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Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don’t listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won’t tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff. [Catherine M. Wallace, Renowned Author]
This quote nearly sums it up all and I couldn’t have emphasized this enough as to how important it is to hear out that little voice that always seems to be playing in the background when you’re reading the newspaper, watching news or a TV show, or when you’re cooking.
It’s so natural to sometimes ignore that voice because obviously to you, what you’re doing at the moment seems more important than little things like “My friend at school today came to me and said…” or “I watched a story on TV today which showed…”
It seems easier to pass off the moment with a faint smile because a) you weren’t listening, and b) you didn’t intend to either because you were in the middle of your own something. And it’s not the first time or the last that he/she’s been blabbering around, you think.
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Think again, my friend. For, it could be the last. Don’t mean to discourage or threaten you here but here’s a hard fact. Kids stop sharing with us, stop listening to us, when we stop hearing them out. What seems to us as blah blah blah may mean really big and important stuff to them. And when they feel that we don’t care, they quietly retract, usually never to share anything with us again.
Most important, the worst effects are to be felt when they reach their teens - the crucial time of their growing up - when they’re feeling a mound of emotions within but they find nobody at home to share it with, sadly.
Well, we brought it on us, didn’t we? To us, what our teens are going through seems important now. But to them, what was happening at the age of 3 or 5 was equally important. But we just didn’t care. Alas! We’ve lost that trust, that bond, somewhere long time back.
You can’t begin talking to your kids in their teens if you haven’t been already since they were 2. Forget talking, you can’t even expect them to listen to you anymore.
And the quote below is a perfect wrap-up to the post -
Children will listen to you after they feel listened to. [Jane Nelsen, American author]
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Do you talk to your kids often? Pat your back friends if you do because you’ve laid the foundation for a lifelong bond with your child cemented with love and trust. If you liked the post, please pass it on to other parents in your network to help them understand the importance of talking to kids. And if you wish to receive more such posts in future by email, subscribe to the blog for free.
