What does it take for kids to learn?

[virus003]

Okay so, my 4 year old niece is living in my house most of the time, and I've discovered now that she doesn't listen to anything. She doesn't listen to a single thing, and my sister(her mother) has to always be assertive about things, and it doesn't usually work, she whines about everything and she always lies about things. So today, my sister wanted me to be assertive to her daughter while she gets ready for work. She simply told me just to be straight up assertive with her, like yell and stuff. So I did what I was told, and she practically doesn't listen to A THING I say. I told her to sit down on the couch, and I had to say it about 5,000 times, and every time she actually listens, she just gets right back up and we have to go through the same thing. Then she does the "puppy dog" look and starts purposely crying. My sister has been very stressed out because she doesn't listen, she said that her daughter almost got hit by a truck yesterday because of her listening skills.


I also think this is largely influenced by her father. The parents are split up, so she's always stuck in the middle. Her father is a lazy ass 31 year old still living with his mother, and can get away with anything. Their house is so disgusting, they have two dogs that never get taken care of, and I'm sure their house has plenty of rats. The father is unemployed, he's been like that almost his whole life( which is why I mention he can get away with almost anything). My sister now has a restraining order against him, and he doesn't even pay full childcare, especially when it's needed. But my real question here is, what does it take for kids to listen? At least a kid in the situation of this, or do all kids act like this? I'm the youngest in my family so I wouldn't really know of growing up with any young children in my house.