Listening Skill

Listening skill seems to be a disappearing skill. In fact, it its said that when you find a friend capable of listening well, you must treasure this friend forever. Indeed, people who can really listen are rare nowadays. We're more interested speaking out and making our mark, we forget that we must also attend to the words of others. When we fail to listen, it's our personal growth we sacrifice; we miss opportunities to be enriched by other people.

Parents Who Command, Kids Who Ignore

In what areas is listening skill most evidently deficient? You really need not look further than the home. Many parents and children today just live together in one household, but don't connect on an emotional level.

Parents today are busy people. Understandably so; with the economy in recession very rarely would you find single income families. If both parents don't work, it's doubtful the budget would last. Hence, the trend today is latchkey parenting: leaving kids to be entertained by nannies, day care centers, or worse, the television.

Kids too are losing the value of close family ties. They get obsessed with the PC, the internet and other new media; they have lesser appreciation for good old fashioned family time. Indeed, the culture of instant gratification is contrary to investing in relationships; the latter requires more effort and time.

So at the end of the day, you get more and more parents and children driven apart by economics and technology.

Ah, but if they both would only take time developing listening skill! Parents can ask their kids how their day went, and listen to the things relevant to their child's world. Similar, kids today will learn more about the arguably better values of the older generation, and gain an appreciation for the hard work required to raise a family in these tough, tough times.

Friends Who Understand the Meaning of Crisis

Aside from the home, our social circle can do with more people equipped with listening skill.

How many times in a day do we ask friends the question: "how are you?" And how many times do be actually listen to the response? Sadly today, "how are you?" is just a formality, a way to open small talk, but doesn't really require an honest response. Indeed, the question is almost always followed by another comment ("How are you? Oh, you look great! That's a lovely dress.") as if a sincere answer is not important.

And so everyday we miss opportunities to really get to know our friends intimately. For all we know we could be sitting next to person in crisis, but we don't know it, because we don't emphasize we're willing to listen. How hard would it be to say "How are you, really? Please tell me, I am here to listen." You'll never know how differently an interaction might go if we just emphasize our openness.

It's not an exaggeration to say, that if you want to be a more fulfilled individual, you need to learn listening skill. Being able to listen balances the excesses of our personality. We learn to appreciate another person's point of view and way of doing things. We also gain wisdom we otherwise wouldn't get.

Links to improve your listening

• Developing listening skills.
• Become an active listener with these active listening skills.
• Listening skills exercises.
• Listening skill training from MindTools.com.
• Online English listening exercises.