Active Listening Section Helping Parent Training

Transcription

1 Active Listening Section Helping Parent Training Amanda Sloan Skagit P2P Assistant Coordinator PASS RIGHT PASS LEFT TOPIC AREA: Communication Concept: Certain skills for good communication are certainly more important than others. One of the most important of these is the skill of listening. Being in the moment as it is often called these days. This activity will show the importance of listening and how difficult that is when you are not concentrating on what is being said because you are busy doing something else, or as they say, trying to do two things at one time! Method: Classroom activity Time Frame: 10 minutes plus discussion time Materials Needed: 1. The Wright Family Story 2. One popsicle stick, button or other item for each student in the group Activity: Have your entire group from a circle (I like to have mine sit on the floor, Indian style if possible). Give each person, in the circle, the small item. Tell the group that you are going to read a story and every time they hear any word that sounds like right or left, they are to pass their item in their hand to the person directly on the right or left depending on what they heard. Start reading the story slowly, to give them a chance to catch on to what you want them to do. After a few passes, stop the story and ask them how they are doing. Check to see that everyone has one item in their hands. If your group is typical, some will have 2-3 items, and others will not have any. Have them redistribute items again so each participant again has just one. Continue to read the story, getting faster as you go. Stop the story a couple more times to check on how they are doing. Discussion Ideas: What was happening during this activity? What made the activity difficult to accomplish? What impact did what the other students do have on your ability to stay up with the story? How did you feel during the activity?

2 What would have made the activity easier to accomplish? How hard was it to listen to the story and pass the object at the same time? How much of the story do you remember? What can this activity teach us about good communication? How hard were you concentrating during this activity? How hard were the students around you concentrating? How does this level of concentration compare with what you do when someone is talking to you? Describe a situation you have had when you were talking and the person you were talking to was not really listening to you? How did that make you feel? Life with the Wright Family One day the Wright family decided to take a vacation. The first thing they had to decide was who would be left at home since there was not enough room in the Wright family car for all of them. Mr. Wright decided that Aunt Linda Wright would be the one left at home. This made Aunt Linda Wright so mad she left the house immediately shouting, it will be a right cold day before I return! The Wright family now bundled up the children, Tommy Wright, Susan Wright, Timmy Wright and Shelly Right and got in the car and left. Unfortunately, as they turned out of the driveway, they noticed that someone had left the trash can in the street so they had to turn right around and stop the car. They told Tommy Wright to get out of the car and put the trash can away in the garage. Tommy Wright complained that he was not the Wright child that left the can out. Mom Wright told him he was closest to the door and so he was the right Wright child for the job! Tommy took so long that they almost left him home. Tommy Wright finally got back in the car. Mr. Wright turned the car around and left again. Once the Wright family got on the road again, mother Wright worried that she had left the stove on. Father Wright told her not to worry, he had checked the stove, and she had not left it on. As they turned right at the corner, everyone started to think about other things that they might have left undone. No need to worry now, they were off on a right fine vacation. When they arrived at the gas station, Father Wright put gas in the car and discovered that he had left his wallet at home. So Timmy Wright ran home to get the money that was left behind. After Timmy had left, Susan Wright started to feel sick. She left the car saying that she was going to throw-up! This, of course, got Mother Wright s attention and she left the car in a hurry. Shelly Wright wanted to watch Susan get sick, so she left the car too. Father Wright was left with Tommy Wright who was playing a game in the back seat. With all of this going on, Father Wright decided that this was not the right time to take a vacation, so he gathered up all of the family and left the gas station as quickly as he could. When he arrived home, he turned left into the driveway and said, I wish the Wright family had never left the house today!

3 Reflective Listening Skills Directions: Read and listen to the statements below. After reading and listening to the teacher read the statements, write a response for each statement demonstrating reflective listening on the part of you the listener. Your answer should demonstrate the response. Remember a dialogue is a conversation between two people. One person sends a message (the statement. The person who receives the message then responds (your written response). Make sure to include all of the points each speaker makes. Do not assume any facts. (Note: offering reasons, solutions or excuses for behavior is not part of the reflective listening response and must be avoided.). In each of your responses, underline all words that show you will restate the points made by the original speaker. Look at the example below. Note each part of the sender s statement is also mentioned in the reflective listening statement. (Statement) I get furious with him when he says things that suggest that I don t take good care of the kids. (Active Listening Response) What I think I hear you saying is that you feel furious when he implies that you re not a good caregiver for your kids. From the statements listed below, select a different phrase to use for each one of the dialogues you need to complete. What I think I hear you saying is In other words, you think that Correct me if I m wrong, but aren t you saying Let me review what I ve heard you say. Please correct me if I leave anything out. I hear you saying Is that right? 1. Father to Son/Daughter: I am sick and tired of you asking to borrow the car when you haven t completed your homework or your chores, you leave your room in a total wreck and you have been disrespectful to your family. You need to grow up and learn to show some respect. 2. Friend to Friend: I can t believe what you just heard. Mike asked me to go to Homecoming: however, Brian told me that Mike has been calling Jessica. I thought she was my friend and I thought Mike was faithful. I am so angry what am I going to do?

