How do I get my 4 year old to listen to me?
I have two daughters, 4 and 2, and my 4 year old doesn’t respond to any discipline. We have tried:
- getting in their level and talking to them
- explaining how their actions make others feel
- removing them from fun
- taking things away from them
- rewarding good behavior
- immediate corrections
- ignoring things that seem to be to get a reaction/attention
- time outs
- yelling
- spanking
Especially with the spanking, that has only been a handful of times in severe cases, but we don’t like/want to do it because my husband and I believe violence breeds violence. With the yelling, we tried to yell to show her we were serious, but to no avail and so we gave that up. We have tried everything else consistently to give it a fair chance to work, but she still doesn’t take us seriously when we tell her to stop and talks back.
I know that we’re in the middle of a defiant age, developmentally, since there’s so much going on, but this is now starting to rub off on the 2 year old. How do I deal with a child who openly refuses consequences? What strategies have worked for you to correct these problems and stop it before it’s regular for the younger sibling?