If you had to ask your child to brainstorm ‘how to listen’ – what would he say? Or more importantly, what would YOU say? Listening is in fact not as simple as you think. It is a complex and intricate skill that needs to be taught to an individual and practised.
Four secrets to listening
The sooner your child can master these skills the better.
1. Stop
Whenever your child hears a voice directed at him, he needs to STOP. Stop talking. Stop picking his nose. Stop hitting his brother. Stop playing. This is not as simple as it sounds, especially in our day where one is so technologically consumed. You will need to practice this seemingly simple action at home, over and over again, until it has been mastered.
2. Look
Once he has mastered the art of freezing, he needs to LOOK. Look at the owner of the voice. A person who lip reads can ‘listen’ purely by studying lip movement. Looking will also help the individual gauge the emotion of the speaker.
3. Think
Once having STOPPED, LOOKED and studied the speaker’s lips, they must use their grey matter. They need to first process what has been uttered. Secondly they need to decide what words in the information are critical and thirdly they need to take action.
4. Doodle/note taking
The definition of doodle is to ‘scribble absent-mindedly’. If your child can learn to scribble ‘present-mindedly’ in the classroom from an early age, it will result in genius. Your child will need a deep and thorough understanding of how to extract CRITICAL information only.
Does your child know that NOT all information is IMPORTANT? Does he know how to discern what information is important and what information is not?
Critical vs non-critical information
You need to first pose the following question to your child; ‘Do you think everything you hear is important?’ If he says yes, then you need to explain to him that if he had to listen to everything his poor brain would explode. It is important to explain to your child that only some information is critical. Many kids aged around 7 and 8 have no idea what information is critical and what information is non-critical.
At home, you could play a game and present your child with different sets of information and ask him if he thinks it is critical or non-critical.
E.g. Mum went to the flower shop this morning and brought a rose bush (this is non-critical. It is kind to listen but it won’t make a difference if he heard it or not).
Your friend gives you directions to his house (this is obviously very critical. If you did not listen you would get lost).
Dad has an itchy bum (kids love toilet humour so the odd one like this would keep a potentially boring game interesting).
You also need to ask yourself are you sifting through the critical and non-critical information that is thrown at you. If you are stressed and overwhelmed, then you are probably not.
By Kath Denholm, Little Genius