If you missed Monday’s first communication lesson from five year olds, click here. Here’s today’s installment:
Lesson Two: Listen Wide-Eyed.
Young children are notorious for their wide eyes as they soak up information. You may not think they are paying close attention, but they absorb almost everything around them. You know this because, if you aren’t careful, they repeat things you said that you wish you hadn’t.
We adults could learn a great deal from this trait. To a young child, everything is wondrous. When they ask a question, they don’t care whether that person is educated, important, powerful or well-respected. They expect an answer. They often don’t even much care if the answer is correct. How would they know otherwise?
I’m not saying we should take everything people say at face value or give credence to every Tom, Dick and Harry, but learning to listen with wonder as people talk is a skill we often lose. As we grow older, we think we know better, we have less time, less patience. We often only want to take the time and trouble to listen to people when we have to, when we really need something or when we really think they have something valuable to add.
Children give their undivided attention and soak in all the information they can comprehend. If we adults would only do that on a consistent basis, we would learn so much about each other that it would greatly increase our understanding of how best to communicate with others.
Come back on Monday for another communication lesson from 5 year olds. Until then…B’bye!
