My Child Keeps Interrupting Me
My Child Keeps Interrupting Me
Supporting Children in Mindfulness and Patience
In this newsletter, we provide you with notes on How Can We Stop Children from Interrupting?, an episode of Talking Sense with Dr. Martha.
Host Dr. Martha is a clinical psychologist and a mother. She puts a thought-provoking lens on child behavior that all parents witness every day and helps to support you and your child.
Read our notes below.
Topics Covered in this Summary
Why Kids Frequently Interrupt
Strategies for Teaching Kids Not to Interrupt
Takeaway
Why Kids Frequently Interrupt
Children interrupt because it's part of being a child, and they are going to keep doing so until they learn not to. But that learning is both developmental and something that we teach, and it takes a lot of time.
If you don't listen to children when they talk to you about the little things, they're not going to tell you about the big things either. To them, the little things were always big. This is especially true in children's early years, up to the age of eight, as their brains are not fully developed yet.
Sometimes kids struggle to wait their turn to talk because they’re impulsive. They may tend to just blurt things out without even noticing that other people are talking. As a result, they may talk over people rather than wait their turn until they learn better impulse control.
There are also kids who just don’t recognize social graces. They may be completely oblivious to the fact that asking you a question while you’re talking to someone else is rude. They may require some education and coaching to help them learn to avoid interrupting when others are talking.
Strategies for Teaching Kids Not to Interrupt
It is so important that we try to work with our children to think of interrupting not as misbehavior but as something that is both a part of their childhood and something that we need to support them with.
Here are some strategies you can use to support them:
Role model appropriate behavior. Teaching children not to interrupt begins with us. There will certainly be times when you’ll need to interrupt your child but treating your child with respect and waiting for your turn to talk in most situations will help them learn that it's not okay to interrupt.
Practice taking turns in talking. Children learn best through playing question-and-answer games. It can be something like, ‘’What's your favorite toy?’’ and get your child to answer and then say to your child, ‘’ask me a question.’’ Now, if you answer and your child interrupts you, what you want to do is give them a signal so that they learn that it's not okay to interrupt you.
Teach your child what to do instead. Rather than telling kids they have to wait until you’re done talking, create a plan to show your child appropriate ways they can get your attention.
If you always stop what you’re doing to give attention to a child who is interrupting, you’ll reinforce that interrupting is the most effective way to get attention. If they're patiently waiting for their turn to speak, thank them for being respectful. Providing positive attention to good behavior can prevent them from interrupting.
Takeaway
As adults, we often have this idea to really rush our children along to build skills as quickly as possible, particularly in areas that frustrate us and make us feel really annoyed.
Being mindful and building up patience are lifelong skills. It's something that you are going to have to do consistently because children are going to interrupt you when you are speaking to another adult, on the phone, or working. They do this because they don't know that what you are doing is important to you.
It's not that they're rude or that they're selfish; it's simply that their brain cannot comprehend, and again, it’s part of their development.
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Listen to the original episode