4 Option 8 Worksheet Page 2 3. Teacher to Student: I am very concerned about your lack of progress in this course. You haven t been keeping up with your work and the work that you have been submitting is of poor quality. You are a senior and this course is a graduation requirement. If you don t start turning in your work you are going to fail this course and possibly miss graduation. 4. Friend to Friend: I just don t know what to do about my parents. It seems like they just don t understand me. Everything I like seems to go against their values, and they just won t accept my feelings as being right for me. It s not that they don t love me, they do, But they just don t accept me. 5. Friend to Friend: I m really bummed out. I don t know what to do with my life. I m sick of school, but there just aren t any good jobs around, and I really don t want to join the service. I could just drop out for a while, but that doesn t sound very good either. 6. Boyfriend/Girlfriend to Partner: I m so tired of you always choosing the activities that we do on dates. You never even ask me what I want to do, you just always expect me to like whatever you choose. I like being with you, but I also would like a say in what we do when we go out. Activity adapted from Florida Virtual School

5 THE ATTITUDINAL FOUNDATIONS OF MINDFULNESS PRACTICE Meditation Maintenance: A Follow on Course Anna Black and Catherine Grey (Adapted from Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn) 1. Non-Judging Taking the stance of an impartial witness to your own experience. Noticing the stream of judging mind.. good / bad / neutral not trying to stop it but just being aware of it. 2. Patience Letting things unfold in their own time. A child may try to help a butterfly emerge by breaking open a chrysalis but chances are the butterfly won t benefit from this help. Practicing patience with ourselves. Why rush through some moments in order to get to other better ones? Each one is your life in that moment. Being completely open to each moment, accepting its fullness, knowing that like the butterfly, things will emerge in their own time. 3. Beginner s Mind Too often we let our thinking and our beliefs about what we know stop us from seeing things as they really are. Cultivating a mind that is willing to see everything as if for the first time. Being receptive to new possibilities not getting stuck in a rut of our own expertise. Each moment is unique and contains unique possibilities. Try it with someone you know next time, ask yourself if you are seeing this person with fresh eyes, as he/she really is? Try it with problems with the sky with the dog with the man in the corner shop. 4. Trust Developing a basic trust in yourself and your feelings. Trusting in your own authority and intuition, even if you make some mistakes along the way. Honor your feelings. Taking responsibility for yourself and your own wellbeing. 5. Non-Striving Meditation has no goal other than for you to be yourself. The irony is you already are. Paying attention to how you are right now however that it is. Just watch. The best way to achieve your own goals is to back off from striving and instead start to really focus on carefully seeing and accepting things as they are, moment by moment. With patience and regular practice, movement towards your goals will take place by itself.

6 6. Acceptance Seeing things as they actually are in the present. If you have a headache, accept you have a headache. We often waste a lot of time and energy denying what is fact. We are trying to force situations to how we would like them to be. This creates more tension and prevents positive change occurring. Now is the only time we have for anything. You have to accept yourself as you are before you can really change. Acceptance is not passive; it does not mean you have to like everything and abandon your principles and values. It does not mean you have to be resigned to tolerating things. It does not mean that you should stop trying to break free of your own self-destructive habits or give up your desire to change and grow. Acceptance is a willingness to see things as they are. You are much more likely to know what to do and have an inner conviction to act when you have a clear picture of what is actually happening. 7. Letting Go Letting go is a way of letting things be, of accepting things as they are. We let things go and we just watch If we find it particularly difficult to let go of something because it has such a strong hold on our mind, we can direct our attention to what holding feels like. Holding on is the opposite of letting go. Being willing to look at the ways we hold on shows a lot about its opposite. You already know how to let go Every night when we go to sleep we let go.