Are you using your listening ears???

Ever since K and I became a family and he started learning English, I have been trying to stress to him the importance of listening to people and following directions.  As I have been learning through this process—that’s a tough gig for a toddler.  Not only that, it’s a tough gig for a new mom!!! Listening isn’t something that is innate.  It’s truly a learned experience.  I don’t know that it’s even something that he enjoys, much less that he can really comprehend.  He has his own thoughts and opinions about how things should be done and when I ask him if he’s listening to me, many times, I get the blanket response, “I a good listener Mama!”  For those of you who have spent any time with me over the last year, you know that my mental response is QUITE different from my actual verbal response to him—but that is an entirely different post all together!!!

I have read books, articles, blogs and essays about this subject.  I have also talked to my friends/coworkers/my mom’s group and even strangers I have met at the park, McDonalds, and Chuck-E-Cheese who have/had toddlers. Somebody help a sista out!  What I have discovered is one thing: it is comforting to know that I am not alone.

So here we are, full circle to a moment in my day when I need K to listen to what I am saying and pay attention.  When I need him to listen to my words, I make sure that I am looking at him eye to eye and speak clearly and calmly.  I repeat myself.  I also make sure that I don’t ask questions, I make statements.  I remind him that I know that he is a good listener and I appreciate him listening to my words.  I also ask him to repeat back to me what I said to him and what he thinks I want him to do.  I try very diligently to tell him how proud I am of him, no matter what, but I need him to listen to me, his teachers, other adults, etc. 

Yes, here I go again making the connection between my toddler and the non-toddlers in my life—what I am trying to teach my son are the same kinds of things that I wish most adults knew and actually practiced.  “Are you listening to my words ?” is the same phrase that I want to scream at a cornucopia of people throughout the day at my job, at the store, on the street, while driving, hell, just in general!!!  At work, a place of higher learning, it seems as if there are only a handful of people who actually hear your words and act on those words. 

Is this an epidemic?  Isn’t this something that, again, we all should have learned in Pre-K?  Isn’t this just common courtesy?  Or is anything that we label “common,” not so common!  While I can’t chastise my son for not listening to me when he’s 3 years old, I will continue to be consistent with him.  I will continue to remind him that it’s important to listen to my words. While I will continue to remind him that I love him no matter what, but that there are consequences for him not listening to my words, I cannot do that to stranger, co-workers, and colleagues.  To them I say, “For the LOVE of GOD!  Listen to the words coming out of my mouth!!!”