Obedience depending on the age of the children

Educating the will of your children is one of the most important challenges that parents have at this time. It is about educating children in obedience, not about getting children who know how to obey blindly to some 'noes' thrown continually by their parents.

Children from 2 to 3 years old

Characteristics of obedience in children from 2 to 3 years old:

- intuitively recognizes who has the authority at home and who exercises it. Therefore, it obeys the parents, because they give them security and affection.

- In turn, he feels inclined to disobey, so, constantly, tests the authority of parents: yells to his parents, does not want to eat etc.


- Realizes that he is different from his parents and his brothers, which is a person independent of the rest, who can act differently.

- He does not know the limit of how far he is able to act, how far can you and how far can you not do something.

- The age of the no appears, that manifests itself in contradicting absolutely everything that is said to him, even to what can be positive for him.

How to educate children from 2 to 3 years old:

- The child must know where the limit is, for their sake and for that of others.

- Learn to obey it is related to its evolutionary development.


- Reasons for the child to obey, so that it recognizes the family authority, they are useful, but it will not be these that convince the child, but rather the person who says it, who exercises authority, since he continues to identify it as such.

Children from 4 to 5 years old

Characteristics of obedience in children from 4 to 5 years old:

- They begin to ask the reason of his obedience.

- This age is the most fruitful period and more useful to encourage different obedience habits.

How to educate children from 4 to 5 years old:

- Although the child obeys because he continues to recognize the authority of the parents, this reason will not suffice: we will have to use complementary means of reasoning, in function of the child's ability to understand.


- The child will obey because he will see that it is reasonable to obey, not only because parents have the moral authority to be obeyed, but because they are right.

- There will be no attempt to get children to obey without further ado, but that, through this obedience, the correct development of the child's personality is achieved through the promotion of good habits.

Formative obedience for children

Without there being magical solutions, obedience in children is facilitated by an orderly, prestigious and coherent educational performance of parents. That is, if both spouses - father and mother - order the child different things according to their state of mind, their interests or their degree of fatigue, it will be difficult to educate the children in a formative obedience. What they will achieve is that the child learns to discern who to ask, how and when of the two, depending on what they want at each moment.

We must never forget that young children learn by osmosis: the child, from birth, always imitates the adult because it is part of their natural learning process. Therefore, it will be fundamental to put into practice at home what we want our children to learn. If between what we intend to achieve and what we do there is a leap, we will probably lose the authority, previous step to be able to exercise it and indispensable to be obeyed. They will start by not obeying and then they may even reprimand our behavior. For example, if we do not want our children to raise their voice at home, we should be the first to not raise it.

Sonia Rivas.PhD in Educational Sciences from the University of Navarra.

Video: At what age do you teach children to obey? With Dr. Dave Currie of Doing Family Right


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