How Well Are You Listening to Your Children ... (or to Other People)?
When your children come to you with a problem, you usually want to help them.
So you advise, console, distract, interpret, or praise. Other times, you feel you must teach your children, and so you interrogate, lecture, moralize or order.
And probably more often than you would like, you respond angrily—blaming, criticizing, ridiculing, shaming or withdrawing. However, all of these responses are problematic—whether with your children or with others in your life.
Your intention is not to stop the communication of real feelings and the development of individual solutions - right? Take the quiz below to learn about your listening skills:
True OR False
1. I let my children feel their difficult feelings, knowing that comments such as “Everyone goes through this” deny the strength of their feelings.
2. I listen for the need beneath the words and respond to that.
3. I check in to see if I’ve understood something in the way my child intended to mean it. When I do, I try to keep my own feel- ings, opinions and guidance out of it.
4. When my child tells me something, I try to respond with ei- ther noncommittal phrases (such as “I see”) or with an invitation to say more (such as “Go ahead, I’m listening”).
5. I notice that when I listen to my children’s problems (rather than make suggestions or give advice), my children often come up with their own excellent solutions.
6. When I hear out my children fully, they are often much more willing to listen to my thoughts and ideas.
7. When I let my children express their feelings openly and com- pletely, the feelings often seem to disappear quickly.
8. If I don’t have the time to listen to my child right at that mo- ment, I say so and make time for it later.
9. I’ve learned to trust that my children can find good solutions to their problems on their own.
10. I understand that my children are separate, unique individu- als, and that their feelings and perceptions are not necessarily the same as mine.
11. When I stay away from moralizing, interpreting, ordering and advising, I find that I learn a lot more about my children. Sometimes, I even learn from my children.
12. I know that just listening doesn’t always bring about imme- diate change and that it’s sometimes OK to leave things on an inconclusive or incomplete note.
Authentic communication with your children (and co-workers, family and friends) has rewards more valuable than a pot of gold.
Real listening may be the rainbow bridge you need to get there.
If you scored fewer “true” answers than false, you may benefit from improving your listening skills.
*Disclaimer: This is for information purposes only.
