How to be a Good Listener to Your Child
Children are curious and ever-inquisitive individuals who are struggling to understand the full dynamics of the world around them.
It is important that kids should be treated equally, especially when it comes to issues that directly affect them. It is a usual notion of parents to not pay particular attention to the comments, suggestions and objections of their kids.
Children will know and sense that by doing so their parents are ignoring them. As an adult and the person with a broader mind compared to the children, you should make sure that the child feels loved and listened to.
Listening is a key activity in the process of communication. Communication is very necessary to pave the way for a harmonious relationship between the parents and the child. Without communication, a gap can appear that can affect the long-term relationship of both parent and child.
Since children are still in their developing years, it is important that parents instill in them the thought that the parents are behind them, supporting them all the way in every minor and major endeavor.
Thus, to help the kid do good during his formative years, parents will surely play a significant part. That crucial significant role, as parents may usually have been overlooking at, revolves around communication.
Listening is very essential in paving the communication line between the child and the parents. Through listening, the parent communicates verbally that they are willing to understand, reach out and help the child in his every decision.
It is imperative that the parents develop the habit of constant listening to their child.
Unusual habits
Experts assert that kids with busy parents tend to feel like they are being ignored and that they feel unwanted. That feeling of obscurity will dampen the child's self-esteem and can manifest later on in life in many different forms of behavioral problems.
Unusual habits develop when the child feels like his parents are ignoring him. Temper tantrums are often developed in children who aim to catch the attention of people. They get the attention but not in the way they wish. Read more about the temper tantrum subject in an earlier chapter.
Biting habits also arise from that feeling of being ignored. The child may not know that it is wrong to hurt others just to attain attention from parents. And so such habits not only become awkward and annoying, but also destructive.
The key to preventing these habits, or curtailing them when they are already developed, is to listen to the child's every need, demand and comment.
How to effectively listen to your children
Here are several simple guidelines that will help you listen to your children, or at least give your kids the impression that you are indeed listening.
· Listen attentively. If your child asks a question, be sure to drop everything you are doing and listen intently. Maintain eye contact with the child to establish the feeling that you are really listening. Of course it would advisable if you would genuinely listen.
· If a child asks you the same question over and over again, ask him to say what your previous answer was. If the answer was modified, correct him.
· Listen to understand. The main purpose of listening, aside from setting the impression that you are not ignoring your child, is to understand and see things in your child’s perception. You will learn a lot from doing so, and you surely can relate because you were also once a child.
· If you inevitably need to respond or explain something, do so in a manner that is easily comprehended and understood by the child. Be calm and never show annoyance if the child keeps on asking questions.
Remember, if you do not give your child the chance to talk, his self-esteem will be dampened and he would always think that it is not effective to even try.
Listen to your child and see how you could make him a better person simply by lending him your ear.
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