Active listening to children. Active listening is a way to communicate with a child

State government institution for children in need of psychological, pedagogical and medical and social assistance,

"Volgograd Regional Center for Psychological, Medical and Social Support"

GKU Volgograd PPMS - center,

Vetyutnevsky separate division

Lesson with elements of training for adoptive parents:

"Active Listening Method"

in parent-child relationships"

Spent: educational psychologist E.V. Faleeva

h.Vetyutnev, March 2017

Goals and objectives:

1. Help parents master methods of personality-oriented interaction. Convey a positive image of the child.

2. Help parents free themselves from the destructive influence of negative emotions. Introduce types of parental statements that interfere with active listening.

3. Introduce parents to the technique of active listening.

Equipment: posters on the board for completing tasks, marker.

Participants: adoptive parents.

Number of participants : group of 10-15 people.

Conditions: auditorium with free zone.

Handout : forms for completing assignments.

Lesson structure: The lesson is conducted in training mode.

The lesson is timed for 1 - 1 hour 20 minutes.

Progress of the lesson

I would like to start our training with a question:

“It’s one thing to listen, and another thing to hear.” How do you understand this statement?

Words"listen" and "hear"differ in the depth of the process itself and the attitude of the listener to the interlocutor. First of all, these words denote a person’s ability to concentrate, to “turn into hearing.” In my opinion,"listen"means the ability to react to the words of your interlocutor in such a way that he himself wants to tell you about something, that is, in a friendly manner, if necessary, then react emotionally to the story. We can say that in this case the listener himself participates in the process and can interrupt and complement his interlocutor.

And here"hear", means the ability to hear not fleetingly (heard by chance), but namely to hear the one who is telling you something, delving into the essence of his story and hearing only what the interlocutor tells you. “Hearing” means not conjecturing the story yourself, but perceiving only that information and only in the interpretation that the narrator conveys. It is this process that makes it possible for a person to hear what he needs and remember what he perceived by ear. And when they sometimes say “hear me,” they mean exactlyability to hear- that is, to hear what the interlocutor says, without your own edits and conjectures.

Listening is a process-action that implies a passive attitude, and hearing (especially “hearing”) implies an active action, although not always.

Compare: “I listened to the radio” and “I heard what they said on the radio...”.

Exercise “Psychological sculpture”

Conduct reflection, pay attention to the fact that the best and most productive contact occurs when the interlocutors take an “eye to eye” position.

Exercise “Communication distance”.

Instructions: Participants are asked to start a dialogue sitting opposite each other, and then need to move away from each other at a distance of at least four meters and continue the conversation.

Information part . The presenter talks about how listening can be passive (silent) and active (reflective). Silent listening involves a minimum of responses (“Yes, yes,” “I’m listening to you,” a supportive facial expression, nodding in agreement. And if it is important for a child to speak out and be listened to, such listening may be quite sufficient. But when the child has an emotional problem (he is upset, offended, failed when he was treated rudely) he needs to be actively listened to. Active listening creates a relationship of warmth, makes it easier to solve the child’s problems. Techniques of active listening are: retelling, reflecting feelings, clarifying, summarizing (summarizing) Retelling - this is a statement in your own words of what the interlocutor said. The key words of the retelling are “You say...”, “As I understand...” The retelling is a kind of feedback to the child: “I hear you, listen and understand.”

Clarification refers to the immediate content of what the other person is saying. For example: “Please explain what this means?”, “Will you repeat it again?” Clarification should be distinguished from asking. Questioning can destroy the speaker's desire to communicate anything.

Reflecting feelings is speaking out the feelings that another person is experiencing. “I think you’re offended.” "You feel upset." Feelings should be named in an affirmative form, since the question evokes less sympathy. This technique helps establish contact and increases the other person’s desire to talk about themselves.

Pronouncing subtext involves further articulating the thoughts of the interlocutor. It should not turn into evaluation.

