When you don’t truly listen to your child, effectively they disappear. They’re not there. We make them vanish. Guess how that feels to the child.
Timestamps:
00:00 First critical step of loving is listening.
01:17 An example of how we don't really listen to our child and keep changing the subject.
03:37 What to say to indicate that we are really listening.
Transcript:
On many occasions we have talked about the process of Truth ➝ Seen ➝ Accepted ➝ Loved. As we all—including our children—tell the truth about ourselves, we create opportunities to be seen, accepted, and loved.
Most of us make that process impossible from the very beginning by hiding the truth about ourselves. We avoid describing our flaws, we hide our mistakes, and we deny our fears, which temporarily makes us feel safe superficially, but then we can’t feel unconditionally loved.
As parents often we eliminate the process of Truth ➝ Seen ➝ Accepted ➝ Loved for our children by not SEEING and accepting them, after which they cannot feel loved.
First Step of Loving is to Truly Listen to Your Child
And this brings us to the critical first step of loving, which is LISTENING to your child. We don’t do that very well. We tend to change the subject introduced by the child.
Let’s look at a possible example of how we don’t listen.
Your child enters the room in a rush, describes how his sister is playing a video game and won’t let him join. Then he shouts a crowd favorite for so many of us, “It’s not fair!”
What you say next determines whether your child feels listened to.
You might say (and we commonly do): “Oh, it’s not that bad.”
Did the child ask you if the injustice was “that bad?”
No, so you changed the subject.
You say: “It’s your sister’s turn right now. You’ll get your turn.”
Did your child ask you whether he would get a turn?
NO, he said “It’s not fair,” so you changed the subject.
So what’s the big deal? Your child just addressed you, and you changed the subject to something else, as though your child hadn’t spoken.
To put it bluntly, when we don’t truly listen, when we don’t see and accept our children, effectively they disappear. They’re not there. We make them vanish. Guess how that feels to the child.
I’ve seen several movies, and you might have too, where the main character dies but continues to mingle with the people he knew in the form of a spirit, ghost, or whatever, depending on the beliefs of the writer.
In every case the dead person tries to communicate with others—by talking, touching, yelling—but nobody can hear or feel him, because he’s a spirit. The overwhelming feeling of the main character is profound loneliness, coming from being surrounded by people who can’t see or hear him. He has effectively disappeared.
And THIS is how our children feel when we don’t see and accept them. Disappeared—by us.
How to Truly Listen
So what CAN we say to indicate that we’re listening? Let’s try it:
Your son enters the room with the same complaint, shouting that “It’s not fair.” Now let’s try genuine listening, seeing, accepting.
You say something like this, just to give you an example, NOT to tell you exactly what to say:
“James, it really IS unfair. Your sister does seem to take the controller more than you do.”
OR
“Unfair? It’s just wicked. I’m thinking we take her outside and give her a good beating. What do you think?”
What are you doing here? Agreeing with the child’s overall sense of what justice is? Nah, you’re indicating that you UNDERSTAND your child’s point of view, whether it’s right or not. Watch your child’s face. He’ll be amazed, might even laugh.
Listen to Your Child, Then Teach
THEN, after your child knows you understand, that you SEE him, you can teach him something. There are many things you could teach, doesn’t matter that much which one. Some possibilities of what you might say:
- Yes, James, sometimes individual THINGS or moments are unfair. Sometimes things can’t be EQUAL all the time. You’re right. But overall, you can make things fair ENOUGH by talking, asking, speaking up. But complaining never works. Never. Just talk to me, and we’ll work it out.
- (usually with older child) Yes, you’re right, things really can be unfair. But that’s only if you think of THINGS turning out equal. Real fairness—real justice—is that you get consistent consequences in peace and happiness for how you choose. If you choose to be kind and loving, you ALWAYS get happiness, whether the THINGS are equal or not. THAT is fair, the universe’s or God’s idea of fair—according to the Laws of Happiness. If you’re angry and complain, you’ll always be unhappy. And that is fair too.
You can do this with children from about age two all the way through adult children.
Listen to your children. Don’t make them disappear. It’s a great blessing we can offer them, a life changing miracle, actually.
