Read The Lost Art of Listening Online
Authors: Michael P. Nichols
If the consequence of every third or fourth thing they do
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is that their parents nag them, children learn that their
parents are nags and that they are a nuisance.
The boundary that makes it easier for parents to listen to their chil-
dren because they are in charge is related to one of the crucial elements
in listening: acknowledging what the other person says before responding
with what you have to say.
Remember Tommy, the boy whose father lectured him on the evils of
anger? If only his father had first acknowledged what Tommy was feeling,
the boy might have been more open to his father’s message. Seeing Tommy
storm upstairs and slam his door, his father might have said, “It’s frustrat-
ing when the mower doesn’t work, isn’t it?” or “Sounds like you had a bad
time.”
Being a parent in charge doesn’t make you a good listener, but it does
release you from some of the anxiety about control that gets in the way of
listening.
Suppose a little girl runs into the kitchen saying, “Look, I caught a
caterpillar!” The mother who responds with “Go wash your dirty hands!”
is obviously deflating the child’s enthusiasm. Saying, “Yes, that’s nice, but
go and wash your hands” isn’t very responsive either.
“Yes, but . . . ” is never enough. The but drowns out the yes.
“Yes, but . . . ” isn’t a real acknowledgment. Like adults, children need
to feel heard before they’re open to a new thought. If a mother were to take
a minute to acknowledge her child’s enthusiasm, she might say, “What a
pretty caterpillar,” or “Hey, wow! Good for you!” The little girl, feeling
heard and appreciated, might then wash her hands without needing to be
told, especially if she knows that’s the rule.
If children suffer when the boundary between them
and their parents is too diffuse, so do the parents.
Parents too actively involved in their children’s lives
tend to be less actively involved with each other.
This may not be obvious to some parents because
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they do so many things together. But how many
things do they do together without the children?
Emotional Triangles
When he came downstairs, Marshall was surprised to see his teenage
daughter sitting at the breakfast table sipping hot chocolate. Before he
could ask why she was still home, Paula jumped up and threw her arms
around his neck: “No school!” Looking out the window, Marshall saw the
yard blanketed in white.
Assuming the driving would be bad, Marshall decided to wait until
after nine before going to work. By that time the roads would be clear and
the worst of the traffic would be gone. While he boiled water and ground
the beans for coffee, Paula built a fire in the fireplace. When the coffee was
ready and the fire blazing, they sat on the couch to watch the flames and
share something that had lately gone out of their relationship: time alone
together.
Just then the front door flew open, and in walked Paula’s boyfriend.
“Guess what? School’s canceled!”
“Hi, Jerry,” Marshall said, none too enthusiastically. Then he went
upstairs to his study. He didn’t exactly slam the door, but he didn’t close it
very gently either.
Paula and her father, who had been so close, were growing further and
farther apart in this, her last year of high school. As Marshall sat there brood-
ing about how Paula seemed to drop everything, including her homework,
when Jerry was around, he knew he was wrong. Daughters grew up and had
boyfriends; a father had to accept these things. He knew he was wrong to be
so resentful of Jerry, and now he had that bitterness as well to swallow.
When Paula was born, Marshall vowed never to be one of those
fathers who said, “I’ll play with you tomorrow.” What a remarkable thing it
was to be a daddy, gifted and burdened with the power to bestow moments
of total joy. As Paula grew older, they still did special things together, but
he noticed that her pleasure in his company was no longer entirely sponta-
neous; he knew that at least part of the time they spent together now was
only to please him.
Two weeks later Jerry broke up with Paula. She cried but showed
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no sign of real grief. These things happen. Marshall couldn’t help being
secretly relieved and said so to Elaine.
On Monday Paula said she couldn’t face going to school. Couldn’t she
stay home, just for one day? It seemed little enough to ask. That afternoon
Elaine decided to come home early and cheer Paula up with a little shop-
ping expedition. Finding Paula asleep in her room, still in her nightgown,
was no great surprise. After all, it wasn’t easy being seventeen and having
your heart broken. Elaine never knew what made her go into the hall bath-
room, where she found the empty bottle of aspirin in the wastebasket.
Paula spent four weeks at Twin Oaks on the adolescent unit, where
she learned the importance of giving voice to her feelings. When she dis-
covered her anger, she started raging at her mother for always wanting
everything to be “nice” and for thinking that shopping could be the answer
to her problems. Her mother then did a surprising thing: she listened. But
when Paula directed her anger at Marshall, telling him that he’d been
unfair to blame her for growing up and having a boyfriend, Marshall got
defensive. Nothing hurts like the truth.
During the last week of Paula’s stay in the hospital, Jerry came to visit
her, and after she was discharged, they started seeing each other again.
Marshall was not happy.
Aside from his earlier objections about Jerry, he didn’t think it was a
good idea for Paula to put herself back into a vulnerable position so soon.
His mind filled with bitter thoughts—about this callow boy who’d hurt his
daughter, and might do so again, and about Paula’s unforgiving anger at
him
. Well, maybe bitter thoughts were easier than wondering how a father
lets go of his daughter.
Now when Jerry came around, Marshall was barely civil. He wanted
to talk to Paula about not becoming dependent, about the importance of
having many friends, but he was afraid of her anger, and his own. So he
started complaining to Elaine.
