Listening To
Your Kids
By Dan
Coulter
How are you listening to your kids?
If you're one of those rare "born listeners" who can get almost anyone
to open up, you're lucky. If you're like the rest of us, you can
probably improve your listening skills.
Maybe you're frustrated that your kids don't give you a chance to
listen. Do you get a one-word response when you ask how the day went
at school? "Fine." And don't your instincts often
tell you that "fine" is a wildly inaccurate description of the day?
You might be making one of the mistakes I made for years. I used
to interrupt. A lot. And I didn't realize what I was
doing. It's also easy to lecture - and to have an answer for
everything.
But look at this from your son or daughter's perspective.
Sometimes it's hard to describe a situation in words. Things
are often more complicated than you can convey in a couple of
sentences. If a person you talk to routinely interrupts you or
criticizes you or tells you what to do, you may feel he's making
pronouncements on a situation he doesn't fully understand.
And that
can train you not to confide in that person.
So, you might be unintentionally training your child not to share
things with you.
Attentive listening generates respect. Several years ago, I
interviewed a number of successful public relations people for a
documentary on PR counseling. Hal Burson -- founding chairman
of Burson-Marsteller, the world's largest PR firm -- told an
interesting story, "I have had any number of experiences throughout
my own work where I would go visit a CEO, spend 30, 40 minutes, an
hour with that CEO, and he would do all of the talking. And I
would ask a question every now and then, and then two days later the
reports would get back to me, 'that guy Burson's a really smart
guy'."
Maybe we should counsel our kids more like CEOs and pay attention in a
way that gains their "listening respect" before we offer advice or
direction.
Think of it as taking the long road and not the short cut. In
the short cut, we listen just enough to get a picture of the
situation and then jump in to make our comments and provide our
brilliant guidance.
When we take the long road, we may ask questions to draw out the
speaker or guide the conversation, but we hold off on conclusions.
Even when we feel a burning desire, we bite back interjections such
as, "What did you do that for?" or "You should have." or "Next time
you need to."
This can be hard. We're the adults. But maybe that's part
of the problem. As long as we treat our kids like - well, kids -
it's tempting to just tell them what to do. We've got the
experience! If they'd just listen to us!
But even good advice can roll off kids like a quick shower runs off a
lawn. When we really listen and ask questions that can help our kids
come up with solutions on their own, it's more like a long shower
that soaks in and reaches the roots.
When I was growing up, some friends of mine had parents who were good
listeners. They'd hear me out without assuming they knew the
end of the story. It felt like they were listening to me as
they'd listen to another adult. It made me want to act more
like an adult in my conversation - and really think things through.
There's tremendous power in listening. Sometimes we just need to
talk something through to understand it better ourselves.
What a gift it is to find someone who doesn't automatically start
offering solutions as though our problems have easy answers that we
just aren't smart enough to think of ourselves.
And after we've been fully attentive, we'll probably find our children
are more willing to listen to the subtle guidance we're bursting to
offer. We could even (GASP) ask if they would like to hear our
thoughts. Of course, for serious issues where we feel it's
required, we can always lay down the law. And maybe even that will
work better when our kids think they've had a fair hearing and that
we understand what we're talking about.
The sooner we start - and the younger our kids - the better. It
can be hard to regain the "listening trust" of a teenager who's
learned to be very careful responding to parental inquiries. (Mom's
asking a question! SHIELDS UP!) But it can be done.
That's my 2 cents worth.
Hey, thanks for listening. And for not interrupting. You
know, after this little talk, I realize - you're a really smart
parent.
***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dan Coulter is the writer/producer of the
video "MANNERS
FOR THE REAL WORLD: Basic Social Skills" and a series of videos on
Asperger
Syndrome. You can find more articles on his website at:
www.coultervideo.com.
Copyright 2004 Dan
Coulter All Rights Reserved Used By
Permission
