Hello everyone and welcome to the Village Voice, parenting beyond discipline, the place to learn about all things parenting and get your questions answered. I'm your host, Erin Royer-Asrelant. Yes, I'm still nursing a little bit of a cold this week. My kids are

home on spring break, so it's been a little busy and crazy around here, but lots of fun.

We went camping for three days and whitewater rafting and I ate lots of smores and hot dogs and

spaghetti and all kinds of junk. And I'm just getting back to health and getting back to exercising and working off all those

s'mores.

And I hope everyone else had a great spring break.

We have a really late spring break around here.

So everyone else's spring break is probably over by now.

But I hope you all had a great spring break with your kids as well. So let's get to the topic

this week. When kids outright ignore us, and especially when it's blatant, it is oh so frustrating.

Did you know there are things and habits we get into as parents that actually teach our kids to ignore us? Just like brushing teeth, doing math, or even sharing

and other social skills, good listening skills need to be taught as a skill in general but also as a behavior meaning

we as parents need to set those expectations and boundaries in our families in

today's episode I'll share some ways to help children become better listeners ways

you as a parent can invest a little bit of time now to save lots of time and years

of aggravation.

When I talk about building listening skills, I'm talking about tools for helping kids listen

to directions and follow through on a request, such as please get in the car,

please put on your shoes. It's time to go brush your teeth. While the tools I'm about to

cover can be helpful in dealing with specific issues, they may not be enough in some cases.

And what I mean about specific issues are things like getting

your child to stay in bed at bedtime, getting your child to eat his or her vegetables, or

...