Conscious listening, or active listening, is a skill that can drastically improve the quality of your relationships. When most of us listen, we listen to hear how we will respond. As busy as we all are, we have fallen into a trap of listening for highlights, while our mind is thinking of other things. It’s a half listening, not active listening. As we listen to others, we often try to hurry them along so it can be our turn to speak. Or we are so distracted by the surrounding noise we can’t really give our full attention to the person. Our general conversational listening isn’t really about understanding another’s point of view or ingesting information. It’s just hearing more noise in a world of noise. This type of listening is passable for small talk perhaps, but if you want to build a strong relationship and connection, you’ll need to employ some active listening.
In a world where everyone is shouting to be heard, taking time to slow down and really hear what another person is saying can seem like an unattainable task. But, in my opinion, what the world really needs right now is active listening skills. We need to respect one another enough to listen to what someone is saying, whether it’s easy for us to hear or not. There is definitely a skill involved in putting your own opinions and bias to the side so you can listen with curiosity. This can be hard to do with others, and almost impossible to do with our children. We feel like we know exactly what they should do and the best way to go about it. To put our opinions to the side and consciously hear what they are telling us is empowering for a child. To feel seen and heard by your parents allows a child to feel safe sharing what they think, believe, and feel. It allows them to feel like they are a contributor to the relationship and not just a pawn. As always, we need to model for our children the way to be in the world. Becoming an active listener at a young age could become a life skill that will serve them tremendously in the workplace.
Knowing that our children may struggle with more emotional issues because of their diagnosis it is important to keep open, active communication. I know all of us want our children to feel safe sharing what’s going on in their life, in small and big ways. Being a parent who consciously listens is one way of keeping a healthy relationship with your child. On a personal level, cultivating a habit of actively listening to those around you will leave you feeling more connected, and maybe even inspired, by others.
As we begin to model and participate in active listening with others keep in mind, children with specific learning disorders (SLD) may have a harder time active listening because of their working memory struggles. It can be very easy for them to zone out because it requires a lot of mental effort to follow a conversation. However, conversations, where they are actively listening, are a great way to improve their short term memory. By being able to recall what another person said, they are training their minds to stay engaged in conversation and school lectures. Be aware that you may have to talk in smaller bursts for them to follow along. Often dyslexic children can have naturally strong empathy and emotional connections with others. Pair that with great listening skills and they will have a leg up in the soft skills department.
4 Tips to Consciously Listen
One of the ways to show that you are consciously listening to a person is to repeat what you heard them say. This gives them a chance to correct you if you misinterpreted something and shows that you were in fact listening closely. This will strengthen your connection and help validate the other person. Remember, you don’t need to agree with them to repeat back what they’ve said, but showing that you heard them correctly is a step towards having opposing conversations. Having children repeat back information can be important because it shows the parent exactly what the child heard and retained. In school, having the child repeat the instructions can also help solidify it in their memory. Speaking the instructions out loud helps involve more senses, hopefully helping to move the information into a place where they can recall it later. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, a person with working memory deficits holds about 1-2 pieces of information at a time. Getting information out of short term/working memory quickly is important for retention.
Another way to be an active listener is by writing down what the other person says. While this might not be doable in every conversation, it is incredibly helpful for important, difficult, or emotional conversations with others. The act of writing keeps you out of your own head and focused on what the person is saying. If it’s an emotionally charged conversation, we can easily slip into listening to respond or just cutting them off causing the conversation to become unproductive. Admittedly this is not great advice for children who struggle with notetaking but could help you as the parent to bite your tongue and hear your child out.
Keep an open mind and open heart. Let curiosity guide the conversation. Try to put anything you think you know outside of your mind and pretend like it’s the first time you’ve encountered this person or this topic. While it’s important to know yourself and your beliefs, try not to hold so tightly that you can’t see around it. Also, allow yourself the grace to change your mind if you are presented with information that makes you question something you previously believed about yourself or the world. We’ve all believed in things before that we no longer find true. Children are naturally openminded so this is generally an easy step for them.
Learn the power of follow up questions. Similar to repeating information back, asking questions, or using statements like “tell me more about…” can allow a person to fully express their thoughts and feel complete before you share your response. We all know children love the question “why?” bringing it back into your adult language isn’t a bad idea. Just try not to ask it 50 times in a row, okay?
Because I could watch TED Talks all day, and I recently figured out how to embed them, here’s a short talk on conscious listening. He offers 5 tips at the end of the video so watch to the end.
