My kids aren't really the age yet where I can tell if they are listening to me or not, but having twins, I know that I will be going CRAZY when one or both of them are choosing not to listen to me.
Things from "finish your dinner" to "put your shoes on so we can leave" to "turn off the TV" can become an entire ordeal if your kids aren't listening to you - but actress Zoe Saldana has a trick for getting your kids to listen to you.
Zoe has three little boys with her husband, Marco Perego — twins Cy and Bowie, 4, and Zen, 2 — so she's well-versed in having to get attention of her kids. Of course she loves her kids, but she also joked with Us Weekly about how she also loves to complain about parenthood:
"I love complaining about the fact that I’m exhausted and I’m tired."
(SAME, GIRL.)
As for how Zoe gets her boys to listen up?
"Sometimes [my sons] are mean, and the moment you kinda go, 'Be nice to Momma' and … 'I can’t repeat this anymore,' they turn back and they just do it. You repurpose, and you’re kind of inspired and you go, 'I’m so happy I have little boys.'"
So asking them to be nice to Mom and telling them that it can't be repeated brings them back in and makes them listen up? If that's what it takes, "be nice to momma" is going to be my go-to phrase.
It will be interesting to see how my twins are different with their communication. Maybe asking Maxon to be nice to me will work, and I will need to come up with something different to get Aiza to pay attention to what I'm asking.
And by the way, Zoe also mentioned that as a parent, it's important to nurture yourself so that you have the ability to nurture others. And I cannot agree more:
"When you have children, when you have a household and you have a family and when you go to work and you’re a boss you have people who look up to you that depend on you, it’s important that you nurture yourself first. So that you can continue to nurture others. So I’m trying to do that a lot more this summer."
BOOM, Zoe!!!
Get more from Sisanie here!
Photo: Getty Images