Listening is one of the most influential things you could do. We might think that listening is too passive to possibly have an influence. Most of the time, however, no one cares to be swayed by someone they feel doesn't understand them. Dr. Tim Thayne gives some practical tips on how to listen to your teen. Some of them include going into the conversation being willing to have your mind changed.
Challenge: Prioritize listening. Let go of the need to control the conversation. At the end of the day ask yourself how you did.
Listening is one of the most influential things you could do. We might think that listening is too passive to possibly have an influence. Most of the time, however, no one cares to be swayed by someone they feel doesn't understand them. Dr. Tim Thayne gives some practical tips on how to listen to your teen. Some of them include going into the conversation being willing to have your mind changed.
Challenge: Prioritize listening. Let go of the need to control the conversation. At the end of the day ask yourself how you did.
There are as many ways to parent as there are parents in this world. But there is one way to parent that wins every time. And that's doing it intentionally. This show is about helping things go right before they can go wrong. Each episode is chosen to help parents like you, who may be overwhelmed or uninspired, find the ideas and motivation to give their best efforts to the people and place that matters the most. I'm Dr. Tim, Thayne, author of the book and host of the podcast, not by chance, I believe that a family's success and happiness is not by chance. So welcome to the podcast built especially for intentional families. Let's jump in. Hi, everyone, this is the next episode on how to become your teens greatest or biggest influencer. This is a series of topics that we've covered, we started out with talking about our example, the power of our example, and how that can ultimately influence our team, we kind of back stepped a little bit and went to values because really values is fundamental and foundational to what we're trying to teach and what the direction we're actually trying to influence in. So we have to be clear about that. Well, today, I'm really excited about this topic, because what I'm going to share with you is one of those life hacks, you know, when I think about how do you get further with maybe fewer things you're trying to focus on, what I'm going to share with you today, I think is one of the biggest life hacks when it comes to relationships that that I could ever share. As a therapist, when I was first learning to be a therapist back at Brigham and young, back at Brigham Young University, I was so worried about the model and you know, following you know, clearly the strategies and steps that you might think of as family therapy. It wasn't too long, though, before I realized that if I can simply facilitate real effective communication between two people in the room, a parent, a child, you know, to two people in in love to people who are married, if I can facilitate good communication, then that was going to be a successful session. And I even broke it down further than that later on, I started to realize that the most important part of communication is actually one side of the communication part that we usually pay the least amount of attention to, and that is listening. But you can go deep onto this subject, because there, there's so many different things we could cover around this idea of, of listening. But I want to get to kind of the heart of this. Today in this podcast, I want to share with you how through listening, and I'm going to redefine and reframe what listening really is for you today, how through that process, you can gain influence in those relationships that you care the most about. And the great thing about listening, by the way, it's completely within our circle of influence has nothing to do with what other people are doing, has nothing to do with needing someone to cooperate with us like a teenager. It's simply becoming self aware, and less self interested. So let's jump in to this topic that I think is actually like magic, if we if we do it right. There are people in our lives that have big influence on us. These are generally people who care about us. These are people who, who can put themselves aside and focus on us and I want you to think in your own life. Who is that person that first comes to mind when you think of somebody that is an amazing listener, you know, someone who puts their own ego aside and really wants to just understand they really want to seek to understand more than anything else. And I can tell you that that person if that's core to who they are, they have impacted the lives of many, many people because it's in their nature to actually care. So you can think about listening as a technique as a skill and at the superficial level. It is and you can act your way into becoming a better listener over time. And because you'll start see boy when I shut up and listen and don't say stuff, I get more information. That might just be a technique. I can close my mouth and listen. But But it goes far deeper. than that, but that's the beginning point, you might say, Okay, this does work, I'm gonna go ahead and do more of this. So let's go a little bit deeper than that. I've talked about this particular friend in the past, she is a gifted listener. But if you ask people who know her, what is it about her that that you think is at the heart of this feeling like you're the center of the world when you're around her. And what they would say is that she expresses her feelings of care for everybody, through just beings truly interested in them, and curious about them. I've had conversations with her and other people like her that after, you know, 20 minutes, I realize I've been doing all the talking. And I feel like that is offset, you know, it's off centered, I need to now move into the listeners mode. Think about that for a second. If we can help our teen communicate and start to talk to us. And they see us as completely open to what they're saying that we're willing to be influenced by what they have to say, and we're eager to hear it, they are going to share that first layer of the onion with us. And then if we will continue to listen and not have to jump in with direction or instruction, then they will go to the second layer of the onion. And they'll share that information. And if you continue to listen and do a good job and be influenced and be curious, it's very likely they might go to the third layer of the onion. And these are really important conversations that we can have not everyone needs to not every conversation needs to go to the third level or the fourth level. But even being heard on the level first level, in a way that I'm talking about here is a feeling that this person cares for me. Another important piece of this is that we need to enter into a conversation, wanting