Effective tips to nurture active listening in your child

Similar to problem-solving, leadership and communication, listening skills are an extremely important soft skill that can be learned through activities and practice. Although it may be acquired earlier in life, however, its development and mastery takes time and a lot of patience!

Spoken language, cognitive development and learning have been seen to have interesting interconnections. The use of language and understanding how others use it, allows children to make sense of the world and their experiences.

Considering the importance of listening skills in children, American curriculum schools in Dubai incorporate learning of these essential life skills in their teaching methodologies, to allow children to learn these essential life skills.

How to listen actively

Teachers and parents can inculcate listening skills in their children and teach them to become active listeners by demonstrating how active listeners are. By modeling active listening to your child, you are acting like a standard for your child, and also you're helping the child understand the value and importance associated with listening activyley themselves.

• By maintaining eye contact
  

 Individuals who tend to maintain eye contact are considered to be reliable, warm and sociable and confident. Moreover, focusing also helps with improvement in concentration, and it enhances the ability to understand what the speaker is saying.

• By asking questions
  

By showing that you are listening and hearing correctly is to throw questions about what is being said or communicated. This helps provide clarification and also ensure that you understood what was being said.

Practice this by asking the following types of questions:

Close-ended:  questions like Have you finished your assessment? tends to prompt children to provide specific answers.

Open-ended: for example: how was your day out today? Is a question that expands the further discussion.

Reflective questions tend to expand and extend the thinking realm. for example: tell me more about your favorite subject

Leading questions encourage students to respond a certain way

For example: do you have too much homework?

• Repeat what the speaker just said
  

When you repeat what the speaker just said, it helps to make sure that you understood what they are saying. Present a gist of the whole thing and provide them a chance to correct you.

• Listen carefully to extract the total meaning
  

 All messages have two constituents; the underlying feeling and the content of the message. Both remain equally important and inculcate meaning into messages. Listen to both parts as sometimes the actual message may be conveyed by the feeling in the message.

• Do NOT interrupt
  

Let your child complete their thoughts before responding to them. Finishing sentences and interrupting, rushing them to say things or guessing what they are about to say next can limit communication between the parents and the child.

• Parents and children can practice performing different activities and playing games that can help generate an understanding of the importance of listening.
  
• Reading stories to your child and asking them what they think could happen next
  
• Cook with them and ask them to read the recipe and follow the instructions to the last dot
  
• Have conversations with your child about what interests them
  
• Create lists of questions your child can ask your or their siblings
  
• Give short instructions and ask your child to draw what they understand from your words.
  

Listening may take a lot of concentration and determination, however, practicing active listening with your child can not only help them acquire these skills early in life but can also lay a strong foundation for other connected skills they will acquire in the future.

Take away!

 Using play-based learning in kindergartens and early years, and competent teaching methodologies, teachers at the American curriculum schools in Dubai, ensure that children acquire listening skills early in life. These critical skill allow them to not only excel academically but in other aspects of life too!