009: 7 Practices to Help Your Child Become a Great Listener

Download: MP3 (61 MB)

Listening is a skill that we develop and maintain throughout our lives. The ability to be a good listener comes into play at an early age and affects many areas of our lives including jobs and relationships. For a skill that is so vital, we often feel frustrated and stuck when it comes to getting our kids to listen well.

In this episode Rachel and I talk through some of the vital practices that will make your child a listening pro, while keeping the focus on the relationship and understanding how listening grows with your child’s development.

Highlights, Takeaways, & Quick Wins:

• Listening is a skill. It must be developed and maintained throughout your life.
• When your child feels connected to you, they will more likely listen to what you have to say.
• We can gain more of our child’s attention when we speak their language by considering their desires and being more expressive.
• Timing is everything. Evaluate the situation before you deliver your message to determine whether or not it is the right time.
• Strengthen listening skills by helping your kids practice the work of focus through reading or meditation.
• The most powerful teaching tool is your demonstration. Listen to your kids.

Shownotes:

• 01:50 Ben: The first thing to understand about listening is that it’s a skill. It’s one that has to be intentionally developed. Even as adults we can have a difficult time with listening if we’re not intentional about maintaining that skill. As parents, it helps to have the perspective that children, even young adults, are just beginning to learn this skill. Until a child reaches around two or three years of age, they don’t have the ability to listen and follow instructions. Even at two or three years of age, they’re only capable of following one or two part instructions.
• 06:16 Rachel: We talked last week about personalities and I think that different personalities have an easier time learning to listen than others. Our six year old has had a relatively easy time learning to listen and follow instructions, but our oldest still has difficulty.
• 06:53 Ben: It occurs to me that our oldest, based on his personality type, tends to live inside his head a little more, and that probably has something to do with the fact that listening to others doesn’t come as easily. It’s helpful to know these things because it can give you new insight as to where your child might be in their ability to listen and what you should expect.

1. Foster A Strong Relationship with Your Child

• 08:12 Ben: The first and most important practice is maintaining a strong relationship with your child. When your child feels connected to you they are more likely to listen to what you have to say. Even in adult relationships, you are less likely to give your attention to someone who purposefully treats you poorly, and you are more likely to be attentive with someone you care about.
• 09:50 Rachel: I work as a reporter and there’s this thing that happens to me sometimes where I talk to someone who goes on and on about things that aren’t related to my story, and I actually start to get sweaty palms and feel like I’m going to pass out. It’s as if my body is saying “Too many words.” Sometimes that happens with our children, because they say something in a million words that I could say in about five.
• 10:45 Ben: They got that from me. I can be quite verbose.

2. Cater Your Message

• 11::01 Ben: I want to be careful with this one because I don’t want it to seem like we’re talking about bending to your will, but it’s good to recognize that they may not necessarily care about the same things you care about and when you consider that in the way you deliver your message, you acknowledge that you recognize that what they’re doing is important to them, but it’s time for them to listen. Another way you can cater your message is to be more expressive. We can do this by using big body language and exaggerated facial expressions. Think about what kids like. If we can be a caricature we are more likely to gain their attention because they’ll feel like we’re speaking to them in their language.
• 12:27 Rachel: Our oldest had already developed a pretty strong vocabulary by 18 months, and because he seemed to understand a lot, we wasted a lot of words trying to explain the reasoning behind instructions. Children don’t even develop the ability to understand reasoning until about 4 years of age. We could have saved a lot of words and catered our communication to a two year old attention span had we known that.
• 13:22 Ben: Think about the difference between a child’s book and an adult novel. When you’re trying to communicate with a child, it’s not always best to talk in the way that you would understand the message, but to shape the message according to what makes sense in their context.

3. Evaluate and Adjust

• 13:53 Ben: Before you deliver your message, answer these questions: “What is your child doing? Do they have their attention somewhere else? Are they playing? Are they upset?” Answering these questions can help you determine whether it’s an appropriate time to deliver your message, or if there’s something that needs to happen first. Often, if our children are playing with a toy or reading a book, we’ve got to remove that item before we really have their attention.
• 15:05 Rachel: In the month of June we focus on the family value of listening. One of the listening practices we use for our listening value is putting away the things that are distracting us. Another thing we can help our children see is that it may not be the appropriate time to start a conversation. If we can model that ourselves it can be a really good teaching opportunity.
• 16:01 Ben: It’s also an opportunity to demonstrate respect. I get onto the children for interrupting me when I’m in the middle of saying or doing something, but then we turn around and do it to our kids as if what their doing or saying isn’t as important. That’s not to say that we don’t ever interrupt, but we can do it in a way that is respectful and honoring of what our children see as important.

4. Speak More Quietly

• 17:36 Ben: Noise can have a tendency to run away. I call it the “cafe effect.” As the cafe fills and more people are talking, those people have to talk louder and louder to get above the noise. This is going to vary based on the number of people you have in your household. When you talk more quietly, it forces the other person to be more attentive, especially when there are other competing noises.

