I just finished reading The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck. The book resonated with me in several ways, but the one I want to discuss in this post revolves around listening to and interacting with your children. I have always felt this was extremely important in order to help build my daughter's self-confidence and Peck explains it quite well...so I thought I'd share his writings and my thoughts. 

Here are the 5 ways that we normally listen to our children, according to Peck:

1. Don't. Flat out forbid your children to speak unless spoken to.
2. Ignore. Let the children chatter, but don't pay any attention.
3. Pretend. Appear to be listening to the child while actually doing something else. The "unh huh" responses every minute or so.
4. Selective. "A particularly alert from of pretend listening, wherein the parents may prick up their ears if the child seems to be saying something of significance."
5. Listen. Give them your "full and complete attention, weighing each word and understanding each sentence."

Of course, my first reaction upon reading these was to say to myself "I always listen (#5) to my daughter!" Then I started thinking about it and realized that isn't true. There are lots of times when I'm only half-listening to her or even pretending. I actually started to feel bad and more than a little bit guilty that I might be short-changing her. But Peck goes on to explain quite clearly that not even a saintly parent could do # 5 all the time and remain sane. In his own words... [emphasis mine]

First of all, the six-year-old's propensity to talk is so great that a parent who always truly listened would have negligible time left to accomplish anything else. Second, the effort required to truly listen is so great that the parent would be too exhausted to accomplish anything else. Finally, it would be unbelievably boring, because the fact of the matter is that the chatter of a six-year-old is generally boring. What is required, therefore, is a balance of all five ways.

He goes into much more detail, but suffice it to say that I agree whole heartedly. There are lots of times when my daughter just wants to be close. She'll often ask me "sit on the couch with me Daddy?" as she's watching TV or playing with her toys. She doesn't need my undivided attention, but just to know that I'm there with her.

Obviously there are times though when she wants and needs me to actively listen. This is when I'll drop anything else I'm doing [assuming that I can...face it, the dishes aren't going anywhere], sit down so I'm at her level and focus only on her. I let her finish putting her thoughts into sentences and will sometimes ask leading questions if I can see what she's trying to say. This is not easy. Not only is it difficult to know when she wants/needs this type of interaction, but it's tiring. Doing this for 5,10 or 15 minutes can sometimes feel like an hour because of the intensity of focus. That might sound odd, especially if you've never sat down and tried to talk like this with a 3 year old, but it really is a lot of work.

So why do it? I mean, they're just little kids right. What difference does it make if you listen to their prattling? Again, in Peck's words... [emphasis mine]

...your willingness to do so is the best possible concrete evidence of your esteem you can give your child. If you give your child the same esteem you would a great lecturer, then the child will know him- or herself to be valued and therefore will feel valuable. There is no better and ultimately no other way to teach your children that they are valuable people than by valuing them.

Valuable - [val-yoo-uh-buhl] adjective - having qualities worthy of respect, admiration or esteem.

I've known more than a few people throughout my life with obvious issues around self-confidence. I've also read a bit about psychology [yes, here's my armchair psycho-analyst moment] and know that this is often derived from a distinct lack of feeling valuable. They are not confident in their own abilities or characteristics because they never felt like anyone else admired them, had respect for them or valued them as a person, often their own parents. "My mommy and daddy didn't think I would amount to anything and they were right" is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As a parent, there is no better feeling than knowing that your child is happy. My daughter's smile feels like it literally lights me up from the inside. And I can't think of a better tool to give my daughter to use towards that end than that of the self-confidence that comes along with feeling valued. Self-confidence and valuing herself will carry her through life's hardships and choices when that shiny new toy has long since been lost.

~tod

PS: I don't want to give the wrong impression that I'm sitting here high up on my "golden daddy throne" telling everyone else how to do things. I'm far from perfect. I constantly have to remind myself to stop, take a breath and pay attention to the signs my daughter gives me. Every. Single. Day. It's so easy to get caught up in all of my other responsibilities and tell her "in a minute" when she's asking me to play dinosaurs with her. In fact, I wonder how many times I'm not listening to her when she really needs it.