Foolish responses without listening will make your children disinterested in speaking with you. They will take their conversations somewhere else where they can be heard.
If your children are saying “You never listen to me,” it is because they feel you never listen to them. Slow down and listen.
There is a perceptive insight in Proverbs 20:5: “The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out.” There is more depth in your children than you might imagine. You observe their shallowness and giddiness and assume they are vacuous, but there are deep waters in your children. Drawing those deep waters out requires patience and great skill.
It also requires being sensitive to the right moment. There are times when children are talkative and times when you cannot pry anything from them with a crowbar. A wise parent goes with the moment.
Some moments are moments for walking away from conversation and making a pass at it later when the child is more willing to speak. Other moments, when a child is talking, are moments for dropping everything, if possible, to seize the moment and listen.
Unconditional love and acceptance are necessary to
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