My 5 Year Old Does Not Listen to Me at All

try ignoring him for a little while, works wonders for getting a kid to suddenly start hearing you.
K. h.

Be consistent and follow-up. Kids should eventually follow your directions the first time when you set the expectations. Does he respond to ANYONE elses discipline? (Teacher/daycare/father?) If so, what are they doing differently? Find someone locally who you can pattern and they will probably help you too. It can be done. Don't give up!

He is testing YOU.

First you need to make sure heard and understood you..

So for now on you will need to do and say this.. Every time.. Repetition/

Do not yell across the house. Make sure he can see you when you call him over.
"Jonny, Come here.(Then look at him in his eyes). Listen to my words. I do not want you to tease your sisters any more. Tell me what I just said. (he will repeat).

Then you say. If you tease them you will have to go to your room, until I tell you you can come out. Tell me what I just said.

He will repeat it to you..

IF he does it again. Go to him and take his hand and walk him to his room. Then ask him. "What did I say about you teasing your sisters?"..

He will repeat.

Then tell him, "Do NOT leave this room until I tell you, you can leave. Or you will stay in here longer. Now tell me what I just said.

Mom, you will have to follow through every time.

It is worth the effort to stop and do this. Even if you have to do it a dozen times.. I am sure he is bright enough not to go on that long, but you are the Mama! You can handle him.. He WANTS to know you have high expectations of him.

Also be sure to compliment him and all of your children when you catch them getting along, helping each other, using nice language.. Eventually ot will be more natural to them..

Essentially your son is seeking attention from his sisters. Or from you or dad.. He is just too young to realize it, so this is how he behaves.

Consistency.
Every time he doesn't listen, he goes in time out. And he stays there for his full 5 min. Once he knows you aren't fooling around, he'll get the picture. Boys are totally different than girls. You need to get this kid under control now, because if you don't, when he's 12, he'll be totally out of control... and by the time he's 16, it's all over.
LBC

Sounds like he wants attention from his sisters and gets it easily by teasing. Have you read the 1,2,3 Magic book? We get frustrated and yell when we try to use logic on children who are not yet logical, or when we have unrealistic expectations. "you should not tease your sisters because they do not like it and it makes them feel bad and how would you feel if people teased you?' is useless (until older) The rule is BE nice to your sisters (put it in positive not negative) You do not need to repeat this rule again. Hang it on a wall and do not repeat it. If he teases say One and put up one finger, if he does not stop immediately put up a second finger, if that warning doesnt work He is marched into Time Out. No discussion, no explanation.(or turn off TV or take away video game) TALK LESS, and train your self to NEVER YELL. Try to start with just a few rules. 1) Listen to Mom, 2) Be nice. and demand he follow those.
Kids get used to being scolded and yelled at a lot and it does not effect them at all so pick just a few things to concentrate on right now.
He does not want to be all alone in his room, so he sneaks into the living room. I never asked my kids to play all alone in their rooms if they wanted to be closer to the family. They never had to "sneak" into a room in their own house.
Pick your battles and pick your consistent discipline methods. Give LOTS of attention when he is being good and almost no attention for bad behavior.

i wouldn't listen to you either. it doesn't sound as if you have a sound strategy. yelling is a poor discipline tactic, and i don't know what you mean when you say you discipline him. if you were actually disciplining him with appropriate consequences that he understood, he would be listening to you.
it sounds as if you seesaw back and forth between yelling and being sugary sweet. you need to make up your mind what the consequences to disobedience will be and stick to them.
kids need boundaries.
provide them.
khairete
S.

Well what happens when he does something you just asked him not to do? Do you tell him, hey I just said don't do that...or do you apply a consequence immediately? If you are not applying an immediate consequence, that is the issue, in my opinion.

It's not about being nice, yelling, rewarding etc., it's about consistency. Kids need to know what to expect. If he knows that he will immediately have to go to time out, go to his room, have that toy taken away, whatever the case may be, his behavior will eventually change. The hardest part will be A. being consistent. It sounds easy but it is not easy at all! You will want to give in but you can't. And B. his tantrums, screaming, mean words, etc. that will come after the consequence is given. It will make you want to be inconsistent, but power through it. One of my favorite one liners is...I love you too much to argue. Done. Walk away.

