Why will my 3yr old DD not listen to a single word I say?

[tori2000]

Seriously am getting to the end of my patience with her now - recently she just will not listen to anything I say or anything I ask of her - if it carries on like this she will not have a single personal possession left! I have tried everything from naughty step, giving her until the count of 3 then taking something away, star charts, no treats, snack box then taking things out, no bedtime story etc etc.... she is not badly behaved all the time by any stretch and I know that I dont have a huge amount of patience but is it too much to ask for her just to listen?

Any advice would be very welcome!

What sort of things are you asking of her?
Does 'come into the kitchen if you'd like a biscuit' get a response and 'time to pack up now' not get the desired result?
Assuming that she can hear you but won't do as you ask, two can play at that game...
Does she ask you to do things for her? Do you always do them?
I'm not advocating the 'I'll only do X for you if you do Y for me', but she needs to recognise that its not only she who can refuse to comply.

has she ever listened? is there a reason why she doesn't? Is she stubborn or involved in other things?

My dd is both stubborn and easily distracted, there is NO negotiation with her at all. She has always been like this and I suspect it is a developmental thing rather than a hearing one (she responds to the whispered word "chocolate" quickly enough). She is not a naughtly child but i suspect social interactions are not going to come easy to her (Takes after her mum in that way)

Hope this phase passes soon. I have the Jo Frost confident toddler care book and there are some helpful strategies in there that have helped me with my DD.... Worth seeing if your library has a copy?

Baddad perhaps if the acronyms on this forum confuse you, you could take your vile comments to another site... I've reported your offensive and unhelpful post.

I was about to post pretty much the same message. My DD is 3.4yrs and is exactly the same at the moment. Apart from always saying no to requests from me she is also contradicting me on the most basic of things like she'll ask me what colour something is I'll tell her and then she'll say "no it isn't it's ..."
it's not helped by the fact that I'm a bit of a head case at the moment because of other stuff but even on a good day she is driving me to edge. I'm hoping it's just a phase as although she has always known her own mind she's not normally do disagreeable.

As above, if she can definitely hear you (try rattling a box of smarties 2 rooms away), then I'm afraid it's "not because I must but because I'm 3". Choose your battles carefully, lots of deep breaths and extravagant praise for cooperation. It does pass.... eventually!

Thanks all for your advice! X

I have this 3 year old DD living in my house too, and I am now playing 'if you can't beat her, join her'. Whenever she ignores me, I turn my back on her, fold my arms, adopt a stroppy toddler facial expression and avoid all eye contact. She pretty quickly stops what she's doing, and then goes into her own little sulk. But at least then she's quiet, and I go over to have a chat and we agree that it makes us feel sad when we're ignored, and we cuddle. For the next few days, if she starts to ignore me I can get her attention by reminding her that being ignored makes me sad. And when the memory fades, I start all over and ignore her again, and slowly I'm doing it less and less - I think the message is sinking in, hurrah!