Children may seem that they're slightly deaf, until their mother whispers that she has some chocolate. In most cases, a child will not have a hearing impairment even though it may seem so; it'll rather be a listening problem.
Despite knowing this, most mothers keep repeating the same thing in a continuous loop only to find that their child wasn't paying attention. It sounds funny when reading but it's actually quite irritating.
But why does this happen? It's simple. Children get sensitized to the fact that they need not try to be good listeners since their loving parent will always be there to repeat her thoughts like a tape recorder. A child learns to not listen and respond until the parents start yelling.
On the contrary, parents shouldn't fret over this too much. Poor listening can be remedied by implementing reliable management strategies and tweaking the environment to enable a child's learning.
According to Psychology Today, poor listening is a function of overly stimulating and noisy environments. The first step is to wipe out the background noise by turning off entertainment devices that are the primary distractors of a child's attention.
The next step is to reduce the distance between the speaker and the listener. Children have a higher chance of being distracted if they're being told something from a distance. To avoid this encounter, it's important for parents to physically stroll down to the child, get down to his level and make eye contact. This leaves little option for children to voluntary escape the subsequent conversation.
The Parents Magazine says that a common mistake of most parents is that they just expect good listening regardless of any other variable. Studies have shown that children almost always learn and respond better when there's positive reinforcement involved. Showering them with affection, recognition and genuine praise can compel the child to engage in positive learning.
Another mistake that parents make is to verbally repeat messages until the toddler feels like listening and then responding. Parents must set the number of times they would repeat their message until moving into action. Children are very observant to such patterns of consistency and are compelled to adopt their behavior accordingly.
If a child exhibits signs of listening deficiency, a parent might need to change their approach of how to engage with kids. Raising up children can indeed be a pain in the head but, if done rightly, can equally be a fun job.
