How to address people/children when they don't listen to you?

[EasterJoy]

It seems my whole life people don’t list and kid are excellent at not listening.

My family, when I was a financial advisor, my family refused to listen to change their portfolio when I told them banking wasn’t safe. I didn’t even say “told you so” in 2007-08.

My MIL & FiL have whole conversations answering for me. My MIL insistes MY sisters name is Tracy (ummm it’s not Tracy!!!). When I ask them to stop cleaning out house, they clean more. I ask them to wait to Christmas to give kids gifts and then they drop by daily with gifts; these are the same ones I have wrapped waiting in the basement. Aaaaaah

Kids (1.5 & 2.75) … Well, the stories are endless. My 2.75 is potty training, I’m in the shower & she poops in her diaper. Then I tell her wait, I’ll help you. She looks me in the eye me says, “myself” then In trying to do it herself gets poop everywhere before I can react and I can only say stop … Stop… STOP … And as usual, I wasn’t listened to.

Even the at resturants, I ask for a standard menu item & they get it wrong.

I’m running on fumes with no one listening. Is it even worth it to talk? Maybe we shouldn’t teach talking!!! (JK) I know Jesus says something like the ppl in Nazerious don’t listen to family but… Ahhhhh

You are actually upset about several different issues.

You have no room at all to complain when you give people good advice and they don’t take it. It is usually rude to give unsolicited advice and even if you give solicited advice, it is still advice. You may know better, but the people getting your advice are still the ones who have the authority to make the choice and live with the consequences. Just because you are better at art than everyone else does not give you carte blanche to draw everyone else’s artwork for them. It would have been gracious to bite your tongue on the “I told you so” line; they are getting their consequences and don’t need anyone else to rub it in.

If you want your in-laws to live within boundaries that good manners usually impose for you, you have to draw a line. If they keep cleaning, you have to get stubborn and kick them out. If they won’t quit, then once you do get them out, you don’t let them back in. If they bring gifts that you have forbidden, you hand them back and tell them they will not be welcome to come back if they don’t start respecting what you say. This is what you have to do if you don’t want to be steamrolled by pushy people. This type lives for the battle of wills, so choose your moves deliberately. If a nose is to be cut off out of spite, it needs to be theirs, not yours. Don’t get angry; just stand your ground firmly. (If your husband is not on your side, address that. You have got to have him on your side, or this will be very difficult, indeed. The chances are, though, that he’s going to feel much healthier when he and his family have good openly-drawn boundaries to protect them.)

Correcting you on your own sister’s name? Check out of that conversation. Just walk away and refuse to talk to them or listen to them talking to each other. Honestly, I would say, “If I’m not even trusted to get the correct answer to ‘what is your sister’s name?’, then my contributions are obviously not wanted. Have your conversation in peace; I know all I want to know.” If they ask what that is, you just say, “Seriously? I don’t know my own sister’s name? Please. Get out your Crayolas and draw your own picture on that one.” As the saying goes, though, “Don’t try to teach a pig to sing. You just frustrate yourself and annoy the pig.” Don’t think you will reform adults with such bad habits. Your job is to defend your own boundaries, not to retrain or reform your in-laws. That is their work.

Children will insist on doing things their own way. They just will. Most of us will, at least occasionally. If we’re not even tempted to think for ourselves from a young age, that isn’t a great sign, actually. The best consequences for defying good advice are (again) the natural consequences. In this case, probably she gets to wipe up her own poop. If she’s big enough to make her own choices, she’s big enough to take her own consequences. I don’t mean getting angry. I mean, “Oh, well. When we have a mess doing things Mama’s way, Mama cleans. Since you did it your way, you get to clean up your own mess. I will watch to make sure you do a good job, because the clean-up is going to be Mama’s way.”

At the restaurant, point out that they didn’t get your request right. If they don’t correct themselves with apologies to your satisfaction, your tip ought to reflect that.

 

[Giggly_Giraffe]

Originally posted by St Francis
So give a positive command: sit down on the floor and put your hands on your head. Seriously.

OUTSTANDING!!! :clapping:

 

[EasterJoy]

Gosh, it’s hard to let go of my financial advice when family ignores advice and then asks for money.

Missed this! My family would be suffering a very low standard of living (worse than sour investments) before they’d ever come to me for money. They’d really have to be in dire straits. If you pay your bills on time all your life and don’t rack up debt, after all, you can take out an awful lot of loans with banks unless you’ve lost your income (which is something more than making bad investments).

 

[RoseMary131]

It seems my whole life people don’t list and kid are excellent at not listening.

You are not really talking about “people do not Listen to me”.

These people may be listening to you. What they are not doing is “doing what I instruct them to do.”

My family, when I was a financial advisor, my family refused to listen to change their portfolio when I told them banking wasn’t safe. I didn’t even say “told you so” in 2007-08.

They may have “listened” to you, meaning to use their ears to hear your words. What they did not do was to “do what you instructed them to do”. Your extended family does not have an obligation to “follow your banking advise”. Even if they begin to ask you for money, they do not have a responsibility to follow your financial advise. You do not need to assist them with your money. It was very wise that you refrained from the childish “I told you so”.

My MIL & FiL have whole conversations answering for me. My MIL insistes MY sisters name is Tracy (ummm it’s not Tracy!!!). When I ask them to stop cleaning out house, they clean more. I ask them to wait to Christmas to give kids gifts and then they drop by daily with gifts; these are the same ones I have wrapped waiting in the basement. Aaaaaah

They have not learned to respect what you ask of them. You have not learned to set your boundaries. They are not respecting your boundaries and you are not enforcing them. They have not learned proper etiquette in conversation, such as “do not answer for another person who can speak for themselves.”

