The Screams of Silence

May 7, 2020

Mother listening intently to sad daughter.

Responding to a Child's Silence

It is lamentably rare that parents truly listen to their children.

Imagine that your child walks into the room with a frown on their face, or with exaggerated and agitated body movements. This has happened many, many times in your home, almost certainly far more often than you realize. Most parents wouldn’t even notice the event. Why?

On the whole, we’re not very good at truly communicating with others. We were not taught to look directly at people who are speaking or entering the room, which creates the opportunity for good communication.
We’re all occupied with our own problems, fears, thoughts, and lists of things to do. In that condition, we’re fatally distracted from genuinely paying attention to other people. We even LOOK for reasons not to address silent communications like those described above.
We’ve learned that when children appear unhappy, and we ask them about it, they often deny their unhappiness, or they complain. Either response on their part requires emotional effort and time and compassion on our part, which often we lack. In short, we feel incompetent to deal with their unhappiness, so we just avoid it all by ignoring the cues given off by our children.

What You Can Do to Listen Better to Silence

If we are committed to being real parents, if we really want to loveandteach, what COULD we do when a child silently—but rarely subtly—communicates their unhappiness?

Remember that YOU brought this child into the world, and it’s your responsibility to raise this child to feel loved, and to be loving and responsible. So, you can’t ignore this eruption of unhappiness.
Remember the sources of unconditional love you do have in your life. With that confidence that you have what matters most, you’ll realize that you cannot be injured in this potentially difficult conversation with your child.
Speak your child’s name. If they don’t feel threatened, children love to hear the sound of their name lovingly spoken. They might not respond the first time. Say their name again.
Look directly at your child. When children are expressing their pain and fear, we tend to become afraid too. As I stated earlier, we feel incompetent to deal with unhappiness, so we tend to avoid it.
Say something like, “Something is bothering you.” Yes, I know this fits in the “Duh” category, but it gives your child an opportunity to use words to describe their unhappiness.
It’s not unlikely that they’ll say “nothing,” or “I don’t want to talk about it.” But that’s not an option. You’re not just feeding and clothing this child. You’re the Teacher in the School of Life. It’s your job to teach your child how to talk about unhappiness in a way that they can genuinely be heard.
Say something like, “We ARE going to talk about this. Something is really bothering you, and while you feel like this, everything goes worse. So we’re going to stop the downward slide right here.”
They might repeat that they don’t want to talk, or they’ll protest that they’re late for something, then expect you to back off. Do NOT back off. You might have to say something like, “This is more important than anything else you’ll do today. More than being on time to school, more than anything. I completely understand why you wouldn’t want to talk to me. In the past, my not listening to you has convinced you that I don’t really care about what’s bothering you. I’m learning how to do that now, so let’s give it a try.”
Then you persist until your child tells you what is really bothering them, and you love and teach them in one of the many ways illustrated in the Parenting Training, and in the weekly written answers, video answers, and conference calls that are archived on the site.

Silence = Anger or Pain

When your child is silently expressing anger or pain, they are screaming for you to listen. We must pay attention to the clues that they’re in pain, and we must practice listening to them, loving them, and teaching them.

Following are a few other things you might say when you sense that something is just “off” with your child:

“You look unhappy (or irritated or sad). Would you be willing to tell me about it?”
“You look upset. Talk to me me.” (Gentle tone required)
“You just snapped at your brother. Right now I don’t care about what you said. I just know that you wouldn’t have done that unless you were feeling bad in some way. Maybe angry about something else, maybe feeling bad about yourself. What’s happening with you?”

A variation on the silent expression of feelings is the misdirected or indirect expression of feelings. A child might say, for example, that he just doesn’t want to go to school, because he hates school.

But if you follow some of the directions above, you’ll discover the real reasons. Perhaps there is a bully at school who torments and frightens him, for example.

Our children badly need our love, and listening to them carefully is the single most immediate and easiest way we can express that love. Sometimes they express their needs silently, sometimes indirectly, and these are all opportunities for us to practice our lovingandteaching.

Summary

Our children badly need us to love them, which includes genuine listening.

Often they express their neediness and pain in ways that are not obvious or clear.

We must be aware of the different ways they express their pain and be ready to practice listening, loving, and teaching.

About the author

I am the founder of The Real Love® Company, Inc, a non-profit organization. Following the sale of my successful ophthalmology practice I have dedicated the past 25 years to teaching people a remarkable process that replaces all of life's "crazy" with peace, confidence and meaning in various aspects of their personal lives, including parenting, marriages, the workplace and more.

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