The Art Of Listening

The summer vacations were getting over. The children were about to get back to their usual grind of going to school, study etc...The ones who had gone out for holidays were also returning . The tution classes had no vacations . Ankush walked in with his little sister for the class . The teacher greeted the two with a hug and a smile and asked how did they enjoy their holidays? They had gone on a Europe tour with their parents. To the teacher's surprise both the children replied,''very boring,Miss''. ''Why ? You would have seen so many places and must have had loads of fun?''the teacher asked. '' what fun Miss? It is so boring to be with parents.They took us to many places but it was not fun at all. '' ''How come?''''because they always try to teach us ...what to do , how to do ,,,how is who better than us...they take us out for holidays so that they can keep preaching and we are stuck with no other option but to keep listening...''

The teacher was reminded of a similar incident that had taken place just a couple of days ago. Madhavi and Maina ,two sisters were talking of the boring weekend where their parents had taken them out to a hill station. They had travelled by road and the teacher remembered asking what fun would the long drive had been. ''Fun?'' cried out one..''we were bored to death.'' The twin beeped in saying''Miss, how can you spend almost 8 hrs. in a car with your parents ,with whom you have nothing interesting to talk?'' The teacher tried to ease the matter and asked ''o.k. surely you could have listened to music ? That would have been great?''
''Yes listening to the great classical music would indeed have been great!''said one...''And there was no way that we could have listened to anything else for the music that we like is RIDICULOUS for them and what they seem to be mesmerised with is so so BORING for us.''

The teacher thought of the highly educated parents...achievers in their careers...how is it that they could not reach out to their own children? And this is very very common....I think it is because the parents ,with all good intentions no doubt about that , are always busy to make the children listen to what they have to say ...what they think is right...good....lovely and on and on...They forget that it would work wonders if they changed roles and started to LISTEN to what their children have to say . May be the children supposedly speak nonsense but the parents can find it easier to show them sense through their own nonsense. We must develop this art of listening ...only then can we understand the minds of our children and then it surely would be a lot easier to work upon them ...without knowing the thoughts how can parents work upon their children ? and because most of the parents do so they keep on struggling unsuccessfully for lifein understanding their own kids...how ironical ..that they find it difficult to understand their own extentions....not only this ,by becoming good patient listeners,they not only understand them better but also show them the right way to reach out...and do we all not always get tilted towards the people who we think understand us?

Parents can be the source to attract their own children ,hold them to themselves only if they master this wonderful art of listening ...first . Instead of stuffing them with their pearls of wisdom, which the children throw out at the earliest, why not try exploring the sea bed together cleaning their paths for them, in front of them and slowly guiding them to the same pearls ,which then become priceless for them, as they are then their own discoveries ?