The Lost Art of Listening (45 page)

morning?”

“I’m guessing there’s a good reason you never seem to get around to

doing your homework. Believe it or not, I’m really interested in how

you feel about it.”

In business dealings, responsive listening is a powerful tool for over-

coming resistance. If you want to convince somebody of something, the

best strategy is first to get him to express all the reasons he’s reluctant to.

Once you’ve heard his reservations, they no longer operate as an unspoken

barrier to hearing your ideas.

You can use the same strategy to help overcome resistance from your

kids. But do you really want to deal with your children as though strategiz-

ing to outwit an adversary? Or do you genuinely want to hear what your

kids think? And are you willing to take their ideas about what’s fair into

account?

In studying what adolescent girls value most in their relationships with

their mothers, researchers found that daughters appreciate their mothers

listening to their ideas, mothers sharing their own feelings, and relation-

ships changing as a result of give and take. Daughters were much more

willing to listen to their mothers’ suggestions after having had a chance to

express their own opinions.4

While some teenagers describe their parents as bossy, they also

describe themselves as stubborn: “We don’t like to admit that the other is

right. I go, She might be right and I may believe what she is saying, but I

won’t say it.”5

It is this readiness to resist control that responsive listening is designed

to overcome. Teenagers are more likely to cooperate with agreements that

they’ve had a hand in negotiating. But if parents aren’t really willing to

4Carol Gilligan, Nona Lyons, and Trudy Hanmer, eds.,
Making Connections: The Relational

Worlds of Adolescent Girls at Emma Willard School
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press, 1990).

5Gilligan, Lyons, and Hanmer, p. 265.

270
LISTENING IN CONTEXT

compromise, teenagers soon see “negotiations” for what they are: a sham,

just another parents’ trick for imposing their will.

“You can’t go ice skating on Sunday if you haven’t finished your home-

work for Monday.”

This isn’t a contract. There was no negotiation.

“If you want to go ice skating, what do you propose doing about your

homework?”

“I’ll do it after I come home.”

“By the time you get home from the skating rink, it’ll be time for sup-

per.”

“Okay. How about if I finish all my homework before we go skating.

Then can I go?”

“Sure, that’s fine.”

Why go to all the trouble to come up with such an obvious solution?

Because the child came up with it. If the parent had imposed it, the teen-

ager would feel resentful and be less motivated to live up to it.

When discussions turn into quarrels, the parent who uses responsive

listening is way ahead of the game. But knowing when to switch from

negotiating to just listening—and remaining cool enough to do so—can

be extremely difficult. A better strategy is to be proactive instead of reac-

tive. Instead of waiting for disagreements to crop up, parents can circum-

vent a lot of arguments by initiating discussions about family rules before

they become problems.

Set aside time to be with your children and encourage them to bring

up requests and complaints. This kind of initiation produces a whole dif-

ferent atmosphere.

Avoiding Battles for Control

It’s often said that today’s children don’t respect authority. They argue

with their parents and speak rudely to their teachers. Who teaches chil-

dren to argue? Adults who get into needless battles for control.

Listening to Children and Teenagers
271

“I’m Not a Morning Person.”

1.
Dog whistle
: a high- pitched instrument that human beings can’t hear.

2.
Alarm clock
: a medium- pitched instrument that teenagers can’t hear.

3.
Parents
: see definition #2.

“You’re Right.”

Most people understand that adolescent rebellion is normal, but as adults

we tend to interpret children’s experience primarily in relation to our-

selves. Parents who think of their teenagers as “defiant” confuse autono-

mous strivings with stubbornness. Most teenagers are strong- willed, not

oppositional. They struggle not to defy their parents but to gain respect

and freedom. How far they carry that struggle, how extreme their behav-

ior, is determined largely by how tenaciously parents resist recognizing

their voice in an effort to retain control.

Too many parents are afraid to say “You’re right.” They’re afraid that

letting their children be right makes them wrong and afraid that letting the

children win means that the parents will lose. In fact, the opposite is true.

A girl who can’t win control of how to dress for school may seek to

express herself by putting on dramatic makeup after she leaves the house.

If she can’t win that battle, she may escalate the conflict further, deliber-

ately coming home late or getting into shouting matches with her mother.

Or she may defy her parents by smoking cigarettes or shoplifting or experi-

menting with drugs. Reckless experiments, chancy relationships—all for

the honor of proving she has some say in her life. Wouldn’t it be easier to

give it to her?

What makes responsive listening with teenagers hard

is that they are no longer grateful just to have

their feelings acknowledged. Now they expect

their opinions to be considered.

A frequent complaint of teenagers is that their parents don’t listen

to them. Teenagers are exquisitely sensitive to disrespect; they want to be

272
LISTENING IN CONTEXT

treated like people with a right to their opinions. Often without realiz-

ing, parents provoke adolescents by talking to them from the same one-up

position they used when the children were small. The “rude” response is

a protest against what feels like a put-down. Parents can avoid escalating

arguments into power struggles by tolerating their children’s right to say

whatever they think, even if it means using language parents don’t like.

Don’t Take the Bait

How do you avoid being provoked by a teenager’s cracks? The same way a

fish avoids getting hooked. By not rising to the bait.

