Everything is wonderful when the kids are not in chaos mode. When you are with children and they are behaving it is easy to take them seriously. But find yourse

Everything is wonderful when the kids are not in chaos mode. When you are with children and they are behaving it is easy to take them seriously. But find yourself in a situation that you don't even know how everything started and kids are just going nuts, then all the rules change. At the end of the day you want to get them to go to non-chaos mode before you can apply any technique. What worked for me is creating a pattern very early on: "I'm gonna count to 3 and we will do X" I've said that a thousand times since very early childhood. Now, before I even finish the sentence, the kids get in position and wait for "three!" After that we have a normal adult conversation, sometimes I even use words (like someone mentioned in the comments) that they have no hope of understanding. But they know that whatever they say they will be taken seriously. So far it has worked for me with both my niece and nephew and I hope that they never find out that I have no backup plan if they don't stop on three. In other words, you need create a pattern that leads to quiet mode before you can take the kids seriously.