For example: “You could be more modest.” Evaluation blocks the desire to talk about the problem.

Summarizing is used in long conversations and negotiations (“So, we agreed with you that”).

Exercise aimed at the ability to reflect the child’s feelings. Parents are offered situations, and they must describe the feelings that the child experiences and what they would answer in these cases.

The child's situation and words

Child's feelings

Your Answer

Today, when I was leaving the house, a hooligan boy knocked my briefcase out of my hands and everything spilled out of it.

Sadness, resentment.

You were very upset, you were very offended.

The child was given an injection, he cries, “The doctor is bad.”

Physical pain, anger.

You felt hurt and angry.

Resentment

You want me to protect you too.

Shame, resentment.

You were very embarrassed.

Fear, frustration.

You were scared, you felt sorry for such a beautiful cup.

Information part.

According to the American scientist Louise Hay: “Love is the only answer to any of our problems and the road to such a state is through forgiveness. Forgiveness dissolves resentment."

The presenter says that recently psychologists have identified several types of parental statements that interfere with active listening. These include the following:

Warnings, cautions, threats. "If you don't stop crying, I'll leave." This will happen again, and I’ll grab the belt!”

Proofs, logical arguments, notations, “lectures”. “It’s time to know that you should wash your hands before eating.” “How many times have I told you!”

Criticism, reprimands, accusations. "What does it look like!" “I did everything wrong again!”

Praise.

Name-calling, ridicule. "Crybaby-wax." "Don't be a noodle."

Guesses, interpretations. “I guess he got into a fight again.” “I still see that you’re deceiving me...”

Questioning, investigation. "Why are you silent?" “What happened anyway?”

Persuasion, exhortation, verbal sympathy. "Calm down." "Do not pay attention".

Making jokes, avoiding conversation. "Not up to you." “You are always with your complaints.”

Practical exercise: two of the parents play out the situation, and for the rest: try to determine what type of erroneous statements the parent’s answers belong to:

Dad: “Calm down, let’s figure something out.”

Daughter: “I’ll go to mom.”

Conduct reflection after the exercise.

“What perhaps surprised you?”

Exercise “Mom and Child”

Instructions: Participants are divided into pairs in which they play the roles of mother and child. The “mother” must express her feelings for the “child” by touching his body (from head to toe), and must accompany her actions with affectionate words. After three minutes you need to switch roles.

Have a discussion about who you liked being more - a child or a mother? Why?

Feel the warmth that spreads throughout your body, softness and tenderness.

Exercise “Protection for little ones.”

Instructions: “Sit comfortably, close your eyes. Imagine yourself as a small child of 5 or 6 years old, look deep into the eyes of this baby. Try to see his deep longing and understand that it is a longing for love. Reach out and hug your little baby, holding him close to your chest. Tell him in your head how much you love him. Tell him that you admire his intelligence, and if he makes mistakes, then it’s okay, everyone makes them. Promise him that you will always come to his aid if necessary. Now let the child remain small, the size of a pea. Place it in your palm and press it to your heart. Let him settle there in the most comfortable corner. Do it gently and kindly. Fill this corner with blue light and the smell of flowers. Feel loved. Every time you look into your heart and see your child’s little face, give all your love, which is so important to him.”

Homework for parents: Observe your conversations with your child, especially in those moments when something happened to him.

Try to spend a day without words of criticism or reproach towards your child. Replace them with words of affirmation for any reason. Look at the child's reaction.

Discussion of the lesson, summing up.

Familiarization with the rules of working in a group and their acceptance.

Maximum trust in each other. The first step is a unified form of addressing “you”.

During class, talk only about what worries you right now and discuss only what is happening “here” “now”.

During the session, talk only about what you think about what is happening.

Everything that happens in the group should not be taken outside of it under any pretext.

During communication, they emphasize only the positive qualities of the person they are working with.

Listen carefully to the speaker, ask questions only after he has finished speaking.

