Are you listening?

Are you listening?  Can you hear me?  Do you remember when I asked you to ____?  Any of these sound familiar?  Depending on the day you may feel like these, or a similar phrase, are the only words that come out of your mouth. 

Getting children to listen is a universal struggle for parents.  Why do you think that is?  I wonder if some of it is because children have not yet figured out how to multi-task (which is a good thing).  If they are in the middle of an activity and we start talking to them, they just don’t have the capacity to do/process two things at once.  I also wonder if it is because we never really teach them how to listen.  I think back and it seems like listening is something that we start talking about with our kids at a very young age.  We use it in the context of the situation and often before they can even comprehend all the words.  Listen, do you hear the airplane?  This question automatically triggers the eyes to search the sky for the source of the noise.  At some point we move from listening for noises to listening to noises, namely those words coming out of our mouths.  But when we start to make this transition with our children, do we ever give them any explanation?  I remember dropping my kids off in the morning and saying “Be a good listener” but I don’t recall ever really explaining to them what that meant.  (For me that meant listen to the teacher, follow her direction and stay out of trouble.)

I went online and typed in “how to listen”.  The first link was to a TED talk by Julian Treasure.  He believes that with all the noise and messages that we are surrounded by on a daily basis, we are losing our ability to listen.  He emphasizes that listening is the true way for everyone to stay connected and to develop an understanding of each other.  He makes a great statement, “listening creates understanding” and his mission is to get conscious listening taught in schools.    

As a busy parent, listening is too often linked to an action that has or has not been completed.  We listen to get things done.  It’s as if we live on the surface.  We rarely take the time to dive deeper, to sit down and have a conversation to gain a deeper understanding.  Are we exemplifying what it means to be a good listener?  Listening sounds like something that is really easy, but truly listening to gain understanding is hard and takes a lot of practice.  This weekend, I challenge you to listen.  It doesn’t matter what it is – you could be outside, in a crowd, in your house or having a conversation with a friend, neighbor, child or stranger.  Try to make a conscious effort to try to hear something you haven’t heard before.  Or maybe you have heard it; you just haven’t fully appreciated or understood it until now. 

Heart-FULLy Yours, 

Kacey