5. Avoid Repetition

• 20:02 Ben: We sometimes have this tendency to repeat our messages to our children when it seems like they haven’t heard us. Sometimes it looks like standing and saying their name over and over again. Sometimes it looks like giving them an instruction, then returning and giving them the same instruction. It’s logical. In our minds, they have not received the message, so we have to deliver it again. What this does over time is that it conditions them to not listen the first time you say something because they know you’re going to say it again. What we can do instead is we can say it one time and communicate the consequences for not listening, or we can introduce some kind of physical contact as a way of strengthening our ability to communicate.

6. Practice Attention and Focus With Your Kids

• 23:07 Ben: This is a “Mr. Miyagi” way of improving your child’s ability to listen. Different activities require different efforts toward focus. On one end of the range you’ve got television, which doens’t require a lot of effort for focus because of how engangin it is, and on the other end of the range you’ve got meditation which requires a great deal of effort in order to focus. The more we can allow our children to experience things like reading and meditation, the more their ability to do the work of focusing improves, allowing them to pay better attention when it comes to listening.
• 25:20 Rachel: There’s a big difference between listening and hearing. When we help our child learn focus and attention, we help them not only listen, but hear what is being said to them.

7. Teach Listening Through Practice and Demonstration

• 26:25 Ben: One of the most powerful ways we teach our children to become better listeners is by demonstrating it ourselves. There are times when we are so focused on what we’re doing that we miss opportunities to show our children by listening to them what it looks like to be a good listener. Being a good listener doesn’t always mean being interested or enthusiastic about what the other person is telling you, but at the very least it means you’re really hearing them and can repeat back to them what they’ve said.
• 27:56 Rachel: I find it difficult sometimes to listen well to our children. When we first started exploring this value as a family, we titled it “We Listen Earnestly, Always.” Sometimes it feels impossible to do that, but it is something we strive for. The first time we explored this value, we came up with a few different practices to help us work toward becoming better listeners. Here are a few of them:
• 30:25 Rachel: Make Eye Contact – In this age we are surrounded by technology that steals our eyes away from conversation, but when we’re not also listening with our eyes, we lose all of the other communication like facial expressions and body language.
• 31:45 Ben: I would add physical contact to the eye contact piece. I’ve done this thing where I put my hands on my kids’ face to get their attention, and I’ve noticed they now do that with me sometimes.
• 33:16 Rachel: Touch is important for getting attention. Sometimes we think they’ve heard us but because their so engrossed in what their doing, our message gets lost. When we use touch it helps break that focus long enough for our message to get through.
• 34:40 Rachel: Don’t Interrupt Each Other – We started a practice where if someone wanted to interrupt, they would place their hand on the arm of the person they want to speak to, then that person would place their hand on the hand of the person who is trying to say something as a way of saying “I’ll talk to you when I can.” It’s hard as a parent not to give in to interruptions, because children don’t just inherently understand the rules about interrupting. Not giving into interruption is one of the ways we teach.
• 36:11 Ben: You are demonstrating the importance of focusing and listening to the person who is in front of you, and you’re also teaching them how to be respectful, but still be heard.
• 36:46 Rachel: Test for Comprehension – Another way we help our children develop listening is by asking them what the other person said. During dinner we take turns sharing about our day, and if it seems like one of the boys isn’t listening, we’ll call them out and ask them what the other person said. Even if they didn’t hear it the first time, now we’ve got their attention.
• 38:05 Ben: The Three Yeses – I wanted to bring in the three yeses. This is a great exercise for developing your child’s listening skills. Basically, once your child has heard something from someone else, you ask them three different questions about what they heard. If they can give three yeses, they win the game. This helps them to listen more closely to details.

Questions

• 42:25 Ben: The first question is from Cory Miller. He asks, “How can I help my daughter listen better if she doesn’t fully comprehend my words? She is very headstrong and wants things her way, and likes to throw major tantrums when she doesn’t get what she wants. She’s only a year old…what can I do now that will help us in the future?” For this question I go back to the fact that at this age, children are imitators more than anything else, so it’s important that we not only teach them about listening, but demonstrate it with our own actions.
• 44:44 Rachel: One of the most important things we can do is give them words when their not able to yet articulate their own thoughts and feelings. It’s a demonstration of what it means to be a good listener. Even when children are very young, you can use the rhythm of conversation as a way for
• 49:29 Ben: Gabrielle asks, “I have a real issue with my oldest seemingly ignoring people. They’ll have to repeat themselves over and over in order to get a response. How can I communicate the importance of acknowledging that you’ve heard someone to him? He’s five.”
• 49:45 Rachel: Our oldest usually hears, but he doesn’t always respond. In that case we just have to continually teach him and let him practice listening and responding.