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Expert Q&A

	By Paul Coleman Psychologist Family Therapist

How can I stop my 4 year old from ignoring me? He waits until his father tells him what to do. He does not listen to me. He just stares.

My guess is that your child does respond to you at least some of the time. If he was eager to have his lunch and you told him that lunch was ready, he would come running. So part of the problem may be motivation. Another factor may be that a pattern has emerged where you tell him to do something, he doesn't respond, his father makes the same request, and now he responds. He may simply be waiting for his father because that has become part of the pattern when you are all together.

I would approach this in two steps. Step one is to increase his overall responsiveness to you by increasing your play time together. That gives you an opportunity to have fun and for him to respond to your requests during the game (""Hand me that card, honey..."") This can make it easier for him to respond to you during non-game moments. By the way, a fun game might be ""Simon Says"". After you've played it once, do the same game except call it ""Mommy Says"". That way you are practicing the very thing you want from him -- which is to be responsive to your commands. Then later when you want him to do something you can say ""Mommy says ..."" It will get his attention and he'll respond the way he was conditioned to respond by the game. Over time, you can wean yourself from saying ""Mommy says..."" when you want him to do something. Another game is to simply tell him that you want to help him practice following orders. Then make a silly game whereby you say ""Billy? Please come over here but do so jumping on one foot...please hand me that pencil while making a goofy face...please put your book away while pretending you are a monster..."" He'll have fun and all the while he is obeying your orders. Practice these types of games for several days.

Step two is to make sure his father does not intervene when you are the one making a request. If you want him to pick up his toys, make the request (make sure Dad is out of the room) and then assist him a little bit. You are helping him to respond to your request when you assist him, plus you are helping to enforce the request. Next, make another request, this time with Dad in the room. Dad is not to respond. If your child seems to be waiting for his father to say something, remind him that you are making the request.

Have fun with this. Chances are your frustration has made you sound unnatural when you've made recent requests. The more fun you have, the better the chances this problem will go away soon.

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