Learning to REALLY Listen

[IndependntLogic]

My daughter has become a beautiful teen ager. Ugh. She has a boyfriend
who looks like Tom Cruise when he was in "Risky Business". Double Ugh.
But the kid is completely respectful and well-mannered and he's also
willing to deal with a dad who won't let those two have more than 30
seconds together unless it's daytime or we're with them. So okay, her
facebook status is "in a relationship". Ugh.

So I started a blog of common sense guidelines for relationships.
She's coming to the age where learning to avoid some of the (millions
of) mistakes I made, might be a good thing. I thought I'd just share
the latest post with you guys. Just something a little light and off
the norm of complaining about politics. What the heck, why not?


Too many conversations are an exercise in one of two things:
1. People waiting for the other person to finish speaking so they can
what THEY want to say.
2. People half-listening (or less) to the other person,while they are
really giving most of their to something else. Here it is from


Shelton's Rules On Relationships


Learn to REALLY Listen


Many of us have lost our ability to really communicate. Communication
isn't expressing your thoughts or ideas to others. It's exchanging
thoughts and ideas with others. If you don't give them your full
attention, why should they give you theirs?
Once upon a time, I was as guilty of this as anyone. If my wife or
daughter talked to me during a football game or episode of my favorite
show, if they shared ideas with me while I was on my computer, I "sort
of" paid attention to them. Ironically, I would later get upset if
they did the same to me while watching their programs or texting.
So being of the belief that change starts with me, I developed a new
habit. When either of them starts talking to me, I simply pause my
program or turn my face completely away from the computer. What's
funny is that at first, they thought I was getting frustrated or felt
like they were somehow "interrupting" what was going on in my life at
the moment. But it's your friends, lovers and family that are life -
the tv, phone and computer are the interruptions. When you're old, you
will probably never say "If only I'd watched a little more tv or sent
one more text, instead of paying attention to the person I loved!". So
everything is set aside for a moment. If I can't stop because I'm
working, I let them know how long it will be, before I can give them
my full attention. This is far better than trying to do both things at
once because if you want someone to feel unloved, ignore them. They
know that when I'm listening, I'm really listening. I'm looking at
them, nodding and giving feedback (but not dominating the
conversation).
So when my daughter gets home from school, she goes into her room,
sets down her things and comes into the living room, fully expecting
the tv to be off and the computer set aside. She loves sharing all the
details of her day with Maria and me and we love hearing about them.
Funny thing about that. Now when I talk to my daughter, she sets her
phone aside and maintains eye contact.

 

[Zoom-boing]

I had to take a class in college called 'Leadership and Supervisor Skills' and the first lesson was how to be an effective listener. Paying attention and hearing what the other person is saying, rather than doing something else, thinking about your response or interrupting the other person to ask questions, all which make for a poor listener. I'm the worst at the last one . . .I'm always getting flak from my oldest for it too.

Two ears, one mouth. We should listen twice as much as we talk.