How to listen to your children. The secret behind what they need

Everyone wants to be heard and accepted, but for our children is most important.

Listening to our children the way they need to has one of the biggest impacts on them and their growth. By listening to them we can grow or weaken their self-esteem and ego. This is something that I am struggling with as well. But I learned some stuff along the way and I will share them with you here.

Why listening to our kids is so important?

Being small our kids rely only on us for confirmation and support. When they try something or do something or find out about something telling us about it is their way of asking for confirmation. It’s something like “Mom, look what I found/did! Please praise me! Please tell me I am awesome!” The second part is not spoken about but is what they want in return.

Our duty, if you want, is to do that. Is to praise them, to tell them how wonderful they are, how awesome is everything they do. How an awesome person they are. Doing this often enough will convince them about it and will grow up to be confident and with faith in their values and powers. And that is more important than anything else learned from school or friends.

What about too much praising? The world is a bad place!

I don’t know if this is a thing in your part of the world but here it was the most common way of raising kids. Be mean to them so that they will be prepared for the world out there that is even worse.

That is such a misconception. There are a lot of studies proving that such behavior makes them more fragile and more manipulatable.

In their childhood, we teach them how to be loved and happy. Our behavior towards them will be what love will mean for them and what they will search for in a partner. If we are rough, unloving, unforgiving, or resentful, that is what they will look for, that is what they will call happiness. If we are loving, tender, patient, present, and encouraging, that is what they will call love and happiness and that is what they will be looking for when they are adults.

About the preparation for the “bad” place the world is. This is a very interesting and counterintuitive situation. You see, confident and strong adults, that know their values are correct and their actions are good will be much more prepared to face a cruel world. This will give them the power to face anything the world would through at them and make them strong enough to adapt to any situation with confidence that they can face it.

Awesome! So how do I do this listening stuff?

I am glad you asked. I have just a few words here for you:

• Presence
• Patience
• Praise

The 3 Ps if you want 😁.

Let’s take each of them and talk a bit about them.

Presence

When you talk with your kids be present.

Please be present.

Stop what you are doing and look at them and listen to them. Don’t work, don’t look at your phone, don’t cook or clean or work. Just stop, turn to them, and listen. Understand them. You cannot understand them if you are not present with them in the conversation.

If you can get down to their level and grab them by the hand and listen. They will say stupid things, inaccurate things, strange uninteresting things, it does not matter. You have to listen to them.

Be 100% there and listen to them.

“But sometimes I can’t. Sometimes the stuff I have to do cannot be stopped” you might say. And you are right. Sometimes you cannot stop. Tell that to them. Say, “You are awesomely cute and this seems spectacularly interesting, but I cannot listen now. Please give me a few minutes and I will come to you!” And do that. Go back to them when you finish or when you can take a break. Keep your promise. That is very important.

This will teach your child two very important lessons. First the idea of boundaries. People have boundaries, it is ok for them to have boundaries as well. And second, trust. Trust in you, as their parent, that you keep your word, and trust in them that they are important enough to be considered, important enough for you to spend special time with them.

So be present with your children when the talk to you!

Patient

This is hard, I know. We need patience for everything. At work, in the day-to-day duties. But, yes, we need it with our kids as well.

They will, most definitely, have a very uninteresting topic to talk about. Rainbows, poneys, cars, lego, weird video on the internet, memes, school stories. Unimportant against your project at work that you are late with, and all the chores you did not get to do, and your fridge is empty again and you don’t have time to do the groceries, and that lightbulb is not fixed and you blame yourself for it, and you feel that you are not enough and pressed by all the things you want to do and you feel ugly and don’t have time to go to the gym and so on. And on top of all that you have your kid that pulls on your pants and wants you to check out his stupid drawing.

I know. It is hard. Nobody, literally nobody, said being a parent is easy. But you do it either way. You are that awesome person that said I will risk this because I can do it. I can do it. And you can.

What I do in these situations, because of course I get them a lot, is like previously, I tell them.

