Follow Up to "Help Unwanted"

Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post about listening. Most comments were on my Facebook page, and it appears that this is a VERY common side effect of our busy American lives.

I have an update on my efforts to be a better listener. Last week Thursday, Lindsey had a VERY interesting day at school. There was a "contained" explosion of the boiler at her school, and the children were evacuated for some time. They first walked down to the fire department which was only a block and a half away, and then the school district's buses picked them up from there and bussed them to Southwest High School, which is their destination in their emergency evacuation plan. After a few hours they were all bussed back to the school and class resumed while the boiler was being repaired. They declared it operational and safe around 3 p.m.

I heard about this through an emergency auto-call that the school sent to all parents, as well as through a parent forum on Facebook. I knew before I came home that Lindsey would need to have a listener the minute she arrived home.

I had been considering a home-cooked pork chop or chicken dinner, but once I heard this news, I set aside my tentative plans and freed up my time by ordering pizza. Yes, we ordered pizza on a Thursday night, unheard of for our family (though not unusual for a Friday).

Lindsey had gone to a karate class with a friend right after school, and was dropped off at home by her friend's parent. She walked in the door and said, "You would NOT believe the day I had today."

And she was off and talking like it was a race. I ignored my smart phone, ignored the house phone (which rang during this time with another message from the school about the day's incident), ignored the dog and let the younger child play on the floor. She had my undivided attention.

After about 40 minutes, she had relived the experience, shared how very scary it had been, and felt a whole lot better. She even shared an essay she had written about it at her after-school program. She'd gotten about four pages written before she ran out of time. She is a ball of emotion, this girl, and she, like many people I know, feels better after having shared her experience with someone else.

I gave her a hug, thanked her for telling me about it and said that it sounded like a very scary experience. She nodded emphatically that it had been.

I was concerned that she wouldn't want to go back to school Friday morning, unsure of the safety of the school, but I think that her being able to relate the entire experience to a sympathetic audience helped her restore her confidence. She had no problems going to school the next day.

Besides, she learned some moves in her karate class, so she was ready to kick that fire's butt if it came down to that.

Help Unwanted

Our youngest was in tears during homework help earlier this week.

She rebuffed her dad's offers to help, got snappy and eventually stomped away from the table. Finally she burst out, "I didn't even ASK for help!"

And she's right.

No one asked. No one listened.

It's hard to listen sometimes. Life gets busy. Things like making lunches, cooking dinner, doing laundry, getting wet snowsuits in the dryer every night during winter take precedence over sitting down with our children eye-to-eye and listening with no distractions. I suspect most people find it difficult to find time to listen to their kids with other priorities eating in their lives.

And truly, sometimes it is HARD to listen to our children. Lindsey would chatter your ear off incessantly. Her favorite phrases that she uses to end a sentence are "and anyways" and "and then." This means her sentences never end. One time I decided to sit quietly, ignore the dinner that needed to be made, the wet, snowy mess on the floor and the lunch boxes on the countertop, and just listen. She told me about her day only stopping long enough to breathe for 10 whole minutes.

You can think about this two ways. Wow, 10 minutes, that's a lot to say about your day. I don't know if I could tell anybody about my day and take up 10 whole minutes. Or there's this: It only took 10 minutes out of my evening, and my daughter feels heard and supported.

Unfortunately, this happens at the same time that the other child is also waiting to tell about her day, or waiting for a snack or for whatever. Just because the youngest one can't go on about her day for 10 straight minutes (thank God two of them aren't like that!) doesn't mean she doesn't deserve attention also.

We have our share of communication problems. We've had arguments and disagreements with our kids about playdates, sleepovers, privileges lost and privileges gained for certain behavior. When I look back at many of these disagreements, nearly every one of them come down to one single cause: someone didn't listen.

Even if we as parents already knew that we were going to say "no," we didn't allow our children to have their voices heard. It's important that they have the chance to make their case all the way to the end of what they wanted to say, even if we already know that we will still decline whatever request they are asking for. More than anything, they get angry that they didn't get to have their say.

In cases when a child asks for something, we hear her out and then tell her no, she's usually okay with the answer. She was heard. But when we don't even hear her out before the "no" comes out of our mouths, we have problems.

I am reminded of the Braverman family on NBC's show "Parenthood," where everybody is talking over everybody else and no one is actually being heard. Every once in a while the teenage daughter will call this fact out loudly over everyone who is talking. No one pays any attention and she stomps out of the room.

Someone at work was commenting about how that drives them crazy on the show, while I was thinking in my head how much it was like real life. You mean not every family talks over each other at the same time?

Since I've been thinking on it, I now have a new little saying that I'm sticking on my mental wall, along with my two New Year's goals.

Patience
Stillness

And now this:

Don't mistake your unwillingness to listen with failure on my part to communicate.

I've been on both ends of that equation. When I find myself entering into arguments or disagreements, I will take a step back and think about what's happening -- which side of that equation am I on? If I'm not listening, then I will be still and listen. If I'm not being listened to, then I will ask the other person to listen. I might make that person mad, but at least I will have said my piece, even if it wasn't heard.

Now, to practice what I preach.