The child's situation and words

Child's feelings

Your Answer

Today, when I was leaving the house, a hooligan boy, for no reason, knocked my briefcase out of my hands and tore my jacket.

The child was given an injection, he cries “The doctor is bad”

The eldest son tells his mother: “You always protect her, you say: little, little, but you never feel sorry for me.”

Today in math class I didn’t understand anything and told the teacher about it, and all the children laughed.

A child drops a cup and it breaks: “Oh, my cup.”

Play out a life situation

Dad

Psychologist: A five-year-old girl tells her father (cries): “Look what he (the two-and-a-half-year-old brother) did to my doll. The leg is now dangling.”

Dad: “Yes indeed, how did this happen?”

Daughter: “I don’t know! My cuckoo my..."

Dad: “Well, calm down, Let's figure out something.”

Daughter: “I can’t, my dear…”

Dad (joyfully):“Oh, I came up with an idea! Imagine that she had an accident and became disabled: such a cute disabled person.” (Smiles)

Daughter (cries harder): Don't laugh. I will offend him too."

Dad: “What are you saying? So that I never hear such words again!”

Daughter: “I’ll go to mom.”

analysis

Play out a life situation

Daughter

Psychologist: A five-year-old girl tells her father (cries): “Look what he (the two-and-a-half-year-old brother) did to my doll. The leg is now dangling.”

Dad: “Yes indeed, but how did this happen?”

Daughter: "Don't know! My cuckoo my..."

Dad: “Well, calm down, Let’s think of something.”

Daughter: “I can’t, my darling...”

Dad (joyfully): “Oh, I came up with an idea! Imagine that she had an accident and became disabled: such a cute disabled person.” (Smiles)

Daughter (cries harder): No laugh. I will offend him too."

Dad: “What are you saying? So that I never hear such words again!”

Daughter: "I'll go to mom."

analysis

Types of parental statements that interfere with active listening:

Orders, commands. “Stop it now!” “Take it away!” “Shut up!”

Warnings, cautions, threats. “If you don’t stop crying, I’ll leave.” This will happen again, and I’ll grab the belt!”

Morals, moral teachings, sermons. You must behave properly. "You must respect adults"

Tips, ready-made solutions. “If I were you, I would fight back!”

Evidence, logical arguments, notations, “lectures”, “It’s time to know that you need to wash your hands before eating”, “How many times have I told you!”

Criticism, reprimands, accusations. “What does it look like!”, “I did everything wrong again!”

Praise.

Name-calling, ridicule. “Crybaby,” “Don’t be a noodle.”

Guesses, interpretations. “I guess he got into a fight again” “I still see that you’re deceiving me...”

Questioning, investigation. “Why are you silent?”, “What happened anyway?”

Persuasion, exhortation, verbal sympathy. “Calm down”, “Don’t pay attention.”

Making jokes, avoiding conversation. “No time for you”, “You are always with your complaints.”

Very often, the causes of childhood experiences and suffering are hidden not only in certain actions and contact with others. Many stressful situations in the soul of a young creature lie in his emotional sphere. How to help your child and let him know that you understand and hear him. An effective technique, which in psychology is called “active listening,” will help with this.

Early age is an important period:

Preschool age is the foundation for the development of personality, which is actively formed in the process of communication. The main people who influence the development of a preschooler’s personality are his parents. They are the ones who lay the foundation for the development of their child’s personality and are an example for the development of their children’s communication skills. One of the main signs of excellent communication skills is the ability to listen and the ability to do this at a high level. In fact, no more than 12% of people can listen to another person in a balanced, calm manner, delving into the topic of the conversation and qualitatively perceiving the information they hear.
By communicating, the child satisfies his need to be understood and accepted by an adult. It is very important for children to be listened to, heard and understood. If a parent learns to be a good listener, he will be guaranteed success in communicating with his child.
Remember a time when you were listened to in such a way that you had a desire to talk with this person, and at the end of the conversation you were filled with a feeling of relief, your need and a sense of the importance of your person. It is likely that you will not remember too many such dialogues.

