How many times we have come across an interaction between the parents and their children like “Mom! Do you know what happened…Never Mind?” or “Dad did you know my friend…shucks never mind”. Whole lot of listening embedded in that small gap between the utterances of the two phrases, slowly dying down of excitement, disappointment, and finally tiny break in the communication.

Listening as such has three components. First is hearing, which is mechanical process of gathering sound waves and transmitting to our brain. Second is the understanding of various pitches, frequencies, quality of sound received and the message conveyed.

The third most interesting component is the judgment i.e what we make out of what we have heard.

Today’s fast paced complex scenario we are aware of the first two components and react accordingly. The third component of listening is either shelved at the back of our mind or ignored or presumed without going through the process.

As parents we need to be more alert to these tiny fractions of gaps in our interaction with our children. Many issues could be resolved instantly, when ignored these small issues precipitate into complex and larger issues over a period of time.

Most of the times children only need a sounding board to test the value conflicts they face in their environment; they only want us to listen quietly when they are voicing rebellious tangent thoughts. Nine out of ten times they the youngster will come out with right solution without our prompting to choose the right path. This exercise not only builds the self confidence but also gives them the platform for sharing, caring and confiding when they realize that we are not judgmental.

The skill of listening is an art by itself. Like any other skill it needs to be honed and practiced with a conscious effort which eventually becomes a habit and merges with the personality.

Any one can master this skill with practice by following simple steps.

Focus – by maintaining eye contact
Time-  allowing the person to finish what he/she needs to say
Body language- nodding reacting positively to the speaker
Active Listening – being interactive rather being interrupting raising questions by repeating the phrases from the speech.
Quietly pondering over and taking in the essence of the conversation which include understanding multitude of things speaker expresses silently by gestures, facial expressions, intonation of the words used etc

Listening skill is not only pre requisite for parents but is essential for every one of us.

Teachers can prepare modules for listening skill by organizing number of games like memory games, illustrating thoughts, paired up activities. An enterprising teacher can come up with innovative activities to enhance listening skill.

If we look at the benefits of enhanced listening skill in the perspective of students then:

builds self confidence
improves judgment, perception and self esteem
increased clarity of thought
decreases misinterpretation
develops leadership qualities.

So shall we really… really start listening than simply hearing others?

Let us do it.

(This article is written mainly for Indian audience, based on the socio/ economic culture of the country. Examples quoted arealso pertains to this aspect)

My work in education sector for more than two decades gave an opportunity to explore every aspect of the field and helped me to experiment successfully on innovative teaching/ preparing training modules for the teachers to bring in technology into teaching. This experience made me to concur with what Albert Einstein felt about teaching the students “I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.“..
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