Parenting is hard. It’s exhausting. So how do you parent so your kids will actually listen and obey? Here are three key tips:

1. It’s all about the relationship you have with the child. This means you need to spend quality time with the child building a relationship where they like you and want to obey you.
2. Set clear rules and expectations. The child needs to know what to expect.
3. Be firm in your discipline. Whatever you do, if the child is crying, DON’T give them what they want to make them stop crying.

It’s all about the relationship

Nobody cares about what you say unless they actually like you. You need to develop a relationship with your child where they like you and like spending time with you. This means you need to play with them. Listen to them. Give them your attention. Do fun things with them.

You need to be nice to them most of the time. You can’t be yelling at your kid all the time and expect them to want to listen to you. So set a few clear rules (things that you need to be firm about), but then try to make the rest of the time you spend with that child happy and positive.

Set clear rules in your house

Kids behave the best when they know what to expect. They know what the rules are and the rules stay the same. It doesn’t matter what the rules are in your house, just that they are consistent and the child knows what to expect. So if the rule is that you don’t hit and if you hit you get a timeout in your room, make sure the child knows that and you enforce it every time.

If you want your kids to listen and obey, you can even have them help you make the rules of your house. You can sit down and say “Let’s make some house rules. What rules do you think we should have?”

You can say “If someone hits in our house, what should be the consequence?” Then you can write the rules down on a poster and put it somewhere they can see it.

You can also do this with chores. You can have the kids help decide what chores they want to do. That gives them ownership and some agency in picking which chore they want to do.

Be firm in your discipline

Now, when you do need to discipline your children, be firm about it. If they are having a tantrum about something, don’t give in to them during the tantrum! That just reinforces the tantrum. Wait until they are calm, then you can reward the good behavior of being calm.

If your kids know that you will change your mind if they cry loud enough, then they will ALWAYS be crying. So be firm. If you say something, stick to it. (So be careful what you say).

Talk slowly

So many parents (including myself) talk really fast when their child is acting badly. They try to quickly explain why the child should stop or why the child should act differently. But guess what? When you are upset, you really can’t think straight. Even adults can’t think logically when they are upset. So don’t expect your child to respond well to your rational argument of how they should act differently. Just focus on helping them calm down. Talk really slowly. Remain calm yourself. Breathe deeply together using the finger breathing model.

Model calm for them. And even when they keep crying and tantruming, you can still do “calm”. Eventually they will calm down and then you can talk to them.

Being mad about your children being mad

The hardest part of discipline for parents is to not get mad about the children being mad. I see it all the time – in others and myself. You get so mad that your child is having a tantrum about something small or stupid. But you getting mad doesn’t help. It just prolongs the tantrum.

A lot of parents get mad at their crying children because they are embarrassed about what the other parents will think. But who cares! Children cry. It doesn’t say anything about you. Just stay calm and show your kids how to handle negative emotions. Breathe through negative emotions and calm down your body.