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LISTENING STAMINA
Dear Dr. Ray, My thirteen-year-old daughter complains that I don’t listen enough before giving her my opinion. How can I listen longer? Listening
A remarkable coincidence (or maybe some farsighted linguist planned it so) is that listen and silent contain the same letters. Good listening begins with silence. The fewer words we interject while someone is voicing her thoughts, the more thoughts we’ll hear.
Alas, holding your tongue is much easier to talk about than do, especially as it becomes worrisomely clear that what we’re about to hear we’re not about to like. Sometimes the kids are talking on impulse: “Mom, I think I’m going to move to the South Pole when I’m eighteen. The solitude will help me find myself.” Sometimes they’re sounding foreboding: “Dad, you may be getting a letter from school tomorrow.” Sometimes their words are pure fancy: “You know, schools should offer swing shifts, like factories do. I’d get better grades on midnights.” Whatever the gist of the message, after hearing about six words, most of us are ready to unleash a torrent of parental commentary. We’re driven by the fear that if Watson’s elementary reasoning continues unchallenged for more than a few minutes, it’ll take root.
To prolong your listening stamina, start with this thought: nothing is made worse by listening. Even if Perry already has mapped out his itinerary to the South Pole, he hasn’t left yet. There’s still time to explore the full details of his excursion. Who knows, as he talks about his plans, he may raise the same questions you would. Similarly, if Stanford already has skipped the classes that generated the letter from school, he can’t be skipping any more while he’s standing in front of you, not unless he’s incredibly creative.
In essence, as long as your daughter is talking and you’re listening, nothing bad is happening. One parent said she felt fully secure only when her son was talking to her. Whatever he was saying, he wasn’t out somewhere doing it.
A personal gag order is another way to listen longer. Resolve not to utter one comment or opinion for, say, one minute. Watch the clock if you have to. If one full minute of silence for you would be comparable to running a marathon race the first morning you take up jogging, gradually build up your listening stamina. Begin with twenty seconds or roughly the amount of time your daughter takes to walk into a room, look at you and say, “Mom, if I tell you something, promise you won’t get mad?”
Quiet attentiveness does more than passively permit communication. Sometimes it can compel kids to talk. Our silence creates a word void they’re not accustomed to, and they may feel the urge to fill that void with their own words, thus giving us a deeper look into their thoughts.
Good listening begins with silence and then moves to understanding. One father would say little until his son finished talking, whereupon Dad would paraphrase what he heard to make sure he heard it correctly. A mother preferred the “five w” approach with her ten-year-old: who, what, where, why. Only when she knew all five answers would mom offer an opinion or advice or mete out discipline. There’s an old saying, it is better to keep your mouth shut and let someone think you’re dumb than to open it and remove all doubt. This has relevance for raising kids. The longer we listen, the more likely we are to speak with credibility and authority when we do speak.
“Good Discipline, Great Teens” Pages 23-24 |
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