What kind of listener are you?:

Before you start learning a new technique for listening to your baby, determine whether you have problems with the perception of your interlocutor. To do this, take a simple psychological test.

You must answer the test questions truthfully. If your answer is “yes” - give 0 points, and if “no” - 1 point.

1. Do you end a conversation with your child if the topic does not interest you?
2. Do you interrupt your child?
3. Does it happen that you pretend to listen carefully to your child, but in reality you are thinking about something else?
4. When communicating with a child, can you often hear notes of irony towards the baby in your intonation?
5. Do some of your baby’s mannerisms during communication make you feel irritated?

If you have from 4 to 5 points, you are a good listener (but there are no limits to perfection), if less than 4 to 5 points, you need to develop your communication skills.

The main purpose of hearing:

While listening to your child, you perform the following basic tasks:

1. Perceive the content of the information presented by the baby;
2. You catch and perceive your child’s emotional state.

During the listening process, you need to constantly ask yourself the question: “What is my child saying?” and “As he speaks.” It is very important to understand what the child is experiencing at this moment: impatience, irritability, perhaps he is worried, indifferent, or has a great desire to stop the dialogue.
It is also very important to constantly provide feedback: reflect information and feelings of your child. Parents will be helped to do this correctly and logically by the very effective “active listening” technique, which has gained authority among young parents in many countries and has made it possible to bring communication between parents and children to a new high level.

What is active listening?:

This is a way of listening in which the full display of the information heard comes to the fore. This is a type of perception of their baby in which the parents repeat in their own words what the child said, thereby letting him know that they fully understand him and share his problems and feelings.
Active listening is divided into non-reflective and reflective.

Non-reflective listening

This is the simplest way of listening. Parents simply verbally reflect the thoughts and words of their baby. In the process of this type of active listening, very attentive silence is widely used, as well as minimal reaction with short words like: “Yeah”, “Uh-huh”, “Huh?”, “So-so”, “Go ahead”, “Yes?”, “I understand,” “Really?”

Reflective Listening

Sometimes just reacting with words is not enough. Then it is necessary to enter into a conversation and express your own, parental point of view, that is, move on to the next type of active listening - reflective. The parent asks the child for explanations that duplicate, generalize, and reflect his feelings. In this case, it is recommended to actively use the following phrases: “Could you explain (explain)?”, “What would you like to say by this?”, “Could you repeat (remind) again?”

An important step in this type of listening is retelling. This is a repetition in your own words of what you heard from your child. The adult paraphrases the essence of what he heard so that the child fully appreciates how correctly the parent understood him. It is important to convey what the child said in his own words. Here, actively use the following expressions: “Do you mean...”, “As far as I could understand you...”, “So, you think...”, “In other words, you think...”.

This is how the adult shows his child that he fully understood his message. If the discussion of the topic has dragged on, it is necessary to sum it up with the following phrase: “If I understand you correctly...”. Reflecting the child’s feelings is considered extremely important. At the same time, the parent can express his sincere sympathy to the baby. It is necessary to name in an affirmative form the emotions and sensations experienced by the child: “You are offended (irritated, upset)”, “You are worried...”, “I understand how difficult it is for you”, “Poor thing, how you got it.”

Reflective listening involves more active communication with the child (“You think the boy did this on purpose to offend you”).
By actively listening to the child, the adult makes him understand and feel that he is understood and that he is not alone in his problem and experiences. This style of communication helps the child recognize his own feelings and relieve emotional stress.

Active listening will help the baby to be understandable and very close to his parents. Actively listening to your baby means paraphrasing the information that the baby has communicated. Using this technique, parents clearly voice the child's feelings in an affirmative form.

