Growing up in a family sometimes causes road blocks in communication because it doesn't feel safe.
We talk in an itinerary, but no real depth to the discussion. We do that with our children. We ask..."How was school today?"
Talking at someone and talking to someone are 2 different things.
As he sat there, staring sullenly at the floor and wrestling with his frustrations, I cradled him in my heart. He wanted to communicate as sincerely as I, but neither of us was having much success.
I felt that if I could just hug or hold him again—the way I did when he was small—maybe he would know of my love and concern. But at sixteen, my son was embarrassed by affectionate displays, especially from his father.
“I’ll never make it,” he moaned. “You expect too much, and I’m just not good enough.”
“That’s not true,” I said. My voice rose as I thought back on my adolescent insecurities. “Why, when I was your age …”
“Dad, you don’t understand,” he interrupted. “I don’t think you’ll ever understand!”
Of course I understood! My heart ached with important things I wanted to tell him—lessons I yearned to teach him. He wasn’t being fair. After all, I wasn’t that old. And it wasn’t that long ago that I had been in his place. How many times had I sincerely told him about my own frustrations as a teenager? How many good scriptures had I quoted him? How often had I sat him down and given him good, sound advice from my own experience? If he would just hear me out, he would realize I knew what I was talking about. But I couldn’t get through to him because I couldn’t get him to listen to me. As he stood abruptly and prepared to leave, I called him back.“Son, why don’t you ever listen?” I asked.
For the first time during our heated exchange, he looked directly at me. His look startled me, but not nearly as much as his reply.
“Dad, all I ever do is listen to you. My question is, why don’t you ever listen to me?”At first, his question surprised and upset me. Even if I had expected him to do all the listening, was that so wrong? After all, I was his father.
As I sat there, I suddenly realized that what my son had said was true. I had been talking and preaching to him when I should have been listening. I had attempted to help him by shouting criticism from my lofty perch. My concern for him was proper, but my outward demonstration of that concern was improper.
If you feel safe you open up more otherwise you don't share anything that is personal.
Our brain works 5x faster that we can speak. So when others are speaking our brain is doing something else. What else are you thinking about? Your next response? Your brain does more than pay attention. You are planning your rebutal.
We need to ask questions to understand.
Example:
"Mom, Johnny got his tongue pierced."
"We don't do that at our house?"
We shut them down. What are they really saying?
Example:
"Mom, Johnny got his tongue pierced."
"Wow! What did you think of that?"
"It was so gross!"
"Yes it is."
When you follow this example it says you care what I think because you care enough to ask their opinion.
Question: What do you do if they say, "That is so cool!" to your question.
Answer: Ask more questions. "Do you think it would be hard to eat an apple with that in? How hard do you think it would be to talk?" Ask leading questions. You can usually bring them around to giving the lecture themselves.
2 Important parts of communication.....(1) Ask questions. (2) Listen and hear answers.
Men talk about things. Women talk about feelings. That is what they want to talk about. This is how they communicate. Ask questions that let them talk about those things and then listen to them.
Question: What if they are talking about something you don't care about?
Answer: You learn to care about it because you care about the relationship.
With children ask questions about things and feelings.
We need to teach our children to use electronic things with proper manners. We need to use their "medium" to interact with them, but don't use it exclusively. It is appropriate to text your some and tell him "good luck" if you can't be to his game.
Story: Nate, Sister Tanner's son works at the MTC. He asked someone what the most important thing is to do to prepare to go on a mission. She answered, "Study Preach My Gospel". He said that was a good idea, but the best idea would be to go to the soup kitchen and serve once a week. The reason is that you have to learn to talk to people that are not in your church circle. Ask questions to have them give you their story so they know you care about them.
At school we are given the material to learn and then given a test. We give them the answers back that we learned and get an "A" on the test. They are compliant. There is a set answer. There is no personal self incentive as missionaries. They no longer memorize the discussions. Part of the reason is that they weren't listening to the answers. They were just continuing on with their discussion and not listening. You address people differently depending on their situation. What do you see? Get outside yourself to find out what others have to say.
Share the following counsel from Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles: “Husbands and wives, learn to listen, and listen to learn from one another. . . .Taking time to talk is essential to keep lines of communication intact. If marriage is a prime relationship in life, it deserves prime time! Yet less important appointments are often given priority, leaving only leftover moments for listening to precious partners” Marriage & Family Relations Manual
The goal is to learn what other are really thinking. You can't have a premeditated idea of what they are thinking. You have to really listen.
Foundation is a safe environment.
Example: If your 17 year old son really likes a girl, will he share it? No. He will get teased. It's something that is critical to his heart right now. When we tease him the environment is not safe.
Question: How do you create safety?
Answer: Mom & Dad's bedroom was a safe zone. They could talk about anything there.
Answer: Listen without reacting to the situation.
Answer: Kids open up most when they are alone with you.
Share stories about you at their age, but be careful once they become teenagers. Don't tell them everything you did. Share experiences and what you learned from them.
Communication happens at 2 levels. You have to have both. Family level (it has to be safe with their siblings). Individual level.
Reds feel attacked with direct questions. Put it in the 3rd person. "If you were the Dad what would you do?" This validates them because you are asking for their opinion and gives them power.
When opportunities come to us as parents to have conversations with our children, we teach best by inviting them to express their thoughts and by being positive. To foster an effective learning environment, we need to listen to their points of view, their concerns, and their questions. A good rule is to apply the principle: “Ask, don’t tell.” Ask questions that begin with “How do you feel about … ?” “What is your understanding of … ?” “Why do you think … ?” or “What do you believe is the meaning of … ?” "Becoming our Children's Greatest Teacher" By Ronald KnightonReds are thinkers not feelers.
