3 Year Not Old Listening to Friends

Part of our job as parents is teaching our children empathy. Developmentally your daughter is still very ego-centric (the world revolves around her). She will struggle with concepts like empathy for some time still.

You can certainly work with her though to support her in trying to see things from a different perspective. First, continue to intervene and be very clear that the other person has the right to say no and that she has listen to that no. Second, ask her to imagine what the other person feels like when she does something they don't want her to do by connecting with the times that she says no and other people haven't listened to her.

Be specific. Be clear. Be direct. Be consistent. And most of all understand that this is a developmental process, she is only 3.5, she will learn over time, and that she does not think like an adult.

Does she obey you when you tell her things? That is the best practice always. If she is used to HAVING to respond to what you tell her, she will get listening to other people more quickly too. If you are diligent, and she "gets it" with you, then it will click if you enforce it just like you did here. Three is still pretty young, so give it a bit more time, but stay firm, you handled it well.

I actually think this is pretty normal. She is still in that self centered phase and doesn't totally understand. Additionally, she may have found it totally hilarious to chase her friend around and at that point it was more about the chase than the kiss. My daughter is recently 4 and is still sometimes like this. I think you're doing the right thing about just telling her to listen to other people's cues and respect what they are telling her, etc., and I'm sure it will help, just keep talking about social norms like this and she will catch on!

She may get better as she gets older, but right now if she continues to do something after her friends have asked her to stop, you may need to just continue to intervene, and say, "Hey, they asked you to stop so you need to listen and stop!" At this age, they tend to be caught up in what they want and not really realize that other kids may want to do something different. I've also noticed that sometimes if one kid is doing something that is annoying to other kids, then after a while those kids may just not play with them and then they learn the hard way. I know everyone is so sensitive about bullying these days and kids excluding other kids from playing with them, but being part of a group and getting along sometimes means not doing things that get on everyone's nerves and the natural consequence of not listening is not being allowed to be part of the group anymore. Last month I took my daughter (4 years old) to the playground near our house and she was running around and playing happily with another group of kids. Another little girl (3.5 years) showed up with her grandmother. Apparently this little girl had recently seen the Lion King movie and was all about pretending to be a lion. Which would have been fine, but she kept roaring in the other kids faces and trying to get them to be lions and hyenas too and you could tell the other kids did not like they way she was behaving. If she had just decided to run around with them without roaring like a lion she would have been fine. The grandmother kept telling her to stop but she wasn't listening, so finally Grandma had to tell her to either stop, or they were going to leave because she was scaring the other kids. She still didn't stop, so that was it for them at the playground. My daughter has a little friend who is 4 and can be on the bossy side, so when they get together, her friend has a hard time understanding that maybe DD doesn't want to play house and be the baby all the time while she gets to be the mommy, but the more DD stands up to her, hopefully the sooner it will sink in.

She's still pretty young, but you might want to make sure that as she gets older, with some coaching from you, that it improves. Some kids have a hard time reading social cues and they might really struggle later on.

Sounds like you did the right thing, even at three yrs old kids will stop wanting to play with a child who chases them around trying to kiss them after they said No. I agree with Amy J, make sure she listens to you and her father and other adults in her life, that she learns to stop any little misbehavior as soon as an adult tells her to.