Here are some examples of using active listening techniques between parents and children:

Child: “She took my pencil.” Mom: “You’re offended by her.”
- Child: “I won’t go to kindergarten.” Mom: “You don’t want to go to kindergarten anymore.”
- Child: “I won’t wear this suit.” Father: “You don’t like this suit.”

Parents who voice their child's feelings and emotions always get very unexpected results.

Here's an example: a father walks into his son's room and finds it in great disarray. Father: “Son, haven’t you cleaned up the room?” Son: “Later.” Father: “You don’t want to clean now.” Son: “Dad, you are my best!”

What are the benefits of active listening?:

Enables the baby to realize and understand his feelings;
Allows you to explain to the child that his parents accept him for who he is;
This is a unique way of influencing kids, which allows them to find solutions to their own problems on their own.

Reasons for choosing active listening:

O This style of communication helps the baby overcome the fear of negative feelings;
o Active listening creates a warm relationship between parent and child;
o Active listening helps solve the child's problems;
o Active listening helps the child learn to listen to the thoughts and ideas of the parents;
o Active listening develops independence in the child, fosters self-control, responsibility and independence.

Basic laws of active listening:

In order for the active listening technique to become truly effective and help establish a relationship with their baby, parents must adhere to the following rules:

Parents must remain calm;
- Parents must have the desire to hear their baby, penetrate his inner world, understand his feelings, and also sincerely help him in solving the problems that have arisen at the present time;
- Parents must learn to truly accept all the feelings and emotions of their child as they are;
- Parents must have complete trust in their child;
- Parents should not be afraid to show all their feelings towards the baby;
- Perceive your child as a special, unique person;
- When communicating with your child, show kindness;
- When communicating with your child, avoid personal assessments, constant reproaches and comments on what the child said. Respect his point of view;
- Do not ask too many questions;
- Give the baby enough time to think. Don't push or rush him;
- Leave the baby alone if you notice that he has no desire to communicate at the moment. This is fine. Don't reproach or scold him for this. Children, like adults, can have different moods;
- Do not criticize your baby or, at least, do it very rarely! Moreover, you cannot criticize and lecture children in front of strangers.

The main requirement of active listening for parents: while communicating with your child, put aside all your feelings and thoughts. You should listen only to your baby's message and focus on it as much as possible. Only in this case will the technique work and your communication will become truly sincere (remember that children feel pretense and insincerity very strongly).

Take sufficient breaks to give your baby some time to be alone with himself, his thoughts and listen to his own feelings.
When communicating with your child, try to position yourself so that your eyes are directly opposite the baby's eye level (eye-to-eye communication).

Typical mistakes parents make during active listening:

Parents use the method of active listening to manipulate the child and strive to make him obedient. This behavior is very traumatic for the baby. Over time, he will begin to be wary of his parents;
Parents do not know how to accept a child without evaluation. They often use moralizing. As a result of such communication, your child will remain alone with his problems. Contact with parents will never be established;
Parents focus on reflecting certain events that happen to their child, and not on pronouncing his sensations, emotions and feelings;
Parents actively listen to their child without expressing any sympathy or empathy;
Parents often start using active listening techniques at the most inopportune times;
Parents pretend, pretend to listen to their child;
Adults interrupt the baby's speech;
Parents often make too hasty conclusions and conclusions;
Parents ask their child an excessive number of questions. He simply doesn’t have time to think how to answer them. And children who are too young simply do not yet know how to answer them.

All parental mistakes when using the active listening technique arise when the basic rules (laws) of this method of communication between parents and children are not followed.

What indicates the positive result of using the technique:

All the baby’s negative experiences disappear completely and without a trace;
- Your baby begins to talk very actively about himself, he opens up to his parents;
- The baby takes his first and confident steps in solving his own problems independently.

Preschool children who are deprived of normal and full communication with adults develop rather poorly both physically and mentally.

Children who have problems of this nature are the result of incorrect relationships in the family!

