At six, most of what gets called not listening is one of three things, and only one of them is about compliance.
| What it is | How you can tell | What helps |
|---|---|---|
| Absorbed | They genuinely did not register it. Happens mid-play | Get near, get their eyes, then say it |
| Overloaded | Three instructions went out, one came back | One instruction at a time, and wait |
| Testing | Eye contact, then carries on | Follow through, calmly, the first time |
The thing that helps all three
Say it from within touching distance rather than from another room. It feels absurdly basic and it removes most of the problem, because a large share of not listening is genuinely not hearing a sentence that had to cross a hallway and compete with a television.
What to do with the third one
Follow through once, quietly, without a lecture. A six-year-old testing a boundary is doing a normal and necessary job. They are asking whether the rule is real. One calm demonstration answers it far better than five raised-voice repetitions, which answer a different question, which is how long they have got before you mean it.
And the other half
Listening first time is a skill, and like every other skill it grows when it is named. "You came the first time I asked" is worth saying out loud on the days it happens, because otherwise the only feedback attached to listening is what happens when they do not.