you only need to clean (with a wash cloth) what you can see. the use of q-tips is not needed or necessary. earwax (cerumen) while it may have a disagreeable appearance is not dirt. it is a protective wax coating for the ear canal just the way wax protects fine wood furniture or your car. using cotton-tip swabs can actually make things worse by pushing wax back into the ear canal and there is always the potential of them causing eardrum damage. so your little boy is correct by not letting you dig in his ears. don't clean out his ears but you do need to carefully wash off the wax drainage that you can see.
my son will not let me clean out his ears and they look really dirty what should i do he is 2 1/2 almost 3