The Steps to Following Directions

The steps to following directions, easy for most of us, right? Just do it. An adult tells you to do something and you simply do it, at least that’s the way it was when we were kids. I couldn’t imagine flat out refusing to follow a direction that my mom or dad gave. Now did I have ways around it, ways to sneak and refuse to do what they were saying, uh, yeah? No secret there, even though I tell people I was the perfect child, I know that I wasn’t. I had more trouble with accepting the answer given, I would usually sneak and do it anyway, but I was also the kind of child – I got caught at everything.

When I was at the hospital, we taught the steps to following directions in four simple steps: 1. Look and Listen to the person, 2. Say ‘okay’ and sometimes repeat the direction, 3. Go and complete the task, and finally, 4. After completing the task, come back and say, “I did it.” Simple, isn’t it. We would practice this over and over with the children, we would teach the parents, we would have them write and draw a little picture diagram. It was all good; I still use this mode when I am working with some of the children I work with individually. I make sure their parents have a copy of the steps and we role play practicing this. While I think this is one of the ways to go, it can work, but it calls for the parent to be consistent.

We live in different times. It doesn’t always work this easy. We worked so hard at not being our own parents that we have done some things wrong. Our parents did some things wrong, their parents did some things wrong, and our children will do something wrong when they themselves become parents. Ideally we are all learning from each other, and are not so stuck on ‘I’ll never be my mother/father,’ that we can take the things that worked, recognized the things that made us better people, and implement some of that into our own parenting styles.

I guess my main challenge at this time to many parents would be to re-claim their parenting rights, re-establish who is the parent. Recognize and lay claim to ‘because I said, so.’ I have no problem talking things through and rationalizing why I gave a direction to a child, I don’t care how old they are, I will talk them through and explain the directions, if they feel it is necessary…after they have complied with the directions. My thoughts are ‘do what I say, when I say it, and later, if you still have a question about it come and talk to me then.’ I won’t sit there and discuss it until the direction is completed. I start with stating the directions, repeating the direction once if necessary, making a simple statement of ‘that was a direction,’ if they still have not complied and then starting to count, ‘one, two, three’ and usually by two they have complied. I usually count to five if necessary; you can see my reasoning for that on another post, titled, what happens when I reach 5?

Simply, there are a couple of things you can do to re-teach or initially teach children to follow directions. Teach them to say, ‘yes, ma’am, yes, sir.’ I do have to add that I have never really done this, it is the point that I am trying to make. Teach them to acknowledge that they have been given a directions – it can be as simply as ‘okay.’ When I worked at the hospital, I would give a direction, or an answer and the children would respond in a variety of ways: arguing, bargaining, pouting, yelling, etc. – you get the picture. I would simply say, “You mean ‘okay, Bill.’” And I would repeat this until I was given the same response. For awhile it was funny because as I was teaching this, when I would take over for other staff, they would tell me, ‘I got 3 ‘okay, Bill’s’ today and we would laugh. But I would teach them the same thing; challenge the child to recognize they have been given a direction.

Second of all, have them complete the task. And then acknowledge that they completed it, they might not need to come and report they did it, go ahead and praise them. Allow them to see and immediate reward for following your directions. And sometimes if there was a lot of arguing/balking about the initial direction, offer the opportunity to discuss it and why they didn’t want to do it or felt it unfair. ‘Thank you for following my directions, you seemed to have some trouble with it, did you want to talk about it?’ Often they won’t, I think the fun has been taken out of the fight; they’ve already completed what you asked so there is no getting out of it, no argument. Sometimes, there is a valid discussion that you may not have been able to say or see and can have the foresight to consider the next time you give a direction.


Too simple or too difficult – what do you think. I have parents tell me, it can’t be that easy, I’ve tried, why do I have to be the one to change? Hello, somehow they learned these behaviors, let’s start over, it really is never too late. Give it a try.