How to improve the listening skills in your child?
I've been a teacher, and it is very common that I get to hear one major complaint, "My child just doesn't listen to me!"
Let me tell you, if you want them to listen to you, they seldom will. Get them to listen to you, and they always will!
Yes, it is very important that your children develop good listening comprehension skills. And it is important that we, as parents, help them develop it.
Listening comprehension
Listening comprehension is an individual's ability to process the meaning of the words he/she listens and understand it by finding some relevance to it. For instance, if your child listens to a great story, he/she will be able to remember it, understand it and even retell the story in their own way. It is one of the essential skills that need to be developed because good listeners are the ones that become good communicators.
What can poor listening skills do?
Kids would find it hard to discriminate between what is said and what is meant?
There could be a negative impact on the social abilities of the child
Children may find difficulty in reading
There could be a delay in communication development through language
How can we help improve the listening skills of our children?
Do we adults listen well? Even we have issues listening properly sometimes. So there's no point expecting our children to just listen to everything efficiently. What we could rather do is help our children become better listeners. Here are a few ways you can do it;
You can ask your child to repeat what you've told them, after giving them the instructions.
You and your family can sit with the child and listen to audio stories together.
You could inculcate the habit of listening and following the instructions by playing games.
You can read stories to your child by asking them every once in a while about what could possibly happen later. This keeps them hooked on to the story.
Be patient when your child doesn't listen to you and ends up doing something else. You need to give them chances so that they learn from their mistakes.
What happens when children become good listeners?
They prepare themselves to listen to more content through valuable conversations
They focus on what is being told and what it means
They listen to the ideas behind the words
They learn making better eye contact
They become better at understanding non- verbal communication too!
All in all, we got to be supportive of our children on their journey to become better listeners. While it is easy to complain how the child doesn't listen, it is essential that we do our part of the job by helping our children grow up to be very good listeners. Do you wish to learn more powerful tools of communication between you and your child? Sign up for our A+ Parents workshop wherein we discuss extensively on effective communication!
