Do you find yourself repeating something over and over? Funny how your kids can drown you out so easily and so consistently.

My best suggestion is to stop what you’re doing and focus on the situation. I usually find that the reason I’m repeating myself is because I’m preoccupied with other things and not following through immediately when they don’t do it right away. By the time I notice, they’re already distracted and on to something else, and then I get mad.

Of course we wish they’d just do it, but we can prevent having to repeat ourselves and feeling so much frustration if we do the following:
1. stop what you're doing,
2. get eye level, make eye contact,
3. put your hand on their arm or shoulder,
4. then turn your voice way down, almost to a whisper--either ask them to repeat what you’ve asked, say “maybe you didn’t understand or maybe you’ve forgotten, so I am going to say it again, and then I want you to jump up 2 times to let me know you know what to do and then go do it!” or
5. try something playful--maybe even something funny “Hmm. I think I told you to do something, but I don’t know what it was. Maybe you can go do it and then surprise me!”

They tune us out because we say the same things over and over. No wonder! The only thing we should repeat over and over is "I love you. You're great!"