Why Does My Child Listen to Their Teacher but Not Me? What Teachers Do Differently...

There’s something slightly insulting about watching your child behave beautifully for someone else. At nursery or school, they hang up their coat, sit down when asked, tidy things away and move from one task to the next without too much drama. At home, you’ve asked them to put their shoes on four times, one sock has vanished, and they’re now upside down on the sofa claiming they didn’t hear you. Meanwhile, their teacher is somehow doing this with thirty children at once.

So what are teachers actually doing differently?

After nine years in primary classrooms, I’d love to say there’s some secret teacher trick. There isn’t. Children still ignore us, they test boundaries, get distracted, argue, cry, get silly at exactly the wrong moment and occasionally seem to forget every instruction they’ve ever heard. The difference is that classrooms are built around lots of small habits that make things easier.

Children usually know what’s coming next. Instructions are often short and clear. Routines are practised so many times they become familiar. Teachers give warnings before transitions, repeat the same phrases, and spend a surprising amount of time teaching children how to do things that adults assume they already know.

A lot of that can be useful at home too.

You obviously don’t need to turn your house into a classroom. But if leaving the house, getting dressed, tidying up or simply getting your child to listen sometimes feels much harder than it ought to, there are a few teacher habits that are well worth borrowing.

Why are they different at school?

This is the bit that catches parents out.

You hear that your child has had a lovely day at nursery or school. They listened well. Joined in. Tidied up. Followed instructions.

Then they get home and completely unravel over the wrong colour cup.

There are a few reasons for that.

School and home are very different places.

At school, the day is usually quite predictable. Children get used to the order things happen in. They know what comes after lunch, what happens when the bell goes, where things belong, what “tidy up time” means.

There’s also a lot of repetition. Teachers use the same words and the same routines over and over again. After a while, children don’t need to think so hard about what’s expected.

Home is, understandably, often less organised.

Dinner might be late. Someone needs to leave the house. A sibling is shouting. You’re trying to reply to a message, find a missing shoe and remember whether the washing machine is still full of yesterday’s clothes.

That doesn’t mean home is doing anything wrong. It just means there are more moving parts.

Children also tend to let more out with the people they feel safest with. They may hold it together all day and then get home tired, hungry and completely done with being sensible.

So when they behave differently for you than they do for their teacher, it isn’t usually because the teacher has some magical authority that you don’t.

A lot of the time, the environment is simply doing more of the work.

And that’s useful, because some of those little classroom habits can be borrowed without making home feel rigid.

1. Get their attention before you give the instruction

This sounds ridiculously obvious.

It also gets forgotten constantly, especially when life is busy.

If I needed a child in my class to do something, I wouldn’t normally shout an instruction from the other side of the room while they were deeply involved in building something.

At home we do this all the time.

“Put your shoes on!”

Nothing.

“Shoes!”

Still nothing.

“I’VE ASKED YOU THREE TIMES.”

Meanwhile, your child was watching Bluey, building a tower or trying to fit a dinosaur into a toy toaster.

Sometimes the first step is just getting close enough that they actually realise you’re talking to them.

Say their name. Get down to their level if it helps. Wait for some sign that they’ve heard you.

Then give the instruction.

It doesn’t guarantee instant cooperation. Sadly, teachers are not issued with that power either.

But it removes the fairly common problem of giving an instruction to a child who wasn’t properly listening in the first place.

2. Give one clear instruction at a time

Adults are brilliant at turning one request into seven requests without noticing.

“Right, go upstairs, get your pyjamas on, put your dirty clothes in the basket, brush your teeth, choose a book and don’t forget to go to the toilet.”

That sounds perfectly reasonable to us.

To a tired four-year-old, it may as well be a foreign language.

Teachers tend to break things down because they quickly learn what happens when you give a whole class too much at once.

“Pencils down.”

Then:

“Books in the tray.”

Then:

“Come and sit on the carpet.”

At home, the same principle can help.

Instead of:

“Get ready to go out.”

Try:

“Put your shoes on.”

Then deal with the coat.

Then the bag.

It can feel slower, but quite often it saves time because you’re not repeating the whole list five minutes later.

3. Tell them what you want them to do

This is another teacher habit that becomes automatic after a while.

Children hear a lot of:

“Stop that.”

“Don’t run.”

“Don’t shout.”

“Leave your brother alone.”

All fair enough, especially when someone is about to launch themselves off the arm of the sofa.

But sometimes it helps to tell them what the replacement behaviour is.

Instead of:

“Don’t run.”

Try:

“Walking feet in here.”

Instead of:

“Stop shouting.”

Try:

“Use your quieter voice.”

Instead of:

“Don’t throw that.”

Try:

“Blocks stay on the floor.”

You’re giving them something specific to do rather than only telling them what not to do.

You don’t have to talk like this every waking minute. Nobody wants to spend their entire day narrating acceptable behaviour.

But for the situations that keep going wrong, being really clear can make a difference.

4. Teach routines before you expect children to follow them

Teachers teach routines constantly.

Not exciting things. Tiny things.

Where bags go.

How do we line up.

How we get ready for lunch.

What happens when we finish an activity.

Where scissors live.

How we move from the carpet to the tables without turning it into a small stampede.

And those routines usually need practising more than once.

At home, we sometimes expect children to just know.

“Go and get ready for bed.”

But what does that actually mean to your child?

Does it mean pyjamas first? Toilet? Teeth? Book? Where do the dirty clothes go? What happens with toys?