“You are awesome, my darling, but daddy is a bit tired now and I need to do this. Let me get back to you in a bit”

And then, like before, I give myself a little time to chill and relax and then I go to them. I ask them what is up and what they wanted to show me and then I listen because now I can be patient. I gave myself time to gather a little energy for patience. But, like before, keep your word to them.

This teaches them another very very important lesson. It is ok to be sad, impatient, and tired. It is ok to not be able to do something at some point and it is ok too, again, set boundaries.

We tend to blame ourselves for being tired and not having energy and being occupied all the time and we don’t want them to feel the same. This is a way to teach them self-love and self-acceptance. 😉

Praise

This one is the hardest one.

It is very easy to praise our kids when they do something nice, cute, or good, right?

OMG! That is an awesome painting! You are such a good artist!

You sing superbly. You are soo talented.

Yes, indeed 5+5 makes 10. You are the smartest

Easy yes? Of course, but, what if it is not that easy?

Let me tell you about this very interesting story that happened with my son some time ago.

I got called in by his teacher about him fighting with some other kid. Now, I was very upset about this, violence is one of the things that we are strongly against. More than that, the teacher told me that he also used some very racist names for the other kid. That is also a very very very big no-no in our family. Racism and sexism, and violence are some of the things I want my children to fight with when they grow up. So this was bad.

The question here is:

What can I do here to not make him understand how serious and bad what he did is without crushing his self-esteem and confidence?

This was very difficult for me because I lived in a house full of violence and every time I feel myself falling toward that path I get triggered. This event made me think that I have failed in teaching my son about violence and how bad it can be. Because of that, my initial reaction was to tell him how bad what he did is, how he should never do that, how a lot of people suffer because of it, and how he does not want to become one of them. But I stopped myself. This was not about me, it was about him. It was about him being in a difficult situation and needing help and understanding, not another person to tell him how wrong he is.

So when I met him I asked him what happened. He told me the details, what were the events that came before, what triggered him, how the fight went, and how the teacher was involved.

I listened to him patiently. I told him I am disappointed in him and asked him how can we fix this. It is important to underline that he is not alone here, we fix this, not him, not me, us, together.

He said he will say sorry and be careful with what he will say to the kid. I told him that I will help by spending time with him and getting to understand together how we can fix his anger and channel it somewhere else.

You can read about how and why I did that in my article

In the end, and that is important because I wanted to finish with the praise, I told him I am proud of him that he told me, that he understood where he went wrong, and that he is willing to say sorry and try to improve himself.

What I want to underline here is that even if the event is not easy to praise, listen patiently and give your kids the possibility to earn the praise. Ask if they understand where they went wrong, how they can fix it, and what they learned. And praise them for that. For how they learn from their mistakes, how they are strong and adaptable, and how they can see their mistakes and accept them. Tell them it is ok to make mistakes and that you are there for them and that they are never alone.

So let me get this straight, how do you think is better to listen?

This is a very good question for summing all things up.

Remember that by listening to your kids you influence their self-esteem, their self-confidence, and their values.

Remember the 3 P’s for listening

• Presence — Always be there with them when you listen to them. If you cannot at the moment they want to, postpone it. But keep your word and go to your children and listen to them fully when you have time.
• Patience — Listen to what they want to say, don’t interrupt them, and don’t let your emotions and triggers make you stop what they are saying. Be patient, understand what they want to say, and ask questions. Show them you are interested, show them they are important.
• Praise — Praise them as much as possible. Praise them for thinking the way they did, for doing what they did, for speaking, for being courageous, and for being what they are. If they do a mistake give them the possibility to understand and fix and praise them for that.

But I cannot do all this

I know. And that is ok! We try our best as parents and that is enough. Trying our best is the best we can do, and nobody should ask for more.

And the fact that you are reading this article, and probably a lot more like it, makes you one of the best parents ever. You are trying to improve, to learn, to help them.

This is the best you can do and that is enough.

Your kids require you most of all to LOVE THEM FOR WHAT THEY ARE. Not to spend your whole time trying to correct them

Bill Ayers

Thank you very much for reading

Hugs and positive thoughts, my friends!

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