Kids (1.5 & 2.75) … Well, the stories are endless. My 2.75 is potty training, I’m in the shower & she poops in her diaper. Then I tell her wait, I’ll help you. She looks me in the eye me says, “myself” then In trying to do it herself gets poop everywhere before I can react and I can only say stop … Stop… STOP … And as usual, I wasn’t listened to.

These sweet little children are learning language and communication. It takes a while for children to develop “listening to Mommy” and then following what was heard.

Children do not always hear all of what you say. They may hear and understand a few words and build a new sentence in their head - “understanding” something different than what was said to them.

Your sweet little girl is learning how to “be like Mommy”. She is so happy to be able to do for herself. She was focused on a tasked and most likely happy to do something herself - imitate Mommy. Mommy probably praises her when she puts her toys away, when she puts her own clothes on - when she imitates Mommy.

Your thought “and as usual” is what causes you to be so irritated. You are focused on “no body listens to me.”

Even the at resturants, I ask for a standard menu item & they get it wrong.

Of course people get things wrong. Stop being so “why me” if you want to find peace.

The hostess brought you the wrong menu because ___. We could list all day the reasons people make mistake, it most likely had nothing to do with you.

Stop holding in your head all of the times you feel someone did something which was not what you said. Every person reading this can make a huge list of all the times someone did something that was not what they had requested.

That’s how living in a world with people is. Some people make mistakes, some people are rude, some people have no need to do as you request, some people are focused on something that is not your focus.

I’m running on fumes with no one listening. Ahhhhh

Yes, people are listening. You aren’t getting the results you want. **You want people to change. **

You want people to change their thoughts on finances and change their way of handling their finances. You want them to stop asking for your money.

You want you in-laws to learn proper communication skills to not speak for someone else. They have bad manners and don’t know what good manners are - they don’t have a desire to learn the “proper” way - to not speak for someone else - because they don’t feel they are wrong.

You want your in-laws to respect the boundaries you make about cleaning your home and giving gifts to you children. You are the one responsible for setting your boundaries and keeping your boundaries.

You want your little girl to learn to do things for herself, yet she doesn’t have the development to know when to be a big girl and when to let mommy do it for her. She’s learning. You have to learn to accept her developmental level today. You need to learn to be calm even when something like the diaper incident happens.

That’s life - you will face many things each day which you did not plan. How can you accept that?

What can you do to accept life is about living with people who will do their own thing - even if you “tell” them something else? People are not puppets.

When you accept that the only one you can control is yourself - you will find more peace.

 

[RoseMary131]

The best consequences for defying good advice are (again) the natural consequences. In this case, probably she gets to wipe up her own poop. If she’s big enough to make her own choices, she’s big enough to take her own consequences. I don’t mean getting angry. I mean, “Oh, well. When we have a mess doing things Mama’s way, Mama cleans. Since you did it your way, you get to clean up your own mess. I will watch to make sure you do a good job, because the clean-up is going to be Mama’s way.”

While it can be helpful to show children how to clean up their toys, etc and then to let them follow through to the best of their ability… it is not a healthy idea to have a child cleaning feces.

Feces is naturally filled with bacteria that can cause a lot of harm.

Protect children from feces contamination as soon as possible, by first attending to washing her hands very well, looking carefully under her nails, so she does not ingest any bacteria or infect her eyes or nostils. Clean her body next, so the fecal bacteria does not infect any small cuts like a bug bite.

Follow by carefully cleaning the room, so the contaminates are not on surfaces. A hot, humid bathroom is an excellent breeding ground for the bacteria to grow.

 

[EasterJoy]

While it can be helpful to show children how to clean up their toys, etc and then to let them follow through to the best of their ability… it is not a healthy idea to have a child cleaning feces.

Feces is naturally filled with bacteria that can cause a lot of harm.

Protect children from feces contamination as soon as possible, by first attending to washing her hands very well, looking carefully under her nails, so she does not ingest any bacteria or infect her eyes or nostils. Clean her body next, so the fecal bacteria does not infect any small cuts like a bug bite.

Follow by carefully cleaning the room, so the contaminates are not on surfaces. A hot, humid bathroom is an excellent breeding ground for the bacteria to grow.

It is conceivable that asking the child to clean up could expose her to more feces than what is already covering her, yes. In the case where the clean-up is either not safe for her or just beyond her ability (since a 3 year old can get filth in places that she could not possibly reach safely to clean up), then it would make sense to skip a planned activity she looked forward to in order to make up the time taken by the clean-up. That would also be a natural consequence that could be enforced without being draconian about it.

The idea is to try to lead the child to a point where she realizes that she’s better off choosing to accept help (and to wait for it) when she needs it. That is a lesson she will need when she is 35, not just when she’s under 10. This is the whole point of teaching a child to listen: that is, not to produce a compliant child but to produce a prudent person.

For instance, when cleaning up it would be good to explain to the child that she wasn’t asked to wait because she is not good at helping herself, but because if she had this trouble she had that the mess could make everyone very sick. You want to let her know that this is the kind of mess that you want her to tell you about if she makes it, because the cleaning up has to be done so that the things that are too small to see won’t be there to make anyone sick. Yes: you don’t want her cleaning up these messes in the future without letting you know she made them, because of course you have to make certain it was cleaned up correctly and that she knows this is a mess that could make someone (or even everyone) very sick, indeed. That is why you want the consequences to be natural and not to go ballistic about it, because you need her to tell you if she makes a similar mistake again, and not to hide it. The same would go for things like dropping food on the floor: she must know not to hide accidents that could make people sick or ruin something if not taken care of right away. You want her to take on the consequences of her mistakes, but you don’t want her to be afraid to admit mistakes.