Listening Skills

Hi, Theresa:

Have conversations. When they talk, respond in a way they know you
listened to what they say..

When you talk, see if they respond in a way that they have listened to what you have said..

Good job.
D.

Three steps:
-get down on their level
-make sure they are looking you in the eye
-have them repeat what you said
Basic rule of thumb, the younger the child, the shorter you should make your request. Keep it specific, instead of saying "clean up this mess" say "I need you to put the trains back in the train box."
This works on husbands too ;)

Be a good listener yourself.

That usually means acknowledging other's statements and emotions.

You can have them repeat what you said, you can also have them look at you while you talk, which certainly doesn't guarantee that they are listening but it increases your chances! ;) You can have your 7 y/o start to summarize what you said in his own words (so like not repeating back exactly what/how you said), that will enhance both listening and reading comprehension.

I feel like the term "listening" is sort of misused, because people say their kids aren't listening when their behavior consists of ignoring. We assume our kids are always listening (I mean,OK, sometimes they're genuinely distracted or our of ear shot so we'll have to repeat ourselves) but other than that, all you can do is enforce discipline if they refuse to respond to you so they learn to respond naturally and never ignore.

Unless you mean remembering lessons a teacher is teaching? That takes practice, focus and maturity. I usually give little questions about a story after reading a book to make sure they understood what the story was about. Or I ask them questions about stuff we're doing so they have to remember details. It does make them pay attention more.

As far as actual listening skills go, kids will vary a great deal, from day to day and from child to child. In my high school when I was working as a teacher's aide, there were Effective Listening classes that taught a few basic skills, many based on how to organize incoming information. But in my observation, kids who were already good listeners took that class for an easy grade, and students who would have benefited most because they were disorganized and inattentive stayed away.

If you are talking about your kids listening well to you, you'll get expert advice on this from the outstanding little book, How to Talk So Kids Will Listen, and Listen So Kids Will Talk, by Faber and Mazlish. Not only how to get your kids to listen to you, but to model how to do it with attention and respect for them. This is one of the all-time best parenting resources!

make sure you say look at me and make sure you are eye level. once you do that say what you need to say and then ask did you understand what I told you. This is good for the four year old. The other child say to them the same thing but you not have to look them right in the eye but make sure they are not preocupied doing something else.

Listening skills or cooperating skills? to improve listening skills and help them do better in school read to them a lot and ask them to talk about the books, the younger one could show you his favorite page and you could help him talk about why he likes that page. the older one should be able to model talking about books. Give two (or three) step directions not just one at a time. Play games where they have to follow directions. Headbandz is a Great game with questions and answers. (Cooperating is different skill)

If it's me telling them stuff that they need to do (ex. put away your laundry, straighten up your room and read for 30 mins), then I make them repeat it back to me - what are you going to do.
In general conversations, I just throw out reminders to them when they aren't being good listeners - did you hear what I said? Well I couldn't tell because you were staring at the TV!!!!