If a part of your day is regularly chaotic, it can help to think of it as something that needs teaching rather than something your child is deliberately getting wrong.

Take getting out of the house.

You could practise the order when you’re not already ten minutes late.

Shoes on.

Coat on.

Bag by the door.

Then go.

It sounds basic because it is basic.

Basic is often useful.

5. Make transitions less sudden

Young children can be terrible at stopping something they’re enjoying.

To be fair, most adults aren’t brilliant at it either.

If somebody walked into the room halfway through your favourite programme, switched the television off and said, “Right, bath now,” you probably wouldn’t be delighted.

Teachers use warnings all the time because transitions are where things can go wrong quickly.

“Five more minutes, then we’re tidying up.”

“Finish what you’re doing, then we’re going outside.”

“One more turn, then it’s time to stop.”

The wording matters less than the predictability.

If your child struggles with leaving the park, turning off the TV, getting into the bath or coming to the table, a warning can soften the landing.

For some children, a visual cue helps too. A timer. A song. The same phrase each time.

You’re not trying to negotiate endlessly. You’re just giving their brain a bit of notice that something is about to change.

6. Use specific praise

Teachers use praise a lot, but the useful bit isn’t just saying “good boy” or “good girl” every thirty seconds.

Specific praise tells the child exactly what they did that worked.

“Thank you, you put the toys back when I asked.”

“Amazing, you waited while your sister had her turn.”

“Great listening, you came straight over when I called you.”

“You kept trying even though that was tricky.”

That gives them clear praise and acknowledgment of the correct choice.

It also means praise doesn’t have to be enormous.

You don’t need a sticker chart, a certificate and a marching band because somebody put their socks in the laundry basket.

Just noticing it can be enough.

And this is one of those things that is easier to remember in a classroom than at home.

Teachers are watching for behaviour all day.

Parents are often trying to cook dinner at the same time.

So if you forget to enthusiastically acknowledge every example of wonderful behaviour, I think you’ll survive.

But if there is one behaviour you’re really working on, try noticing when it goes right as well as when it goes wrong.

7. Give choices when either answer is fine

This one is very useful with young children because they often want some control.

The trick is not offering a choice when there isn’t actually one.

“Would you like to go to nursery?”

Dangerous question if nursery is happening regardless.

Instead:

“Red coat or blue coat?”

“Do you want to brush your teeth before or after pyjamas?”

“Do you want to hop upstairs or walk?”

The adult still decides what needs to happen.

The child gets some say in how it happens.

Obviously, not every moment needs a choice. Sometimes the answer is just, “We need to leave now.”

But when a small choice costs you nothing and makes the whole thing easier, it’s worth a try.

8. Stay boringly consistent where you can

This is probably the least exciting teacher trick.

It’s also one of the most useful.

If a classroom rule changes depending on the day, the adult or how tired everybody is, children will keep testing it because they don’t really know where the boundary is.

Home will never be perfectly consistent because home is real life.

Some days you have more patience.

Some days everybody is exhausted.

Sometimes you say yes because you simply cannot face another argument about whether somebody can take a plastic dinosaur into the bath.

That’s normal.

But for the things that really matter, consistency helps.

If throwing toys means the toy gets put away, try to keep that response fairly predictable.

If screen time finishes after one episode, avoid turning every ending into a ten-minute negotiation.

The more predictable the response becomes, the less interesting the boundary can become to test.

Not immediately.

Children are very committed researchers.

But over time.

What shouldn’t you copy from school?

This is worth saying because classroom systems exist for a reason.

A teacher may be managing thirty children with limited time, shared resources and a timetable that has to keep moving.

Home is different.

You don’t need to introduce a behaviour chart because your child’s class has one.

You don’t need a whistle.

Please don’t buy a whistle.

And you don’t need every part of your day timed and organised.

What is worth borrowing are the bits underneath the classroom systems:

clear instructions;

predictable routines;

warnings before transitions;

reasonable choices;

noticing good behaviour;

keeping important boundaries fairly consistent.

Those principles travel quite well.

The entire classroom does not need to come with them.

And sometimes none of this works

You can do all of these things and still have a child who says no.

Or screams.

Or collapses onto the floor because you cut their toast incorrectly.

Children are still children.

Behaviour is also affected by tiredness, hunger, language skills, sensory needs, frustration, development, temperament and whatever else is happening in their world.

So these ideas are tools, not guarantees.

If behaviour is regularly very intense, unsafe, affecting everyday life or causing you real concern, it’s worth talking to somebody who knows your child. That might be their nursery or school, a health visitor, GP or another appropriate professional.

And if your child is simply having a bad Tuesday, they may just be having a bad Tuesday.

The teacher bit you can actually steal

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from classrooms, it’s that good behaviour management usually happens before the difficult moment.

It’s in the routine you’ve practised.

The warning you gave before switching activities.

The instruction that was actually clear.

The boundary that stayed roughly the same as yesterday.

None of that looks particularly impressive.

It just makes life a little easier.

So if mornings, getting dressed, leaving the house, tidying up or bedtime regularly turn into chaos, don’t try all eight ideas tomorrow.

Pick one awkward part of the day.

Look at what usually happens just before it goes wrong.

Then steal one teacher habit and try it for a few days.

You may still end up looking for a missing shoe while somebody lies upside down on the sofa.

But perhaps only after asking twice instead of four times.

I’ll take that as progress. 😂