Hearing vs. Listening: When to Expect Your Child to Follow Directions

“Put your shoes on. Please put your shoes on. Shoes. On. Now.”

If you feel like a broken record, you are definitely not alone. It is one of the most common frustrations of parenthood. But before you lose your patience, it is important to distinguish between hearing and listening. Hearing is the physical ability to detect sound, while listening involves attending to and processing what is heard.

Listening skills are actually a learned behavior that develops alongside speech. As parents, we sometimes expect too much, too soon. For a child between 1 and 2 years old, listening usually means following simple one-step directions, but often only with a cue. For example, they might need you to point to the chair when you say, “Sit down.”

By the time children are 2 to 3 years old, their processing power increases. They should be able to follow two-step directions, such as “Get your cup and bring it to me”. They are also starting to understand action words combined with descriptions, like “Walk slowly”. However, complex three-step directions generally aren’t expected until ages 4 to 5.

If your child is struggling to listen, try getting down on their level and making eye contact before speaking. Keep your instructions short and age-appropriate. However, if your child consistently ignores simple directions, seems to have trouble locating where a sound is coming from, or doesn’t seem to “hear” you even when you are close by, it is important to investigate.

We want to rule out any issues with auditory processing or hearing loss. If you are noticing that your child responds to some sounds but not others, or has stopped using gestures or words they previously knew, check our specific listening milestones to see if a professional opinion is needed.