By Mr. Alex Yuen, Mental Health & Psychosocial Support Technical Advisor
“Shall we talk?” It is believed that rather than falling silent with each other, many parents wish to understand and guide their children. In fact, listening not only helps to solve problems but also has a healing effect as a soothing remedy. During listening, if children can vent their hidden emotions, it can have a curing effect, which is also a common technique used by psychotherapists. Parents can use a basic approach, along with three listening techniques, to help their children open up.
Build up mutual trust to be children’s bosom friends
A strong and trusting parent-child relationship enables parents to be the ones to confide to when their children have worries. However, it takes effort to be children’s bosom friends. In daily life, parents can spend 15 minutes to create quality time with their children. What counts as quality parent-child time? It means accompanying family members with undivided attention, playing together or sharing their day’s experiences and feelings. Parents are advised to encourage and understand children more, while monitor, criticise and lecture less. To make it a habit, you can start with this practice once a week, gradually increasing to three to four times a week.
A trusting parent-child relationship is built through everyday interactions. When children are preoccupied with worries, an intimate parent-child relationship becomes particularly important. If children’s worries involve adults, they may intuitively distrust the parents as well. However, a strong and trusting parent-child relationship can provide children with a safe space to open up to their parents.
Listening Tip #1: Parents Should First Calm Down
When parents know that their children face distress, hey naturally want to quickly understand the situation and solve the problem. However, parents should also consider their children’s emotions. When parents are emotionally charged, not only will they be prone to reckless decision-making or inappropriate speech, but their children will also become nervous, and not dare to say what comes deep in their hearts.
Listening Tip #2: Active Listening
Active listening is one of the critical techniques for listening to your children’s inner voice. In a nutshell, active listening consists of the following, which parents can adapt based on their children’s age.
- Fully engaged: Concentrate and listen to your child with all your heart.
- Eye contact: Maintain eye contact with your child, avoiding distractions.
- Avoid interrupting: Patiently let the children finish their words without interruption.
- Responding to clips or emotions: Summarise your child’s sharing as a response.
For most parents, it is the most challenging to give an effective response. The simplest way is to repeat what your children have told you and then add emotional descriptions of what they experienced. For example, if your children tell you that they are excluded by peers at school, you can respond simply, “I know that because you trust me to tell me this. You must have been distressed from being excluded by your classmates.” Parents should avoid adding other comments or leading questions during the conversation.
Listening Tip #3: Avoid assuming children at fault
The most common reason for children’s reluctance to confide in parents is that when children talk about their inner thoughts, parents respond by pointing out the fault of the children. Therefore, when listening and responding, parents should avoid assuming that the children are at fault. Parents should only deal with the matter of right and wrong after addressing the children’s emotions.
By following these three tips, it is believed that children are more likely to share their concerns with their parents. Parents can also use similar techniques in conversations with other people to gauge opinions from different perspectives before drawing conclusions. In case of emergencies, parents should seek professional help as soon as possible.