To help your child become an excellent listener, have an authentic curiosity about them, their friends, their music, their current interests. Once you have gotten the goods on the more superficial aspects of your child’s life, its time to tackle the real stuff. Ask them their opinion on social issues, query into their biggest fears and their most outlandish dreams. Why? Because, to get kids to listen we must first show them why listening is valuable. Listening bridges gaps, creates connection, develops trust, and heals broken bonds. The more we listen to them, the more our children will value giving us their complete presence. Children appreciate when someone is paying attention and spending time towards understand them. Being listened too is synonymous with being told you are worthy. Kids feel they must be important or have value if someone is willing to listen to them. Listening to our kids builds their self-esteem, confidence, and their ability to be articulate, while providing that essential connection to those they love.
When the child values listening, they will more readily pick up on the skills that make listening so powerful. Parents who want their children to become authentic listeners, only have to role model the principles of paying attention, of caring enough to hear their feelings and beliefs. Listening is not always an equal conversation, it requires an open mind and withholding all judgements, opinions, and criticisms. There will be time for guidance, reality checks, and challenging their facts and logic. Yet, jumping in to weigh in on their thoughts too soon, negates the process and benefits of being a great listener. Parents do not need to agree with their child, comprehend their logic, or control the agenda to be a great listener. How often as adults do we spew words and vent feelings in attempts to verbally think our way through a dilemma? Do we mean everything that we say, or is there a tendency to diminish or exaggerate the narrative to minimizes our pain? Often children only get to vent their frustrations or verbalize their fears to other friends. When they try to have those heart-to-heart talks with parents, their feelings and frustrations are met with corrections, judgements, and advice designed to fix the situation. When this happens, when listening is replaced with parents controlling the dialogue, children stop sharing. They stop talking to their parents about their life, because we only listen until we are uncomfortable and then we attempt to rescue. If parents want their kids and teenagers to confide in them to trust and feel safe in bearing their souls to us, we must listen completely and wholeheartedly, comfortable or not.
If a child has stopped sharing with us about the important aspects of their life, it is likely that they are also hitting the parent mute button. When we are sharing, instructing, or questioning them, they may tune us out. Why should a child listen when their parents are not capable of reciprocating? They listen when it is self-serving, when it is convenient, and when they are under threat of loosing privileges. Children learn from society to pretend listen, to put up a façade of paying attention, to be visibly polite and respectful. Selective hearing, or hearing what we want to hear, is a common trait that damages relationships at home, school, and at the workplace. Children grow up to fall in love with a partner only to find their relationship struggling because they no longer are relating. Failure to relate is often the inadequacy to listen well, to fail at really hearing the needs of their partner. When love is new, we will listen all night to the one who has captured our heart. As relationships grow, we can take partners and children for granted.
It is rarely too late at any age to repair our relationships with our kids, spouses, and friends. Here are some tips on how to listen well and on how to allow your child to express themselves fully.
Listen with your eyes, ears, and your heart. Face the other person heart to heart, making eye contact, and with the intention of capturing every aspect of their message.
Replace judgements with questions that encourages them to share more. “Thank you, tell me more.”
Acknowledge and identify with their feelings and needs.
Pose questions that seek clarity. Feelings and beliefs are tricky and take time to understand.
Accept their feelings. They are, after all, feelings not facts to be argued with.
Paraphrase the essential message to ensure that you are hearing what they are meaning.
Remember this is not about us, it is about honouring them.
In the process of listening avoid fixing, often the person is not seeking a solution, they are seeking to be heard.
Namaste,
Instructor Chris