Your child’s success depends upon their ability to listen and understand what you and others are communicating. There are intentional ways to grow a healthy parent-child relationship while building essential listening skills in your child.

Tip: These steps are done best when you and your child are not tired or in a rush.

Tip: Intentional communication and healthy parenting relationships will support these steps.

Step 1: Get Input- Get Your Child Thinking by Getting Their Input

● “Do you feel listened to? When and by whom?”

● “How do you know that the person truly listens to you?”

● “Are there times when someone is not listening to you?”

● “How does that make you feel?”

Tip: During a family meal, explore the question: “What does it take to listen well?” Allow each family member to respond—model listening by allowing each person to complete their thoughts without interruption or judgment.

Step 2: Teach New Skills

● Model listening while interacting with your child. Notice your body language. Ask: “What is my body communicating, and how am I demonstrating that I’m listening?”

● Listen for thought and feeling. In addition to listening to what your child says, see if you can identify the unspoken thought and feeling behind the content, in other words, the context.

● Build a sacred time into your routine when you are fully present to listen to what your child has to tell you.

● Learn listening strategies together by trying them out.

○ Demonstrate poor listening and good listening. Act it out, then reflect and ask: “What did you notice about her body language?”

○ Actively listen. One person listens to fully understand what the speaker is saying and waits until the speaker is finished talking before responding.

○ Paraphrase. Echo back to the speaker a summary of what they’ve said to check how accurate your listening is and also to confirm that you have heard them (“I heard you say that…”).

○ Seek clarification. If you are listening to learn something from the speaker, it is important to seek clarification on details to make certain you understand: “What did you mean when you said you weren’t happy this morning? What happened?”

○ Practice questioning and commenting with empathy. Instead of responding to a speaker with your own experiences, focus solely on the content of what has been communicated. Your child: “Today, Mrs. Smith started a new project. We are going to be building fairy tree houses. I can’t wait.” You: “Sounds like you are excited about this project. What else besides sticks do we need to collect?”

Step 3: Practice to Grow Skill and Develop Habits

● Use “Show me…” statements like “Show me how you can listen at dinner without interrupting.”

● Recognize effort: “I noticed how you listened fully to your sister when she was upset. That’s so helpful to her.”

● Play listening...