to be changed by the conversation wanting to be influenced by the person across from us. Now that is a very vulnerable place to be. And I think that's why most of us don't really listen very well is because we want to protect our way of thinking we want to be the right person. And we want to have the right point of view. And so it's difficult for us to let go of all of that, and almost be a leaf in the stream and be guided by this other person. It is the ultimate kind of trust, you know, you think about a trust fall, for example, and where you, you I've got a little granddaughter all live who has learned the trust fall, her parents will stand she'll kind of almost instinctively that she's close to him, sometimes she'll say trust fall, and she'll fall back. And it's almost too trusting in our case, because she has never been dropped by her parents. And so she's she's ready to do that. Listening is, is similar to this in the sense that you say I am going to let go and allow your feelings, your thoughts, your wants, your perspective, to actually take have a place in my heart and in my mind. And that could change the way I see the world or the way I see you. It could make me realize that I'm the guilty party or I'm the one that is holding this relationship back or I'm the one that is holding a grudge. And so it's a it's a really challenging thing to do. We think it's just, you know, close our mouth and don't talk and and try and follow what they're saying. No, it goes deeper than that. It really is to be willing to be changed by the other person. It is essentially subordinating our own egos, our own wants our own wishes, and elevating the ideas and thoughts and the interest of the other person. You might think we shouldn't do that. Because what if we're in a situation where we really need to command and control the situation? Well, hopefully you'll you'll discern that if that's the case. But in most relationships, this is really all we need. Many years ago when we had young children, my wife Roxanne, she wanted to do a family home evening where we gathered together once a week as a family and we talk about different topics. And to this day, this particular lesson that she taught to me stands out among so many of the others and she was talking about the skill of listening and she wanted to demonstrate for our kids, good listening. And she actually made these big ears out of paper. And she stuck them on her on her heads here. So she had these massive ears. And she basically would ask them a question and then give them the eye contact and nod and affirm along the way, but just to completely let them talk and listen. And it was just fun, even at their age where they're demonstrating, listening, my wife was just how animated and happy our kids were, as they had the full attention of their mother. If you're a parent, have you ever had the experience of your child, taking your face in their hands and turning it to you and getting eye contact with you? That is quite the wake up call, isn't it? They're basically saying, You're not listening to me. So look at me, hear me, see me, all of that. So they're teaching us how to listen, even a little child knows what the elements of good listening are. You might be in a situation right now, where you and your team are just not getting along, that there's a lot of conflict, there's a lot of mistrust. And maybe they've stopped talking, it can get so bad that there's a complete cut off in the relationship. My suggestion to you is, don't be discouraged by that. This is really one of the most important ways that you can begin to reconnect with your teen. Look for every opportunity you can to be an amazing listener. Someone that's intuitive, you know, paying attention to the nonverbal signals that you're getting, attending to their the things they're saying, not a not not hijacking the conversation, not using that as an opportunity to lecture or do anything of the sort, look at it as an opportunity to express your love to them through hearing them. Now, this might just be incremental, little things that you can do at first. But I believe almost in every case, if you start with that you're projecting this love that ultimately, we'll break down the barriers to the communication that that has been missing. I want to give you a few tips to try here. First of all, I hope I have convinced you that to develop this skill of listening and the heart to listen in the right way, could be potentially the most important thing you can do in all of your relationships, I think it probably is. So if I've convinced you to do that, you might be saying, so how do I do it? How do I What are the steps I need to take and I want to give you a few tips on this. It's always good to start with education. You know, go and read some things on listening and the power of listening, you know, intellectually, start to convince yourself more and more and more that you need to be a good listener. Most of us think about the other side of the communication, as I mentioned earlier, where we think about how do I convey what I'm trying to say better, I can tell you that just by being a good listener, I really feel like that side of the communication process. If we understood the power of that, we would jump to that part. years ago, there was a communication model that was put out there by the Millers was their last name Shirat. And Phyllis Miller, I think were their names. And they called it a couple of communication or core communication. And what they did is they literally had two mats, one mat was the speaker's man, or it was the awareness will. And it had all these different parts to a person's awareness, everything from past history. So facts of the past thoughts, feelings, actions, and once and there would be there was a centerpiece that said the issue. So essentially, as a therapist, I would get a couple to get on these two mats. The other one was the speaker's mat. And it basically gave a few steps to good listening more of the skill side of of listening. What was great about these mats is that once you put one one of them on the listener side, they had to try and play that role. It was like being very intentional about okay, I'm a listener right now, I'm not, I'm not going to be able to speak and tell I change mats with my partner here. And then I can become the speaker. So whether you have a mat or if you just simply say I'm going to go into this conversation, and I'm going to listen first and I'm going to listen as long as it takes for them to truly feel understood. If you can do that then essentially in your mind you're stepping on that listeners mat and you're not going to get off and tell you have heard from that other person, either visually, you can see they feel this relaxation come over them or they smile, or they nod their head when you say is, Do I understand you correctly and you share back what you understand, you're not going to leave the listeners mat until