Tag Archives: mothers

A Little Listening Can Move Mountains

A friend of mine, a wonderful woman with a very positive attitude and with whom I had been doing a listening partnership, wanted to talk about a situation with her son’s class teacher.  Her son had been coming home unhappy almost every day.  She is a parent who volunteers in the classroom.  She felt that the teacher had identified some children as her favorites, with her son not being among them.

My friend’s son was in a combination class with a single teacher for two grade levels.  At the end of the first year of her being in this class, she asked for a change of class because her son had been so unhappy.  At first she met with a lot of criticism from the teacher and resistance from the principal.

My friend was naturally very distressed about the whole situation.  During a listening partnership session with me, she was able to release a lot of her anger and upset feelings about this issue and was able to cry about this.  I stayed and listened to her feelings.  And it seemed to have had the right effect!

Within a few days, she had figured out exactly how she was going to approach the situation with the class teacher and the principal.  She rehearsed what she was going to say and discussed it with the teacher and principal with self-assurance and confidence.  She finally did get what she wanted; her son was moved to a different class.

Sometimes we don’t realize the effect we can have on people, simply through our listening (or not listening).  I was moved by how a little listening can move mountains.

—Certified Parenting by Connection Instructor  Usha Sangam

Usha Sangam

Listen to a free podcast of Parenting: Going Deeper in which Usha presented. Sign-up here.

Read other stories from Usha on this blog.

You can learn more about Parenting by Connection in the Listening to Children booklet set.

Wanting Mama

Last night after dinner, my wife and daughter (2 1/2) and I were playing on the couch.  I was intermittently physically preventing my daughter from getting to her mama. She would laugh and laugh — I would grab her, and then let her go, and then grab her again, and then “fight” with her mom over who should get to hold her. She continued laughing, and then moved from one couch to the other.

At that point, I moved between the two couches, declaring (highly ridiculously) “I am the best mama preventer around — you will never get to her!” My daughter ran right around me, and got straight to her mother. Then I asked her to push me over to get to her mom. She loved that even more, and I experimented with differing levels of resistance, trying to notice what level of fight from me allowed her to laugh the most. Her feelings (light fears — manifested by her laughter) just kept bubbling up. We did this for about 15 to 20 minutes, and then she wanted to put her babies to sleep. Great fun!

The interesting thing to me, though, is that 20 minutes later, when it was time for bed, my daughter asked to go night night with me, rather than with her mother. I can’t emphasize enough how huge this is. She has a strong mama “preference” and almost never chooses to be with me rather than with her mother. It seems obvious to me that because of the playlistening that we did with her earlier in the evening, my daughter worked through some of her feelings, and then was able to notice the truth of the matter: she wants me as much as she wants her mama.

This would NOT have been possible without my own time with a listening partner, and without the work of Hand in Hand, particularly of Lawrence Cohen (author of Playful Parenting) and Patty Wipfler and the other good folks who make this group work. Kudos!

- Keith Danner, a Parenting by Connection dad in Irvine, CA