If you develop the gift of questions in their response you will find your next question. Listen to their works, but listen to their heart. They heart and words may not be saying the same things.
HOMEWORK: For 1 week practice the 2 question game. Whenever someone tells you something before you can give your opinion or answer you have to ask them 2 questions to clarify.
How often in a conversation do we change it to focus on us? You have to "one up" others. We shut the doors on communication by turning it around on us.
Listening time is not teaching time.
Experience: Spencer (16 year old) has short tendons in the back of his ankles. When he was small he would walk on his tip toes. He plays sports and has lots of pain in his feet. He went to a doctor and they told him he could stretch regularly and continuously or they could do surgery to lengthen the tendons. He is an avid and very good football player. Spencer likes to blame others. The doctor recommends stretching, but Spencer wants surgery to get it done and over with. Mom & Dad said, "We think you can receive revelation for your own body. We want you to fast and pray and get an answer. We will fast & pray with you." He did. He came back to his parents and said, "I feel like I need to have this surgery." They asked, "What helped you with this prompting?" "I had 3 different spiritual confirmations."
The parents were ok with either answer. If they had made the decision and it hadn't work he would have blamed them. They gave him a chance to own the problem and have a spiritual experience. You can stand by your kids, but don't solve the problem for them. Ask questions like..."What are the possibilities? What would happen? (Help them visualize the end)" Allow them to make wrong choices and then instead of lecturing ask questions like..."What did you learn? What do you think you would do differently?"
4 Best Talk/Listen Times:
1. Table time
- learn to communicate as a family
- It needs to be safe
- Everyone stays until we are all done eating. They are not excused.
- This is family time.
- Have a bowl full of questions on the table for everyone to draw one.
- Ask them a CTR question for the day. "Share an example of how you chose the right today."
- Ask them about a happy moment
- Share a trial and no one gets to make fun of it.
- Play the "Un-game"---Game with just questions.
- Don't eat dinner in front of the TV.
- As often as you can have family dinner time. It needs to be sacred!
- 1st 15-30 minutes after your kids walk in from school is the best time to talk. They are more eager to talk then.
- Dates---wait up for them to talk as soon as they come in the door.
- Spouse coming home from work...greet him at the door.
- Talk together more often.
- Turn off the radio & music. Have kids take off headphones.
- Ask questions.
- Just have happy talk with your kids. We do that with our friends, but with our children we do lecture talk.
- Their memory packet is what they take with them. Make sure you are in it.
- Talk them into bed don't tuck them into bed.
- It doesn't have to be long periods of time. Set a timer for 2 minutes and ask as many fast fun questions as you can. They don't get to think just answer as quickly as they can.
"I grew up in rural Salt Lake County when it was an economic necessity to care for a variety of barnyard animals. My favorite animals were sheep—prompted perhaps by the fact that sheep do not require being milked twice a day, seven days a week.I wanted our own sons to have the blessing of being shepherds to such farm animals. Our older sons were each provided with a ewe to teach them the responsibility of caring for these sheep and the lambs that would hopefully follow.
Our second son, newly turned six years of age, called me excitedly at my office one cold March morning on the phone and said, “Daddy, guess what? Esther [Esther was his mother ewe]—Esther has just had two baby lambs. Please come home and help me take care of them.” I instructed Gordon to watch the lambs carefully and make sure they received the mother’s milk and they would be fine. I was interrupted by a second phone call later in the morning with the same little voice on the other end saying, “Daddy, these lambs aren’t doing very well. They haven’t been able to get milk from the mother, and they are very cold. Please come home.”
My response likely reflected some of the distress I felt by being distracted from my busy work schedule. I responded, “Gordon, the lambs will be all right. You just watch them, and when Daddy comes home we will make sure they get mother’s milk and everything will be fine.” Again, later in the afternoon I received a third, more urgent call. Now the voice on the other end was pleading. “Daddy, you’ve got to come home now. Those lambs are lying down, and one of them looks very cold.” Despite work pressures, I now felt some real concern and tried to reassure the six-year-old owner of the mother sheep by saying, “Gordon, bring the lambs into the house. Rub them with a gunnysack to make them warm. When Daddy comes home in a little while, we will milk the mother, feed the lambs, and they will be fine.”
Two hours later I drove into the driveway of our home and was met by a boy with tear-stained eyes, carrying a dead lamb in his arms. His grief was overwhelming. Now I tried to make amends by quickly milking the mother sheep and trying to force the milk from a bottle down the throat of the now weak, surviving lamb. At this point, Gordon walked out of the room and came back with a hopeful look in his eyes. He said, “Daddy, I’ve prayed that we will be able to save this lamb, and I feel it will be all right.”
-----------------------------The sad note to this story, brethren, is that within a few minutes the second lamb was dead. Then with a look that I will remember forever, this little six-year-old boy who had lost both of his lambs looked up into his father’s face and with tears running down his cheeks said, “Daddy, if you had come home when I first called you, we could have saved them both.” "Feed My Sheep" May 1994 Ensign Richard Lindsay
Other Articles for more reading....
Can Your Children Really Talk to You? by Brad Wilcox, Ensign, Sept 1995
Listen to Learn by Elder Russell M. Nelson, Ensign, May 1991
Agency & Anger by Lynn G. Robbins, Ensign, May 1998
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