“MOM!” my daughter said in frustration. My head snapped up from the recipe on my phone. At that exact moment, I realized the water I had started for pasta was about to boil over. She’d been giving me details about her upcoming school trip. “I heard you,” I said as I reduced the heat on the water and poured in noodles. I had heard her… mostly. “Never mind,” she said.
I instantly felt defeated. So did my daughter. I vowed to work on listening with intention. Here are 5 ways to listen like you mean it.
1. Make sure you’re ready to listen.
Sometimes we’re able take a break from what we’re doing to listen to our kids—the sink full of dishes or the text about tomorrow’s carpool can wait a few minutes. Other times, we can’t, like when you finally get through to a customer service representative after waiting on hold for an hour. Listening with intention is only possible when we can focus on the speaker. Ask your kids to wait by saying something like, “That sounds exciting. I need to finish what I’m doing. Then I want to hear all about it!”
2. Restate what the speaker said.
My son was telling me about his high school baseball team. He was lamenting the fact that he hadn’t gotten much playing time. He couldn’t understand why, since he’d played well in previous games. It was frustrating for my husband and me as well. In the middle of our chat, my son said, “I just want Coach to know I’ll work hard. I try to show him at practice, but I guess I need to ask him what I need to do to earn a spot on the field.”
Listening with intention includes restating or paraphrasing what the speaker said in your own words. This shows you’re listening and attempting to understand. If your restatement is accurate, the speaker will agree. If your restatement was not the point, he has a chance to correct you. I restated what my son said: “So you’re going to ask Coach what you need to do to be able to play.” My son confirmed he wanted to talk to the coach himself, helping me understand I needed to let him handle it.
3. Ask open-ended questions.
My daughter’s friend recently posted a picture of my daughter and some other friends on social media. There was nothing inappropriate about the picture, but it was taken and posted during school hours. Another parent brought the post to my attention. I wasn’t upset with my daughter, but she needed to understand that school is for learning, not social media.
“Do you think that was a good idea?” or “Are you girls supposed to be using your phones at school?” are closed-ended, yes or no questions. These kinds of questions don’t get us anywhere. Open-ended questions leave room for unique answers and lead to better explanations. I asked, “What made you want to take photos during class?” She told me she just did it for entertainment because she was consistently bored in class—an issue I didn’t know she was having.
4. Stay on topic.
When a question pops into my head, I want to let it out. This confuses and frustrates my kids. My daughter telling me about her friend who got a driver’s license might remind me that the friend’s grandmother was sick last week. So I jump in and ask about the grandmother, essentially stopping the conversation my daughter wanted to have. Just like moms need to avoid outside distractions like cell phones, we also need to avoid distractions coming from our own off-topic thoughts. Listening with intention helps kids feel supported and heard. Let kids stick to the original topic. We can bring up our questions about other things when they finish.
5. Listen to understand.
“Not everything has to be a life lesson.” That’s a direct quote from both of my kids. When my kids tell me about their days, I want to share some mom wisdom and seize a teachable moment. But when you become the speaker, you’re no longer the listener. Often, this shuts kids down. Kids receive a lecture when they are just telling a funny story about what happened in science class. They may feel like you don’t care what they have to say because they aren’t allowed to finish. Listening with intention allows us to enjoy our kid’s sense of humor, knowledge, or storytelling ability. File that life lesson away to share later.
What do you do to show your kids you’re listening?