It is only in the hands of wise and caring parents to choose the right and effective style of communication with their children in order to ensure their harmonious development and happy future!

By active listening, Yu. Gippenreiter understands various techniques that help adults better understand the child and show him their interest.

Active listening involves fully perceiving the information that the interlocutor wants to convey. You can't argue with the author. Misunderstanding is indeed a problem, because often we hear something completely different from what our interlocutor had in mind, and this can lead to sad consequences: misunderstandings, resentments, and in the long term - to serious conflicts and alienation.

A classic example of such misunderstanding is the “invisibility effect”; it was first described by the English prose writer G. Chesterton in the story “The Invisible Man”. Several people who watched the house at the detective's request said no one entered it. However, the corpse of a man who was alive just before was discovered inside. Everyone is perplexed: who committed the crime? The main character guesses that all the observers, answering the question whether anyone entered the house, actually meant the question: “Did anyone suspicious enter?” In fact, a postman entered the building, but no one mentioned him because the observers misunderstood the question.

Books on the topic

The wonders of active listening. Yu. Gippenreiter.
How to talk so that children will listen, and how to listen so that children will talk. Adele Faber, Elaine Mazlish.
How to talk to children so they learn. Adele Faber, Elaine Mazlish.
Learning the art of listening. A guide for those who want to improve their relationships with others. Kay Lindahl.

We can often observe something similar in our lives. We mean something one thing, but our interlocutor understands something else. After all, we all perceive information in the scope of our own life experience, and often also our own expectations, sometimes biased. In this regard, the technique of active listening, which helps to accurately understand the interlocutor, acquires special significance both in the life of any person and - especially! - in the work of a teacher and in the life of a parent.

Active listening techniques and techniques

Reception "Echo"

The first of these is the Echo technique; its essence is that the adult repeats after the child part of his statement. You can paraphrase a little, choose synonyms. For example, a child says: “I won’t do your stupid test!” The teacher repeats: “You don’t want to do this test.” Despite the fact that this looks somewhat similar to mimicking, such an “echo” not only does not lead to offense, but, on the contrary, makes you want to clarify your phrase, continuing the dialogue in a more or less rational direction.

Paraphrasing

Another technique is paraphrasing; the teacher seems to be retelling what he has already heard, trying to clarify whether he understood the interlocutor correctly. Often this is indeed necessary, because we do not always speak clearly enough for everyone, because the speech of each person contains many omissions and hints. All this is clear to the speaker, but not always obvious to the listener.

Interpretation

Finally, the third technique is interpretation. This is a conclusion, a summary of everything that has been said.

In more detail, the methods of actively listening to a child can be divided into the following groups.

Pause

The essence of this technique is the following: if we see that the interlocutor has not yet fully expressed himself, we must give him the opportunity to speak out completely, take a pause. There is no need to try to finish the conversation for him, even if it seems to us that everything is already clear to us. A pause is often necessary for a child to think about what he himself thinks on this topic, to formulate his attitude, his opinion. This is his time, and he must spend it himself.

Clarification

We need to ask the interlocutor to clarify whether we understood correctly what he means. This is often necessary because you may misunderstand the child's thought and see in it something that is not good or simply does not correspond to his intention.

In this regard, it is useful to recall the parable of the two apples. Mom entered the room and saw her little daughter holding two apples in her hands. “What beautiful apples! - said mom. - Give me one, please! The girl looked at her mother for a few seconds, and then quickly took a bite of both apples. Mom was very upset: does her daughter really feel sorry for the apple for her? But she didn’t have time to be properly upset, because the baby immediately handed her one of the apples and said: “Here, mommy, take this: it’s sweeter!” This parable reminds us how easy it is to misunderstand a person, to misinterpret his actions or words.

Retelling

This technique of active listening involves retelling in our own words what we heard from the interlocutor. Its purpose is to show your interest, and also to allow the interlocutor to correct us if we have understood something incorrectly. In addition, retelling allows you to draw some intermediate conclusion from the conversation.

