Being there for your kids - Active Listening -- A Parent's Go-To Tool

Episode Date: August 1, 2018

When we take a foreign language in school, we can spend years studying it and still not be fluent. That's because we are not immersed in the language and we have to think before we speak. Active listening, for parents, is kind of a foreign language. It's a way to help kids come to terms with their feelings and then joining with them to help them solve their own problems. While solving our kids' problems for them can be a short-term fix, it deprives our children of the process by which they are best able to solve their own problems.  When you are hard-wired to problem-solve with your children, take a breath and first active listen their feelings.

This is Teachable Moments. I'm Dr. John Robinson. Want to learn a foreign language? Research has shown that it takes adults about three years while living in a country to learn the language of that country. Because of more neuroplasticity in the younger minds, it takes children younger than 10 years to learn that foreign language in only three months under the same circumstances. At any rate, learning a foreign language is out of our comfort zone and tough under any circumstances. For parents, active listening your children is like learning a foreign language. We seem to be hardwired to answer questions from our children, solve their problems, divide and direct when they're fighting with each other, kiss and make it all better when they're hurting. All of these parenting responses have value

and help children make it to adulthood, but active listening or empathy is the go-to primary response when we see our children's emotional fever rising. As we reflect, what we think they are feeling, their emotional fever goes down. If we jump in with solutions, directions, or perspective before the fever is broken, our wisdom will be lost to them. Whatever good we might say when they're hurting will be received as criticism, judgment, and put downs by them. I'm bad. I can't do it right. When we first empathize, actively listen, and then find their feelings so that their emotional fever goes down, then we join with them and helping them solve their own problems. Want to learn a foreign language? Try active listening with your children. I'm Dr. John Robinson, licensed

to clinical psychologist and Christian parenting author. This is a has been Teachable Moments. Teachable Moments, building blocks of Christian parenting, is available online at AmazonBooks.com and in local and national bookstores. More on Dr. Robinson at TMC-P-I-N-C.com.