I recommend only applying your consequence to fit the crime. For instance if he is supposed to play in his room and he sneaks out, just keep asking him, guiding him, putting him back in his room. Tell him he must play there for however long (I would say no more than 15 minutes, if he's having a huge meltdown, start with 5) and then maybe he can come into the living room. I don't suggest saying that as soon as he comes out of his room he can't watch any of his TV shows or take away his favorite toy because that has nothing to do with his "crime". Now, if you tell him to turn off the TV and he doesn't b/c he wants to keep watching, then yeah, next time he wants to watch a show he doesn't get to b/c he couldn't follow the rules the first time. THat makes sense.

Lastly, I want to reiterate that this approach is not easy, but I'm a firm believer in its effectiveness. We all have our moments when we lose our cool or yell, but remember if yelling worked, we wouldn't have any misbehaved kids.

I really feel that many of us need to get back to some important basics in parenting, and one of the aspects that needs addressing the most is: the vocabulary.

For example, if someone was to take a basic cooking class, the instructor would make sure that the students knew the difference between "boil" and "simmer", or "puree" and "combine".

When we say a child doesn't listen, unless there's a physical hearing impairment, we're wrong. He DOES listen, he doesn't obey, or respond. To just say he doesn't listen is counter-productive, because you won't be addressing the correct problem. If you focus on "obeying" or "responding" or "cooperating" you'll get better results. It doesn't make any sense to a child to say "you're not listening" when he's old enough to understand the meaning of the word "listen". You tell him to listen to that bird in the tree, or you ask him to listen for daddy's car to pull up in the driveway, and then you tell him he's not listening when you told him to put his toys away. Use the right term. Tell him in very clear language that he heard mommy say to put his toys away but he chose not to obey so now he will lose the privilege of playing with those toys for a day or an hour. Have him repeat the instructions: "I need to listen when Mommy says to put my toys away, and I need to obey by putting them away then." Or "I can play until the timer rings and then I need to obey and put my toys in the basket".

Another word that needs clarification is "discipline". Discipline is not punishment. Discipline is teaching. Discipline happens every day. When we say "this is how we sit at the table: we don't bang on the table, we don't stand on the chairs,", that's discipline. When they stand on the chair again, and we whisk them away to time out or give the consequences that we have determined beforehand, that is PUNISHMENT.

It's important to distinguish between the two, because then we can concentrate on disciplining before punishing. If you want him to not tease his sisters, you can role play with him about how to use nice words and play fairly. That's discipline. You can talk with him about how teasing feels. That's discipline. You can tell him that if he continues to take his sisters' toys away and make them cry, that he will lose the privilege of being in the room with them and will have to spend time in his room alone.

Why must he play in his room alone? Is he loud, rude, destructive? Of course he doesn't want to just be alone when there are people to play with. So you might identify what behaviors are unacceptable, and why he can't be in the living room, and then discipline him to stop those. If he throws toys and doesn't pick them up off the living room floor, teach him that if he wants to play near the rest of the family, his Legos or whatever must stay on this playspace and he must pick up his toys when you tell him to. If he uses bad words, you discipline him by teaching him that in the living room around the family, only nice helpful words will be accepted and help him make a list of nice words and mean words. That's discipline. Punishment would consist of being removed from the family area when he uses those mean words, or some other loss of privileges.

Hi, T.:

Mom's here have good advice.
Your son has lost respect for you.
You will need to get his respect back.

Sit down with your children and establish the rules of the house.
Getting their input to tell you what they are. You add yours.

Next, ask them what the consequences will be and you add yours.

He may follow the rules and may not accept the consequences.
If he doesn't, then punishment is in order to get his attention.

At 5 years of age, he can tolerate about 3 swats to the behind to enforce your rules.

Then he needs to learn to apologize for his inappropriate behavior.
Example:
Teach him to say this:
Mama, will you accept my apology for:________________
You respond: Yes
He is taught to say: Do you need anything.
You respond;__________ Tell him what you expect.
He is taught: to accept your need.
You end it by a hug or handshake.

Good luck.
D.

Suz T said it very well.

When I start out to correct one of my kids, I start out small and soft. If they keep misbehaving the discipline gets bigger and harder. I go from, "Please don't do that" to finally, "bend over and put your hands on your knees" and then I get their attention with spanking. I seldom had to go as far as spanking, but they knew I was willing to make obedience much more desireable than disobedience.

Be consistant. Be firm. DON'T be a pushover.

Good luck to you and yours.

My 9 yr old son thinks you should send him to military school:).