Seek First to Understand and Then to be Understood

     Seeking first to understand and then to be understood is the foundation needed to truly implement win-win solutions and make stakeholders feel welcomed and listened to.  Active listening is a skill that requires intention, practice, and determination.  Holding one's tongue and waiting for the other person to express themselves fully takes patience and discipline.  Asking follow up questions before speaking one's own opinion takes a bit of courage too, especially the topic is controversial and we do not agree with the speaker's opinion.  
     One habit I have tried to adopt since learning about active listening is to first ask follow up questions and then when the person has completed speaking, repeat back to them a summary of what they said by starting with "I heard you say that...." and then asking, "is this correct?"  This is not agreeing or disagreeing with them. It is simply reflecting back to them the main ideas of what I understood them to say. This gives them a chance to clarify anything I may have misunderstood.   
   Depending on the situation, the moment may not be appropriate for me to immediately give my opinion back.  As a school leader, I must remember not to form or express my opinion until I have had a chance to listen to other stakeholders involved in the situation before speaking.  This is oftentimes difficult because the other party may want an immediate response from me.  In those cases, I thank them for sharing their views with me and let them know that I have other community members to listen to and will take their views into consideration when assessing the overall situation. I ask them if it is OK to reach out if I have any further questions and assure them I will be communicating my final decision on the matter to them as soon as possible. I also assure them they can come back and speak to me anytime or reach out to me via email too if they have anything else to add. 
       I find that most people are not used to this type of approach and want an immediate response or want to know if I agree or disagree with them.  However, when they see how deliberate I am about hearing everyone out equally before opinning, they appreciate the extra effort and attention to everyone's perspectives.
     I find that children and youth especially appreciate attentive listening of their perspective or version of events, especially when there is an altercation with a teacher or another student.  When an adult takes the time to really listen and ask follow up questions without immediately giving advice or telling them what they should or shouldn't do, they learn to trust that adult and over time, open up more and more.  This is especially important with children who are frequently sent to the office or with troubled teens who are having a hard time following the school rules. They often have an underlying story to tell that they do not feel anyone cares to hear or that is not relevant to their behavior.  For example, there was a young child in one of my programs who always showed up in a bad mood and immediately started picking fights over toys with the other children or doing things to disrupt circle time.   By engaging in active listening with him and asking him follow up questions at a later time in the day when he was in a better mood, we quickly found out that he does not usually eat breakfast before arriving at our day camp and his parents had just gotten divorced. He was now living with only his mother and hardly saw his father anymore, something he was very upset about.  His father used to always take him to preschool and since moving into a new house with his mother, she had changed his preschool to our day camp.  The little guy was going through a lot and it was affecting his behavior. Because we listened, we were able to help him. We changed our morning routine to start off with 45 minutes of free play and serve up a table full of fruits, breads, and cheeses that the children could gravitate towards on their own, in the case that they had not had breakfast or were hungry.  We found that this new routine helped more than just this one student and that many of them came to school hungry and eager to just have some free, unstructured time after being told what to do all morning to get out the door.  I also spoke to his mother about the morning routine with dad that he missed so much and they were able to work it out and start having dad pick him up in the mornings to bring him to our day camp (aka his new preschool).  His behavior changed immediately and within weeks of these changes being implemented, his incidents of aggression and tantrums went from more than ten per day to a few a week, if any.  
     I spoke to my own children and family about this habit and to the young ones, this was a totally new concept.   However, they immediately recognized teachers or adults in their lives who practice active listening and those who do not. I was very surprised by their keen observations and the clues they used to determine if an adult was really listening to them or just hearing them.  My six year old flat out told me that that is the reason that she doesn't like one of her aunts, who she used to visit a lot when we lived close by.  I asked her to tell me more about that and she gave me an example. She said that one time she and her cousins were watching a movie at her aunt's house and it was almost over.  The aunt came in suddenly and said it was time to go eat dinner. The children tried to tell her that the movie was about to end in less than five minutes and that they really wanted to see how it ends.  The aunt spoke over them and said to "turn off the TV NOW" and when they didn't move immediately she got upset and said "I am tired of you kids not listening to me!"  My daughter then said to me "She wasn't being a good listener Mommy. She got mad and said we don't listen to her, but the truth is that she didn't listen to us. Why did she have to make us go eat dinner at the exact moment that we were finishing a movie?  She never even let us finish the movie after dinner.  That was rude."   I have to agree.  Not listening can be very rude, and children can tell when an adult is not listening to them and it truly impacts how much children respect them.  My daughter has never talked back or acted "disrespectful" towards my sister so my sister has no idea that inside she is not respected by her niece.  My son said that he feels the same way about one of his teachers who he feels never listens to him, except for when he is answering a question in class.  Thus, he said he has no desire to talk to her and work things out because "what is the point? She already has formed her opinion of me."  It will take time for my sister to regain my daughter's respect and my son's teacher may never regain his respect before the year is over - all over something as "simple" as listening.  Not listening can truly make or break a relationship and even affect a teacher's ability to inspire her students to learn in their classroom.  
     This reminder of the importance of active listening has been timely. I spend a lot of my time at home these days reading course materials and doing homework instead of hanging out with my children.  I have caught myself nodding "yeah, yeah, aha" when they come up to me while studying and in actuality, I am still thinking partly about my coursework.  I see now that it would be better to simply say "I can't wait to hear all about that, I will be with you in a moment" or close my computer and clear my mind of everything and look at them and really engage with what they are saying.