Excerpted from Chapters 1-3, Keeping You & Your Kids Sexually Pure: A How-To Guide for Parents, Pastors, Youth Workers and Teachers by La Verne Tolbert www.xlibris.com
Listening is an art. The person who listens is the only person worth talking to. If parents want to be listened to, we must first learn how to listen.
- Stop what you’re doing. Turn off the water and stop washing the dishes. Turn off the television. Turn off the radio. Stand still. Stop!
- Get down to your child’s eye level. Sit on the floor. Hold your child on your lap. Walk into your child’s room. Walk out of your room. Get face-to-face so you can see eye-to-eye. Turn your full body toward the person who is talking. Lean forward.
- Don’t interrupt. Be silent. Keep quiet. Don’t speak during the pregnant pause. Wait for it to birth your child’s sentiment. Don’t finish the sentence. Wait until it is said completely. Don’t rush the process.
- Hear the emotion. Listen from the heart. Don’t minimize. Try to grasp the feeling. Is it hurt, confusion, doubt, insecurity, rejection, or loneliness? “If this were happening to me, I would feel…” Ask, “Are you feeling…?”
- Listen with your eyes. Listen eye-to-eye. Look past the words. Notice body language. Catch telling actions like slumped shoulders, tight jaws, watery eyelids.
- Hear what’s not being said. Don’t miss the obvious. Don’t be fooled by appearances.
- Empathize. Feel the feeling, too. Can you remember when…?
- Restate what you’ve heard. Put into your own words what you’ve just heard. Stand corrected. Say it again. Add the feeling.
- Don’t spiritualize. Avoid using the scriptural band-aid. Listen, really listen first. Restate. Add the feeling. Wait for more.
- Don’t give advice. Resist the urge to tell your child what to do. Allow for a different perspective. It’s alright not to immediately have the answer. It’s more than alright just to listen.
When we really listen, it’s called attending and active listening. It’s an art form that we should practice daily. Listen to the person at the checkout counter, to your neighbor down the street, to the cat who wants to be petted, to the birds chirping praises to God.
Some say that communication is key to keeping kids sexually pure. True, but communication is not just talking. Communication is listening. Perhaps God gave us two ears and only one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.
