Lend Me An Ear

Back in the late 1990s, I went through grief training for Rainbows International, which is a non-profit that establishes grief support groups for children all around the world. A good portion of that training focused on listening skills. I remember when the first few slides came up, I was thinking, “How long can this possibly take? How hard it is to listen?”

There I was, already forming my own opinion, instead of being open to the information given. Listening Skills 101: Listening does not mean you’re formulating your own opinion while the other person talks! I still have to remind myself of that sometimes!

About a decade later, I was going through another training in Montessori education, and was struck by how much of our time was focused on listening skills as well. We used a wonderful, tried and true resource called, “How to Talk so Kids will Listen, and Listen so Kids will Talk”, by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. Filled with tons of information, including clever cartoon strips that modelled ways to listen and not listen, this book made me so much more aware of how I listened, and also made me more intentional about how I responded. It made me better at my job in the classroom, and hugely influenced the way I interacted with my own children at home.

Here are the biggies I learned:

**ACKNOWLEDGE FEELINGS, don’t discount them. There is nothing worse than telling someone how you feel about something, only to have them say, “You shouldn’t feel that way.”

**BUILD PEOPLE UP WITH YOUR WORDS. Don’t belittle and make general statements about who they are as a person. (“You’re a bad girl.” “You’re so stupid.”)

**DON’T ASSUME SOMEONE YOU’RE LISTENING TO WANTS THEIR PROBLEM SOLVED. So many people just need to vent and can often come up with their own solutions when someone else listens well.

As the administrator of Chesterton Montessori School during my children’s elementary years there, kids who misbehaved in class were sent to spend time with me in the office.

I had a step by step process that I went through with them as they sat in the little chair in the corner of my office:

1. Find out if they’re hungry or tired. (Both have so much to do with our behavior, young or old!

2. Ask them what happened in class.

3. Ask them how they were feeling when they chose the offending action.

4. Brainstorm how they could do better the next time.

5. Decide how they will make things right when they return to the classroom.

It was amazing to see the transformation take place in the child as he or she was listened to. Instead of being berated, and made to feel like a bad child, active listening helped them to name their feelings, brainstorm better choices, and ultimately, make reparations for what was done wrong. THE CHILD LEARNED HOW DO BETTER, WHILE STILL FEELING LOVED AND RESPECTED.

Here’s what I’m wondering: could we take these skills I practiced with preschoolers and use them on the whole world, please?!?

Seriously, there is an art to listening, and that art HAS BEEN LOST.

The point of listening is not to get the other person to see things your way. The point of listening is to be present to the other person and expand your own openness and understanding.

We all have our own opinions, and indeed, we are entitled to them. But having those opinions does not give us license to brandish them upon others.

We have spent more time, especially in the last two years, trying to convince other people why we are right and they are wrong, instead of taking a moment to look at the world through their eyes and experience.

WE ARE NOT ALL THE SAME. God didn’t make us to be one homogenous glob of human beings who sit around agreeing about everything.

Unity is not the same as UNIFORMITY.

Instead of taking the stand that everyone needs to think the way I do, (uniformity), let’s learn to embrace UNITY, where we respect and accept each other for the unique individuals we have each been created to be.

It all starts with listening.