I asked her to tidy up three times. I hadn’t waited for her first answer.

Iris, my three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, was building a garage in the middle of the living room. I asked her to tidy up before dinner. Then I repeated the instruction while picking up a book, and a third time, louder, as I walked past.

She was still holding a red block.

In my mind, my child wasn’t listening to the instruction. Yet I hadn’t really left space between my three requests. I’d decided she wasn’t answering while I was already talking to her again.

Iris eventually asked where the garage should go. I’d asked her to tidy up. She was working out what to do with the thing she’d just built.

One instruction can follow the last too quickly

I was ready to hear no. Silence had therefore quite quickly taken on the same meaning.

But Iris wasn’t looking at me with a defiant smile. She was studying the garage, then the box. Perhaps she wanted to keep her construction, perhaps she didn’t know where to start. I didn’t need to guess exactly what was happening to notice that my third request hadn’t helped her answer.

I’d even added the cars, the shoes and washing her hands. The living room needed tidying, but my sentence now contained almost the whole evening’s programme.

I thought insisting made me clearer. Mostly, I’d added volume and things to remember.

Wait for an answer, then make the first step clear

I went back to Iris and stopped speaking from the other side of the room. We looked at the garage. It could stay on a shelf; the blocks around it needed to go in the box.

I pointed to the red block in her hand, then waited. Not with an inner countdown after which she would count as disobedient. Just long enough to see whether an answer or a movement came.

Iris put down one block, then another. She asked me to hold the box. Tidying hadn’t become her new passion, and I still had to remind her about the cars. But we’d finally started the task instead of discussing her lack of reaction.

Waiting doesn’t guarantee a yes. She may have heard and not want to tidy up; I can then keep the request, offer help or explain what I’m going to do.

That evening, I’d spoken three times. One instruction followed by a little silence had got us further.