you get to that point. The interesting thing about what I'm asking you to do is don't worry about the speaker's Matt right now, don't worry about going over there. Spend as much time as you can on listener side of that interaction with that person that you're concerned about. Another suggestion I would have is put on your daily calendar. Find someone today to listen deeply to, to the point where they know that you care. And it doesn't matter. It could be a stranger, it could be someone in your own home, it could be somebody at work. But if you'll do that, you will start to be convinced now not just intellectually like this makes a lot of sense. But you'll be able to see the power of being a good listener. I believe it is the closest thing you can do that without maybe more obvious things that we think of when we think about love, but it's it's one of the closest things you can do to actually show someone that you love and you care for them. A guy by the name of David OS Berger said something I think is incredibly profound. He said that being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable. For the last tip, I want you to evaluate after a an important interaction with one of your children, I want you to evaluate the level of your listening. If you think about it, there are superficial levels. There's there's the deeper level. So you could say I was quiet. But really my mind was on what I wanted to speak about. So that's that's a low level of listening better than nothing, right? Another level might be somewhere in the middle of where I was quiet. And I came up with some good questions to ask. But they weren't really they were leading questions, for example, instead of actually just letting the next question be a natural outflow of being truly interested. And obviously, the top part of that is I have let go of my agenda, to try and get them to do something or think something. And I've truly just listened and my heart was changed as a result. If you can do that, once a day, you are putting the most important thing in place in the relationship. And that is love. And that is a feeling that this person loves me and cares for me. Before I end this podcast, I want to talk about a few of the obstacles to good listening. We've all been there, we can have good intentions. But then strong emotions come along. And I think this is probably one of the biggest obstacles, strong emotions come along and derail our ability to be open hearted. It's important that before you take on any real important conversation, that you that you'd be focused, that you have your heart open, and that you're not distracted by things, other things. And so you got your complete attention. For that moment. If you set the stage for success, I can tell you that your listening experiences, your experiences and communication, your side of the equation, you will be able to score high on on the listening side. So any of these things can really be the cause for poor listening on our side, we could be distracted, that's a big problem. We could be emotionally charged in some negative way that that could be an issue. Or we just might be tired. That's another one where maybe our energy is so low that it's just not a good time to, to take on a difficult conversation. When I think over the years of times that I have regrets as a parent, maybe things I've said that I regret, almost without exception, if I would have had as my primary goal, to seek to truly understand the thoughts, feelings and wants of the child, before I move forward with anything else, and made sure that my heart was right. Those regrets would have been avoided. When I talk about regrets, you know, I still have some of the very recent wasn't that long ago, my youngest son was home. And I have to say that we neither one of us were listening to each other very well. And we were in a vicious cycle of not listening. And there wasn't a lot of listening going on. Before he went on his mission though. And I have to give him a lot of the credit because he began to shift and change and he actually started to listen to me more and I remember looking at my wife a couple of times when he was listening and I'm like Wow, this is this is this feels different. So immediately, the ice around the relationship was started to melt as he started to listen to me. I'd like to say that I was part of this I'm not sure I really was though. But he he made those steps and definitely felt that start to change before he left. This positive relationship continues to grow while he's on his mission right now, because we get to see him through video once a week. And he is so eager to hear what's going on with you. You know, what's, what's the latest. And a lot of times it's on the more superficial day to day things he's wondering about. But even at that level, there is a real warming and appreciation that's starting to happen between us. And it's a wonderful thing. All right, so here's the challenge. I've asked you to prioritize listening as you want to be an influencer in your teens life, it's almost counter, isn't it, where you think I want to influence them that feels active, that feels like you're trying to get them to do something, it's actually the very opposite of that, where we're letting go of the need to control or to be the one that's doing all the talking. So, so I promise you that if you'll you'll really buy into this idea that listening is the most important thing you can do to become the number one influencer of your team, that you are going to see yourself make progress in this relationship. decide that you're going to do it every day, decide that this is going to be the most important thing on your agenda, because relationships are the most important thing on your agenda. And then at the end of the day, ask yourself how you did with listening in some key areas. Listening, by the way, because it is there's so much we need to do internally to set our own egos aside and our own desires and all of that. It takes a lot of self management and in an insight into what's going on inside us to be a good listener. So in other words, you can't just default into good listening unless you become great at this, like my friend I mentioned at the beginning, you need to ennemi all of us need to make this a daily process where we get better and better and better at this. And we'll start to see the results of that. It will be so convincing that that will want to keep it up. So that's my challenge to you. And I would love to hear about your experiences in changing the way you're listening and how you're seeing that start to to create a platform for you and relationship for you where you can have true influence. Parents, your time is valuable and I'm grateful you spent some of it with us. What you're intentionally doing in your home life is inspiring and unmatched in its importance and long term effects. Ask yourself, What am I going to do because of what I've learned today?