I love the message in this blog, about listening, and noticing, and respect. Our children need and deserve it. And now, I will spend the rest of the day singing “You’re not the boss of my brain!”
There’s a lot of talk in positive parenting circles–and in general–about the importance of listening to our children, particularly about their thoughts and emotions…and to other people’s children, for that matter. Oh, no doubt about that. The funny thing is that we talk about it like it’s a choice, like it is possible to choose not to listen to them. It’s not.
Children want to be heard, are determined to be heard. We can agree to listen, we can value listening, we can pooh-pooh it, we can say it’s too “touchy-feely.” It really doesn’t matter. We’re going to listen, one way or another. Our only choice as parents and as teachers is to decide in what form and at what time we are going to listen, at what point we are going to acknowledge their thoughts and feelings.
Are we going to listen when they cry? When they speak? When…
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