6 Tips to Improve your Child's Listening Skills

Every child has heard the phrase 'This is what you are supposed to do' following a long list of things that adults expect you to do. Children are always given advice and suggestions, by the elders with a hope that they will be following.

The thing about most youngsters is that they don't want to be told what they should be doing. Call it a generation gap, a youth phenomena or whatever you want to term it as. But you can't deny that adolescents generally tend to totally ignore what adults tell them.

Why is Listening Important?

The act of listening is important because it affects learning skills. Children learn a lot from parents. Listening to parents thus helps them understand the world in a wider perspective. At the same time, in terms of education, the child requires moral support and in early years, a lot of help from the parents and teachers.

If the child develops a dislike towards every time adults tell him or her to do something, it might develop into anti-social behavior in future.

Well now that we have established that, let's move forward to the part where there is a solution to this problem. Most parents and teachers, tend to make sure that their wards understand why they want them to do certain things, and try to be as nice as possible.

But sometimes in the heat of the moment, one might sound a bit too harsh, which in turn attracts the rebel mode from the children. The usual, ' you don't let me do anything.' 'I can take of myself.' and plenty more.

Telling the students to not do something, will only make them want to do it more.

So here are few tips that you can try out to make sure they pay attention to what you say:

Hear them out

The first thing you've got to do is Practice what you Preach. If you expect them to listen to you, every time you have something important, you need to listen to them as well. Adults can be ignorant when they aren't interested.They tend to push the kids away when the latter have something to tell them. But when kids do the same, adults tend to get angry. You can see from where they learn these avoiding tactics?

Start early, and hear them out with you whole heart.

Importance Of Learning In The First Five Years Of A Child

Keep Calm and Carry On

You might think that this might not work but try it. The next time your kid throws a tantrum and doesn't listen to one thing that you have to say, rather than acting up, stay calm. Kids don't understand the concept of being mature about things because they aren't. But as an adult, a parent or a teacher can be mature. So when a kid makes a fuss, rather than scolding them finish the important work and then calmly tell them that they can't throw tantrums every time.
Work with them to come out with solutions.

Settle into their tiny shoes

Don't actually go wear their tiny shoes! But start looking at things from their perspective. As adults, we forget how difficult things can be for a kid. Years of being an adult takes the child in us far away and we don't understand the tiny tots. Try understanding things of everyday life from their point of view. You may come up with better ways to make them understand things.

Now get their Attention!

Don't shout random words at them and expect them to understand and follow. Get to their level and talk about things that will make sure that all their focus is on you. Once you are sure that they are carefully listening, break the ice and talk about what you have been wanting to tell them. This builds the relationship and the child will begin to understand how to talk things out.

Keep up a routine

Many parents try this and only a few succeed. Keeping routines can be helpful in a long term, as the parent doesn't have to run behind the child every time there is a 'wet towel on the bed cover' situation. If routines set in early, more than half of the things that a parent has to nag the kids about can be avoided. The child will follow the routine without any tantrums and things will be easier.

Tips to help ease your child's transition to adulthood

The unspoken boundaries

A parent-child relationship is one of the purest and private relations. No one has any right to tell you how you should bring your child up. But some things are better said than just left unspoken. Everyone knows how pampering can turn out to be a huge problem. Loving someone to the core is different from spoiling them. Pampering results in:

• Disrespectful Attitude to others
• Over-dominating behavior
• Being too dependent on others
• Have insecurity issues when they have no one around

Every child deserves utmost love. But every child needs to be taught about certain limitations. In terms of listening, they might listen to you for short term period, when you offer them a gift. But in long term, they will expect a gift every time you want them to listen to you.

How to Teach Kids to Learn From Their Mistakes?

Parents should have a healthy relationship with their children, and for that, mutual listening is important. Under authoritative parenthood, children won't develop their own opinion, and if given utmost freedom, they might never listen at all. Parents need to find a balance somewhere in between.

It might be quite a bit work, but that's the beauty of having children.

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