My daughter is as hard-headed as the red rock canyon, as if no one must say no to her. She always wants everything her way, and would cry if she doesn’t get what she wants. She feels like she’s the boss around here and would demand anything she’s interested in. I have no plans of spoiling her but I have no plans in making her hate me either.

Being a parent, I’m sure some of you have experienced this dilemma one way or another, if not, then you are very lucky! There are only but a few kids that would have an innate passion to listen to their parents or anyone for that matter, and unfortunately my daughter is not one of them.

I read some articles regarding this and found out that it has really been quite a problem for almost every parents in the world, and  also got to learn quite a lot on how to deal with this. I got same advice from another parent so I tried it and it somehow works.

Have you ever heard of Operant Conditioning? Remember: consequences and rewards – keywords for making these unruly kids listen to you. When I was still in college, we had a General Psychology subject that tackles about, well, psychology, and this topic was actually one of my favorites and yet I wonder why I didn’t apply the concept.

Operant Conditioning was conceptualized by Psychologist B.F. Skinner. If you are familiar with Operant Conditioning, then based on the articles I’ve read, authors and friends alike, they say that it would be the best way to make a kid listen to you. Not sure what Operant Conditioning is? With the keywords, it’s basically providing rewards to people (yeah that includes our kids as well) whenever they do a job well done. So if your kid listens to you, a positive reinforcement is well-deserved, maybe a desert, or just a piece of candy would do. But if he / she does not listen, then be firm and tell your kid that he / she won’t be getting anything in return or that he / she would lose something that she wants as a punishment.

I did this when my daughter had became fond of not wearing her slippers around the house. I got tired of reminding her to wear her slippers every time, so I gave her an ultimatum, I told her that one last time I don’t see her wearing her slippers, those are going to the trash and my reason to her was: Since you are not wearing them, why bother keep them? Or I’d probably just give them away.

She shouted a big “NO!”. I didn’t care and gave her around a week, and saw her still not wearing her slippers, without any warnings, I got her slippers and took them out of the house. She saw me and was crying. I gave her 5 minutes and told her that I would get those slippers back if she promises to wear them whenever she’s walking around the house. She said yes, and now, she makes sure she’s wearing them!

Somehow I felt like it was bad, but I’m still glad it worked. So if you are having problems with dealing kids that do not listen to you, this might actually work.