Simply Said: Why Don’t Children Listen?
Sue Gimpel
Do you find yourself nagging, threatening, shouting, or offering bribes to get your children to do what you want? When you finally get their attention, are you pleased, or all twisted up inside hating the monster you’ve become? There is another way to get and keep your child’s attention.
Talk Less!
“WHAT?!!” a parent shrieks! “I’ve got to teach my child, instruct, let her know what a good job she’s doing, and offer suggestions and guidance about how to do things right. That takes a lot of explaining.”
As parents, we all want to teach our children about our values, how to do things, and how to manage in the world, but have you ever noticed that as a culture we just talk too much?!!
We fill in the silence with idle chatter, or much worse, idle gossip. If we are not talking face to face, we’re talking on our cell phones, or on Facebook, or Instant Messaging. To children, especially the very young, all this talk becomes constant background chatter, and they are unable to distinguish the noises coming at them from voices speaking to them. They are not just blocking you out, they are truly in a world of their own, a world of imagination, and all the adult voices and conversations are simply “background noise”. Because of voices, radios and televisions all blending into a high level of background noise, your own child may not be able to tell when you are speaking directly to him or her!
Another way we can overwhelm our children, so that they need to tune us out as a means of self preservation, is by talking about the business of the adult world in front of them, or to them. Children under nine often live in a rich inner, imaginative life, as long as they are feeling safe and secure. Those nine and under have a natural sense of awe for the simple wonders of life, caterpillars, puddles, and climbing trees. It’s up to us parents to share the pressures and worries and political opinions of the adult world only with other adults, who have the thinking and feeling capacity to understand the trials of grown ups. Children must tend to their imaginative play, and as they do so, they are developing the creativity that will be necessary to solve the problems of the world at the time when they will be ready to deal with them, much later, when they become grownups.
So, how can we talk less and let our children be children?
Here are three simple questions you can ask yourself before speaking to, or in front of children:
Is it kind?
Is it true?
Is it necessary?
Is it kind? Even when what you have to say is the truth, if it’s hurtful, why say it? When we catch ourselves sharing funny stories that put someone down, we can say “Oops, that wasn’t very kind, was it? Let’s not repeat this story.”
Is what I’m about to say true, or is it second hand information? If you aren’t sure of the source of the “information” you are about to share, hold off. You can ask your child before (s)he launches into a long story about someone else, how do they know it to be true. If the answer is, “Well, Zach told me that his babysitter told him that the neighbor...” And you calmly reassure your child that (s)he did not see it, nor did Zach, so we don’t really know this story to be true.
Is it necessary? So, it’s truthful and kind, but is only an extra detail that confuses the matter. Leave it off. Let the kind and truthful bits have more time to sink in. Asking if it’s necessary is more of a question for adults to ask of themselves before saying things to children. A young child may feel it is absolutely necessary to tell each and every step of how they accomplished their tasks, it is important for us to listen to their stories.
When there is less background noise, there is more room to hear what’s in the foreground. If we talk less, we can listen more. When we speak only what is necessary with kindness and truth, it is easier to be heard. When a human being is heard, whether young or old, we all breathe a little deeper and appreciate each other a little bit more.
Sue Gimpel, Simplicity Parenting Coach, helps families design and implement the changes they’d like to have in their home environment and family interactions. Sue also leads 7 session Simplicity Parenting workshops, based on the book of the same name by Kim John Payne, MEd., now available in paperback. For current workshop schedule visit: FamilyHomeCoach.org or simplicityparenting.com/suegimpel.html.
Talk Less!
“WHAT?!!” a parent shrieks! “I’ve got to teach my child, instruct, let her know what a good job she’s doing, and offer suggestions and guidance about how to do things right. That takes a lot of explaining.”
As parents, we all want to teach our children about our values, how to do things, and how to manage in the world, but have you ever noticed that as a culture we just talk too much?!!
We fill in the silence with idle chatter, or much worse, idle gossip. If we are not talking face to face, we’re talking on our cell phones, or on Facebook, or Instant Messaging. To children, especially the very young, all this talk becomes constant background chatter, and they are unable to distinguish the noises coming at them from voices speaking to them. They are not just blocking you out, they are truly in a world of their own, a world of imagination, and all the adult voices and conversations are simply “background noise”. Because of voices, radios and televisions all blending into a high level of background noise, your own child may not be able to tell when you are speaking directly to him or her!
Another way we can overwhelm our children, so that they need to tune us out as a means of self preservation, is by talking about the business of the adult world in front of them, or to them. Children under nine often live in a rich inner, imaginative life, as long as they are feeling safe and secure. Those nine and under have a natural sense of awe for the simple wonders of life, caterpillars, puddles, and climbing trees. It’s up to us parents to share the pressures and worries and political opinions of the adult world only with other adults, who have the thinking and feeling capacity to understand the trials of grown ups. Children must tend to their imaginative play, and as they do so, they are developing the creativity that will be necessary to solve the problems of the world at the time when they will be ready to deal with them, much later, when they become grownups.
So, how can we talk less and let our children be children?
Here are three simple questions you can ask yourself before speaking to, or in front of children:
Is it kind?
Is it true?
Is it necessary?
Is it kind? Even when what you have to say is the truth, if it’s hurtful, why say it? When we catch ourselves sharing funny stories that put someone down, we can say “Oops, that wasn’t very kind, was it? Let’s not repeat this story.”
Is what I’m about to say true, or is it second hand information? If you aren’t sure of the source of the “information” you are about to share, hold off. You can ask your child before (s)he launches into a long story about someone else, how do they know it to be true. If the answer is, “Well, Zach told me that his babysitter told him that the neighbor...” And you calmly reassure your child that (s)he did not see it, nor did Zach, so we don’t really know this story to be true.
Is it necessary? So, it’s truthful and kind, but is only an extra detail that confuses the matter. Leave it off. Let the kind and truthful bits have more time to sink in. Asking if it’s necessary is more of a question for adults to ask of themselves before saying things to children. A young child may feel it is absolutely necessary to tell each and every step of how they accomplished their tasks, it is important for us to listen to their stories.
When there is less background noise, there is more room to hear what’s in the foreground. If we talk less, we can listen more. When we speak only what is necessary with kindness and truth, it is easier to be heard. When a human being is heard, whether young or old, we all breathe a little deeper and appreciate each other a little bit more.
Sue Gimpel, Simplicity Parenting Coach, helps families design and implement the changes they’d like to have in their home environment and family interactions. Sue also leads 7 session Simplicity Parenting workshops, based on the book of the same name by Kim John Payne, MEd., now available in paperback. For current workshop schedule visit: FamilyHomeCoach.org or simplicityparenting.com/suegimpel.html.