Paula, too, complained to her mother. “Why is Daddy so unfair?”
Time passed, and the crisis—that’s what Marshall called it; he couldn’t
bring himself to say “suicide attempt”—began to seem unreal and long ago.
Routine reasserted itself, and the only truly tense moments were occasions
on which Paula wanted to go somewhere with Jerry and Marshall looked
grim and said nothing. If Paula pressed him, he said sarcastically, “Ask your
mother.” He felt angry and bereft, but increasingly less so.
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Winter passed, and then it was spring. After graduation Paula
broke off with Jerry, saying she wanted to have her last summer at home
free to be with her friends. Men, she had learned, can be pretty posses-
sive.
In D. H. Lawrence’s
Sons and Lovers
, Paul Morel, the young artist,
doesn’t feel free to become his own person until his adored mother releases
him from her jealous love by dying. In the last scene, when Paul’s sweet-
heart, Miriam, asks if he is now free to marry, he says no. He’s become free
to go his own way.
One of the great themes of literature is the oedipal conflict—a child’s
passionate attachment to one parent and rivalry with the other. In real
families, children fall in and out of love with both parents many times. We
expect fathers to become antagonistic to their sons—and hope they will
grow out of it. But when a father becomes alienated from his daughter, as
Marshall did, we seek explanations in character and circumstance. Maybe
Marshall was too attached to his daughter to tolerate a rival. Maybe he was
too stubborn to let go. Or perhaps we can be more generous and say that
it was only natural for him to worry about Paula’s relationship with Jerry,
considering what happened.
The trouble with these explanations is that they may account for the
conflict but not why it wasn’t resolved. Most family conflicts eventually
get worked out—
if
the individuals involved are willing to listen to each
other.
The Cotherapist in Family Therapy
Families, as you may have noticed, sometimes get stuck in ruts. Their prob-
lems are reinforced by the interlocking actions of more than one person.
That’s why the first family therapists described families as homeostatic
systems that resist therapeutic efforts to change them. Over many years
of practice, I learned to look in every family for a cotherapist—one person
willing to set aside blaming and take the first step toward transforming
family patterns by changing his or her own contribution. It takes more
than one person to make a family what it is, but one person can initiate
change. Could you be that person in your family?
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When Paula felt the innocent indignation of being misunderstood by
her father, it seemed only natural to turn to her mother. Likewise, when
Marshall worried about Paula’s seeing Jerry again, it seemed reasonable to
complain to his wife. In turning away from each other and detouring their
dispute through Elaine, Paula and her father created a triangle, one of the
great roadblocks to listening.
Take a minute to think about your most difficult relationship in your
family. Chances are you thought of your spouse, or maybe one of your par-
ents, or a child, or perhaps one of your in-laws. Actually, the relationship
you thought of is almost certainly between you and that person and one or
more other parties.
Virtually all emotionally significant relationships
between two people are shadowed by a third—
a relative, a friend, even a memory.
The most notorious triangle is the extramarital affair. An affair might
compensate for something missing in a marriage, but as long as one’s emo-
tional energy is invested elsewhere, there’s little chance of improving the
primary relationship. Similarly, if a young husband or wife remains overly
attached to his or her parents and runs to them with complaints about
the spouse, the couple in formation may never work out their difficulties.
Some triangles seem so innocent that we hardly notice their destructive
effect. Many parents can’t seem to resist complaining once in a while to
their children about their mates. “Your mother’s
always
late!” “Your father
never
lets anyone else drive.” These interchanges seem harmless enough. If
you’re really upset about something, you need to talk about it, right?
When you hear a story in which one person is a victim and
the other is a villain, you’re being invited into a triangle.
If something’s really bothering you and you’re afraid to talk about it —
afraid you won’t be listened to—the urge to confide in someone is almost
overwhelming. The trouble with triangles isn’t that seeking sympathy is
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wrong. The problem is that triangles can become chronic diversions that
corrupt and undermine listening in family relationships.
Mary was a twenty-year-old, single mother who came to the clinic
because she was having trouble controlling her three-year-old. After I’d
listened to her for about forty minutes, Mary confessed that she’d been hit-
ting the baby and was afraid she might hurt her. I was alarmed, so I asked
Mary to bring Tamara to the next session.
Mary, who lived alone and had few friends, related to her little daugh-
ter like a playmate. When the baby was building a tower with blocks, Mary
grabbed away some of the blocks to make her own tower, insisting that
the baby “share.” Later in the session, when I was trying to talk with Mary
about her life as a single mom and Tamara started throwing blocks, Mary
yelled at her—“Quiet down, okay? I’m talking to the doctor”—but didn’t
follow up. Tamara looked up for a minute and then continued throwing
blocks. She was used to ignoring her mother.
Over the next two sessions I helped Mary understand what it means
to be a mother-in- charge. Parents take charge by being parental, which
consists of two things: nurture and control. (The latter makes the former
easier.) Mary learned not to try to control everything the baby did but that
when she did need to enforce a rule to do so with a clear, direct message
and then follow through with consequences. Becoming more confident of
her authority made it easier for her to be more tolerant of Tamara. The lan-
guage of small children is a language of action; “listening” to them means
letting them take the lead in play.
Mary was a quick learner, and her relationship with Tamara improved