Development of thought

This is a response to what was said by the interlocutor, but with some perspective; the adult, as it were, continues the child’s thought, makes an assumption about what these events or actions could lead to, what their reasons could be, and the like.

Message about perception

This technique consists of the adult informing the child that he has understood him. We are talking about a specific verbal message, but it is advisable to show it non-verbally: look the interlocutor in the face, nod, assent. It is unacceptable to talk while standing with your back turned or looking to the side.

Self-perception message

This is a message about your emotional state in connection with the conversation. For example, like this: I’m upset, your words upset me; or: I'm glad to hear that. This is a typical "I message", but in connection with the conversation it shows the presence of emotional contact.

Comments during the conversation

These are small conclusions about the flow of conversation that are desirable when using the active listening technique; examples: “I think we have discussed this issue,” “I think we have come to a common conclusion,” and the like.

How to learn active listening

Although it seems easy, active listening skills are not so easy. There are special courses where you can learn this; psychologists conduct Active Listening training, which can be very useful to everyone who has to deal with children: parents and teachers. Active listening methods can, of course, also be used in conversations with adult interlocutors. However, when working with children and adolescents, these skills become especially important.

How to use active listening? Examples from life can be very different. Let’s say the class teacher is talking with a student whose performance in several subjects has dropped sharply.

Student: I don’t want to learn chemistry, I don’t need it in my life.

Teacher: You think that you won’t need chemistry in your life.

Student: Yes, I’m not going to study to be a doctor or a chemist, and no one else needs this subject.

Teacher: You think that you should learn only those subjects that you will need in the future in your future profession.

Student: Yes, of course. Why waste time on something you will never need?

Teacher: You have firmly chosen your future profession and you know exactly what knowledge you will need in it and what you will not.

Student: I think so. I have long wanted to be a journalist and deal mainly with the subjects that I need: Russian, foreign, literature...

Teacher: You think that a journalist only needs to know Russian, foreign, and literature.

Student: Of course not. A journalist must be erudite... Well, okay, I understand, I’ll learn a little...

Of course, after this conversation the student will not necessarily begin to take the chemistry lesson more seriously, but in any case the teacher made him think. Maybe it’s worth summing up this conversation with some kind of I-message: “I will be very upset if you realize that you still need the item, but it will be too late” - or something like that.

When comparing active and passive listening, it is imperative to keep in mind that silent listening is not necessarily passive. If you show interest in the conversation, look at your interlocutor, empathize with him, demonstrating this in every possible way, then you are actively listening, even if you are silent. There are often times when a child needs to speak out. In this case, he needs a listener, not an interlocutor, but a real, active listener - someone who really sympathizes with him, empathizes, and understands his emotional state. It will be enough if the child sees empathy on your face. In this case, intervening in his monologue is not very wise: you can simply knock the child down, and he will leave without speaking out.

Active listening techniques can be very helpful to the classroom teacher. But it is quite possible to use them in the classroom, especially if we are talking about a humanities subject, when schoolchildren often express their opinions about some events or a work they read. In this case, you need to remember a few rules.

Never replace your child’s words with your own reasoning.
Do not finish speaking for your child, even if you are sure that you have already understood him.
Do not attribute to him feelings and thoughts that he did not talk about.
It is necessary to renounce your own opinions and your own thoughts, try to throw all your intellectual and emotional strength into understanding the other person, adapting to him.
You need to demonstrate your interest in all ways: verbally (I understand you; I agree with you) and non-verbally (look at the interlocutor, trying to ensure that the gaze is approximately at the same level: if the child is sitting, then it is better for the teacher to sit too, if he is standing, then stand, if the child is small, then you can squat down; maintain an expression of interested attention on your face; try to make your face express the same emotions that the interlocutor experiences - in this case it will be easier for the child to express what he thinks.

How to learn active listening?