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Do I talk to DD before secondary school about being a better listener?

3 replies

Echobelly · 04/11/2018 10:30

DD starts secondary next year. She is sociable and still quite confident, so should be OK for making friends at secondary school, although she will probably be the only child from her school transferring wherever she goes.

I'm wondering if I should have a word about one thing - I am, to my shame, not naturally a good listener. I tend to burble on and although I've got a bit better, sometimes I do walk away from an interaction with someone and realise I've just burbled on and not asked them about themselves, or just talked way more than they did. Blush

I can see DD has similar tendencies, and I sometimes wish someone had told me when I was a kid to talk less and listen more (I think, as the 'baby' of 3, I was indulged and my burbling as seen as cute), as it's a hard habit to overcome as an adult. I appreciate most kids aren't good at it, but maybe before secondary would be a time to have a chat about developing this skill.

Obviously, this is a self-conscious age, and I'm aware that handling it wrong would be counterproductive ('You're a bad listener and you won't make any friends if you carry on like that!' for example, would be totally the wrong approach), so I'm thinking if I address this, it has to be about what she should do, not what she shouldn't do, and about why she should do it, not as though it's a fault of her personality or something.

TL;DR - Do I talk to my daughter about becoming a better listener before she starts secondary school, or is there too much risk of it backfiring and damaging her confidence?

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JiltedJohnsJulie · 04/11/2018 10:49

I would talk to her about it. I’m not a great listener either but I’ve found doing guided meditation has had an unexpected benefit of improving my listening skills. Maybe try it yourself for a could of weeks before you have a chat with her?

julietrosalind · 04/11/2018 10:50

I don’t think this is something you can tell a child - it’s best modelled.

I hate it when people project their own experiences but my mum used to tell me how I ‘should’ behave in conversations and it just made me very shy and self conscious Flowers

Echobelly · 04/11/2018 11:10

I definitely don't want to project onto her, I know that can be offputting so I have no intention of framing it from my experience, or saying I'm bad at it, more 'When you get to know new people, if you tell them/answer them something about yourself, you should ask them something about themselves too and listen to their answer'

I actually do guided meditations quite a lot, though not sure it's helped my listening skills!

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