Not rising to the bait is, of course, easier said than done when you’re

dealing with virtuosos of the put-down. It’s a skill teenagers develop spar-

ring with their friends, where they learn to protect themselves by cutting

other people down to size. But when teenagers use mockery with their

parents, they don’t always say what they mean.

What They Say

Translation

“Whatever—.”

“That’s stupid and I wish you’d drop it.”

“Chill out.”

“Don’t get so upset; you’re acting like a fool.”

“Okay, Mom.”

Politer version of “whatever,” meaning, basically,

“Leave me alone.”

“Yeah, sure, Dad.”

“That’s ridiculous, and you’re an idiot.”

Sarcastic look

“You are beneath contempt. But I don’t dare tell

you what I think.”

It’s hard to defend yourself against these zingers because they rarely cross

the double line. Why don’t teenagers say what they mean? Because they’re

afraid of how their parents will respond.

What do you do when your teenager gets snotty with you? You can

counterattack, you can walk away, or you can talk about it.6 The most

direct thing you say when somebody hurts you is “That hurts.” But remem-

6I favor strategy number two. When somebody hurts my feelings, I walk away. I get very

quiet, and I stay that way for two or three days. This strategy, technically known as pouting,

must be a good one because I learned it back in the good old days, when I was about four.

Listening to Children and Teenagers
273

ber, you’re the parent. You can do more than avoid fighting back. You can

use responsive listening to find out what’s behind your teenager’s sarcastic

comments.

“Do you feel I’ve been unfair?”

“What do I do that makes you feel like treating me like that?”

You’ll have to convince your child that you’re really willing to hear

the answer to such questions. Parents who are willing to listen to their

children even when it’s hard are better able to handle the inevitable bat-

tles with their teenagers.

Recognizing Their Need to Break Away

A major reason for lack of communication between teenagers and parents

is the parents’ failure to accept the inevitable: if children are to grow up,

they must break away from the older generation. It’s a teenager’s job to

criticize his parents. The same children who once looked up to Mommy

and Daddy as giants who can do no wrong now look down on them as old

fogies who can do nothing right. This disdainful attitude is a natural stage

in the evolution of the family and the development of the self. It’s a neces-

sary part of becoming your own person.

It may not be pleasant to hear teenagers criticizing everything and

everybody, but it’s part of the process of building self- esteem. Parents who

criticize their children for being critical are fighting fire with gasoline.

The more inflexible parents are, the more defiant teenagers will be.

Too many put-downs wear away at children’s self- esteem and prompt

them to reject their parents. Some people are so ashamed of their parents

that they spend their whole lives trying not to be like them. They’re so

busy
not being
their parents that there’s no room left for them to be them-

selves.

In the process of looking for new models of how to be, teenagers often

glom onto someone outside the family—it can be almost anyone, just as

long as he or she is different, and perhaps more willing than the parents

to take the child seriously. When this happens, their ability to hear their

parents is compromised, though they may have a fairness channel that

274
LISTENING IN CONTEXT

remains open. If a parent can listen calmly and demonstrate openness to

what a teenager is trying to say, but the child doesn’t reciprocate, the par-

ent can say, “You’re not being fair to me.” The child may then listen. Teen-

agers respect fairness, especially if it is reciprocal.

Breaking Out of Mutual Antagonism

One reason parents and teenagers have trouble getting through to each

other is that each side hears the other only as objects in relation to them-

selves. When teenagers, who want respect and freedom, come to expect

only criticism and control, they shut their ears to what their parents are

trying to say and respond reflexively with either resistance or passive com-

pliance. It’s not just the interactions between parents and children that

result in conflict; it’s the way they interpret those interactions.

“I’m sorry I yelled at her, but she has absolutely no respect for anything

I say.”

“Okay, I lied. But my parents never let me do anything.”

When parents come to think of their teenagers as “defiant,” they

develop tunnel vision, which leads them to notice and remember only

those events that fit the Defiant Teenager story line. Thus, a father who

comes to see his son as “selfish” and “irresponsible” will remember the

times his son didn’t do his chores or was caught drinking beer and tend to

forget the times when his son volunteered to mow the lawn or helped cook

supper. Each of the son’s transgressions confirms the father’s story line that

his son doesn’t really live up to his responsibilities. The son, in turn, may

be acutely aware of the times his father refuses to give him a ride to the

mall or let him go to a party with his friends. Thus, he gradually develops

a narrative around never being able to satisfy his father, which makes him

give up caring what his father thinks. Both father and son remain stuck in

a cycle, not simply of control and defiance but, more specifically, of notic-

ing only incidents of control or defiance.

Such closed and rigid narratives make parents and teenagers reactive

to each other and quick to argue.

Listening to Children and Teenagers
275

Marcia’s fifteen-year-old son Jonathan wanted to spend the night at

the home of a friend whom the parents haven’t met.

“I don’t want you sleeping over at someone’s house that we don’t

know. You should know better than to ask.” Marcia defended her decision

with indignation, as though her son’s request was another example of his

selfish disregard for any reasonable set of expectations.

Jonathan’s face reddened. He’d been ready for a fight, and sure enough,

here it was. “Why not!” he demanded. “I’ll bring him over here after school,

so that you can meet him if that’s so important to you.” It didn’t matter

what Marcia said in response. Whatever reasons his mother gave, Jonathan

was prepared to shoot down.