For those that know me well, I’m not a huge talker. Even within my own home, I tend to be more quiet than verbally expressive. However, my family loves to talk, and I’ve recently been trying to hone in on my skills at becoming a better listener to the people in my life, and especially my wife and kids.
Have you ever felt like a weight had been lifted off of your shoulders after talking to someone and them simply listening intently and hearing you out? This happened to me recently as I shared over the course of about an hour the details of a season of my life with a friend. And I found it surprisingly refreshing.
“One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say.” – Bryant H. McGil
For the person/parent who learns to become a good listener, here are three of the rewards:
1. People know you personally care
I’m learning that sometimes more than my family needs me to speak, they simply need me to listen. Because in their mind, when I give them my ear, I’m giving them a piece of my heart. Very few things in life carry the relational power of feeling that you’ve been heard and understood by someone you love.
I’m also learning that good listening requires paying attention specifically to the things that matter most to the other person. All of my kids are ‘into’ different things right now (whether that be girls, music, basketball, or digging holes in the backyard, lol). But when I intentionally discuss and bring up things that matter to them and then take the time to just listen, it’s amazing to sense the love my kids feel through that.
I find the same to be true with my wife. Often, she doesn’t want me to fix anything (even though I think I’m really really good at it :), she just wants me to listen to her and hear her out. Because when I listen, she feels loved and understood.
God has wired us to be heard, so one of the best ways I can show my family that I care is to simply listen.
James 1:19 Let every man be swift to hear…
2. You gain valuable insight
Listening is like being allowed to look through a window into someone else’s heart. It gives you an opportunity to know and understand them better.
Listening also allows you the opportunity to leverage the power of questions. A person who is good at listening is also usually good at asking the right questions that ‘dig deeper’ into a person’s heart and thinking.
My family loves it when I ask them questions about those things that are important to them. Now, to be honest, some of those things I don’t really care about (shhh….), but because I care about them, I seek ways to get them talking, and then I just sit back and listen. Why? Because my job as a husband and father is to intimately know the people that God has entrusted into my care. And listening = learning.
“Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don’t listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won’t tell you the big stuff when they are big. Because to them all of it has always been big stuff.” – Catherine M. Wallace
3. Your closest relationships are enhanced
Think of the person whose friendship you enjoy the most… It’s probably not the one who you can barely get a word in edgewise with, but the one who takes the time to both talk to you and listen to you. When you listen, you not only learn about the people you love, you naturally grow closer to them as well.
My wife and I are in a season of parenting where one of our teenage children talks seemingly non-stop. There are so many changes and thoughts going through their mind and in their life and they crave to be heard. And to be honest, as parents, we’re eating it up! Our relationship is continually growing, and for that, we are very thankful.
However, we have another child who barely talks unless they are talked to. They too love to be heard, but won’t often speak without us initiating the conversations and leveraging the power of questions.
In either case, both of them want to be heard, and that is one of the greatest gifts we can give them that will grow our relationship. Children desperately need parents who will simply listen to them.
“Having a parent who listens creates a child who believes he or she has a voice that matters in this world.” – Rachel Macy Stafford
To break it down simply:
- When I listen, I show I care.
- When I listen, I learn.
- When I listen, I get closer to those I love.
With those kinds of rewards, why wouldn’t you want to become a good listener?
