If you want your children to listen to you, you must first learn to \”listen\” to them

I have taken many parenting and self-growth courses in the past few years. After each course, there are always some scenes that are permanently etched into my mind. For example, at the end of 2016, there was this scene in Teacher An An’s PET class. She invited the parents present to the stage to talk about the problems they encountered in life, and she acted as a friend and sat aside to listen. A single mother, Xiao P, volunteered to go up. She said she divorced two years ago and then took her four-year-old son to live with her parents. Because she is usually very busy at work, her parents basically help take care of her children, but she is very dissatisfied with her parents taking care of their children. For example, she chases her child all day long to feed her food, and even develops the bad habit of having to show him her cell phone before opening her mouth to eat. Little P has said it many times to no avail. She is helpless and often conflicts with her parents for this. Every time there was a conflict, her mother would blame her, \”I didn\’t agree with you marrying the father of your child in the first place, but now you have a troubled child, and you still have to trouble me to take care of it\”! When her mother said this, she was so angry that she wanted to cry. Sometimes she couldn\’t bear it anymore, so she ran away from home for a long time before going back. During the whole process, Teacher An An simply responded to her without saying much. Miraculously, Xiao P, who was frowning before going on stage, actually had a look on his face that he had never seen before when he came down. easy. After the exercise, Teacher Anxin asked us, if the person who just listened to her talk was you, what would you do? Everyone raised their hands to speak. Some said, \”I would suggest that she move out and ask a nanny to take care of her.\” Some said, \”It\’s not easy for mom to help you take care of your child. You have to understand her.\” Teacher An An looked at us with a smile: \”What you said is correct, but if you think about it carefully, hasn\’t she thought about this herself? She has been troubled by this problem for so long. Maybe the solution you gave her has already thought about it. I’ve told her a hundred times, but why didn’t she do it instead of coming to talk to her friends?” “Many times, problems are meant to be understood, not solved.” Hearing this, I suddenly felt enlightened. a feeling of! Yes, why would I think I was giving her ideas and solutions? She was the person involved, so how could she not have thought of the solutions I mentioned? When we give a solution, or try to reason or comfort the other person, the subtext is, \”Why are you so stupid, you didn\’t come up with this solution, or you don\’t understand mom at all.\” When the other party feels this implicit judgment and accusation, she will either rush to explain or choose to close her heart and stop talking to you. Think about how many times in our daily lives we are doing a disservice. \”The boss is too perverted, I can\’t do this job anymore.\” \”The world is as dark as crows, and it will be the same if it takes a long time to change the boss.\” \”My baby was torn apart by my sister, I am so sad.\” \”It doesn\’t matter, Mom I\’ll buy you a new one.\” \”I was late for my evening shift today. When I got to the office, my boss happened to see me. I felt like my boss looked down on me all day long.\” \”How many times have I told you, early in the morning It won’t be like this after 10 minutes of getting up!” When someone talks to us, we always instinctively want to say something and do something, thinking that this is comfort. However, these principles and methods do not solve the other party\’s problems, and sometimes evenWill cause conflict between both parties. This year I participated in PET refresher training, which once again reinforced the impression of that scene. A mother shared that she had a party with her best friend she hadn’t seen for a long time last night, but she parked in the wrong place and was overcharged by 20 yuan in parking fees. When I got home in the evening, I couldn\’t help but complain to my husband. I felt sorry for the extra 20 yuan spent. Unexpectedly, my husband said, \”It\’s only 20 yuan, so you just treated it as a fast food.\” \”Hearing what he said, I immediately got angry. I obviously didn\’t eat fast food, so why should I treat it as fast food?\” My husband didn\’t show any weakness, \”I just want to comfort you and let you not feel bad about the 20 yuan.\” Well, why are you angry at me?\” \”It\’s all because I had to wait for you to get off work, so I went late, and I parked at the wrong place in a hurry!\” \”You went out to have a happy dinner with friends, and you can still make sense of me taking care of the kids all night?\” You said something to me. No one was willing to give in. It was originally a trivial matter, but after the quarrel, my husband actually hugged the quilt and went to the sofa in the living room to sleep all night. The teacher asked: \”If your husband just listened to you at that time, or simply expressed your feelings, \’Oh, it makes you feel a little sad that you spent 20 yuan in vain\’, how would you feel?\” Well, maybe after saying this, It\’s over. Because most of the time, reasoning and giving ideas are difficult to make things better. What really makes things better is the connection between people. Unless the person you\’re talking to asks for advice, no matter how good the advice is, it\’s better to say, \”I don\’t know what to say to you, but I\’m glad you\’re willing to tell me this.\” Why is listening so powerfully therapeutic? The healing effect is because it makes people feel that I am \”heard\” and that someone is really with me. This natural and abundant emotional response is the key to peace and intimacy in all relationships. Just listen without judging or giving countermeasures. This method is not only suitable for communication between adults, but also effective in communication with children. After Xiaopai entered third grade, she had a lot more homework than usual. In the past, when she came in and complained about the amount of homework, I couldn\’t help but say, \”Just do it quickly,\” but she got the look of disdain. This time, I\’m going to try to listen to her problem. When she got home and just put down her schoolbag, she said again: \”Oh, there\’s a lot of homework today.\” \”Yeah, there\’s a lot of homework to make you upset.\” \”In addition to homework, I have English classes in the evening.\” \”Yeah.\” \”You Look, I have English classes on Monday and Friday, and Huang Huang has English classes on Wednesday and Thursday. We haven\’t played together for a long time.\” \”Oh, you want to ask Huang Huang to play with you after school?\” \”Yes, you can Can\’t you help me move my English class from Monday to Tuesday so that I can invite her to play at home after school on Monday.\” \”Oh, can I ask the English teacher tomorrow?\” \”Okay, thank you mom, I\’ll do it. Homework.\” I suddenly realized that having too much homework was just a superficial problem for the child. The child\’s true desire in his heart was to play with his classmates. And this desire, like an onion core, is wrapped in layers of onion skins, waiting for us to discover. If we rush to conclusions, we may lose the opportunity to truly listen and fail to hear the child\’s inner voice. During the listening process, you can remain silent, or you can continue to listen like a mirror.Repeat the child\’s words and feelings and guide the child to continue speaking. When children\’s true voices are heard, in fact, most children and even adults have their own solutions that are most suitable for them. This is what \”Problems are meant to be understood, not solved\” really means. Of course, this doesn’t mean that we can’t give our children advice at any time. We only give it when the child requests or needs help, instead of wishfully trying to solve all the problems for him. It is impossible for us to have the time and mood to wait patiently for our children to finish speaking. It doesn\’t matter, when the time is right, we can just listen to what the children have to say. The simplest, sometimes the most effective, are also the hardest to do. In \”Little Doudou in Front of the Window\”, Little Doudou goes to kindergarten and meets the principal for the first time. The first thing the principal asked her to do was to talk about herself. She could talk about anything and for as long as she wanted. Then, Xiaodoudou talked and talked, and he actually talked for 4 hours. We didn’t stop until we were talking about lunch. \”At this time, Xiao Doudou felt that for the first time in her life, she had met someone she really liked! Because, from her birth until now, no one had ever listened to her for such a long time. Moreover, in such a long time, Mr. Principal once He didn\’t yawn, and he didn\’t show any sign of impatience. He leaned forward like Xiao Doudou and listened intently. \”Yes, listening is magical. Voltaire said that the ears are the road to the soul. From today on, try to be a listener.