00:00 Why repeating yourself may not be a listening problem
00:15 Welcome to Little Moments, Lasting Impressions
00:35 “I have to ask him ten times”
02:15 He probably heard you the first time
03:00 What happens between hearing and doing
04:20 Working memory and task initiation
06:15 Why knowing what to do isn’t the same as doing it
07:30 Notice It · Name It · Nurture It
09:00 What to do instead of repeating yourself
10:15 The do-over: shoes before baseball
11:30 Find where the process breaks down
Tired of guessing what’s going on behind your child’s behavior? Drop your Little Moment in the comments. Maybe it’s the directions they ignore, the meltdown you can’t explain, the homework battle, sibling fight, or moment that left you thinking, What was I supposed to do with that? Your question could become a future episode.
