Crafty Listening for

Adoptive, biological and Foster families

Non-verbal Communication

Be aware of Non-verbal Communication – Body language often speaks more loudly than words. Assuming that your child can see, hear, feel, smell and taste, up to 70% of your communication will register visually. Nod your head occasionally when listening and offer frequent eye contact to show your interest. Try to be on eye level with your child, rather than standing above or behind them. Be attentive and thoughtful about how your own thoughts, feelings and emotions will influence yourlistening ability.

Attachment Difficulties

It is almost certain that an adopted or fostered child will have mild to very severe attachment difficulties. This possibility has implications for the adoptive or foster family. A child with attachment issues, who may be overwhelmed by feelings of shame, guilt, inferiority, confusion, isolation, stagnation and despair, may be too hurt, angry, scared or sad ever to risk letting anyone get close. Disruptive, destructive behaviours can result from a need to protect hirself from further hurt by pushing the parents away, or, as a pre-emptive strike, trying (not necessarily consciously), to force the parents to reject hir. This can lead to the carers or parents feeling deep resentment and regret that restimulates their deeper hurts. Especially, perhaps, if the decision to adopt was a result of infertility. 

The greatest challenge can sometimes be how to love someone who doesn’t let you love them, who won’t let hirself be loved! How do you love a child who believes hirself to be unlovable or unworthy? How to give continue to give love to a child who only feels or expresses hate?

No Easy Answers!

When your child treats you as if you are an enemy who cannot be trusted, and pushes you away, that is when you need to reach out and move toward them.

When your child is overwhelmed with shame, be proactive rather than reactive. (Children riddled with shame or guilt can do some pretty disgusting things!)

When your child’s chronic guilt makes you wonder if it’s all pointless, maintain a sense of purpose – and crafty listening is purposeful.

If your child’s sense of inferiority makes you feel utterly incompetent, remember that you are still a competent adult.

If your child hides away in hir room, say, cutting hirself off from the family,  make sure s/he remains included – even if s/he lets you know in no uncertain terms, that everything you represent is beneath contempt!

If s/he starts to stagnate, you need to be even more caring – difficult when you feel anything but loving, caring, proactive, competent or inclusive.

If you reflect and echo your child’s attachment difficulties, there is a danger that you and s/he will end up in mutual despair.

Crafty listening won’t prevent all of this happening, but it can create a climate and a context in which you child begins to feel that you are able to hold hir safe in a dangerous world, and that you are able to love hir even when s/he is obstructive and obnoxious. And do not fool yourself that it is enough simply to tell a child that you love hir! Any child who lacks self-esteem, or is full of self-disgust or adaptive grieving, exacerbated by adolescent angst, will pay more attention to a tone of voice that seems forever tinged with disappointment, or seems to be dripping with anger or hurt, or is apparently oozing with bitterness.

That child will notice the dull eyes, the slight frown, the gritted teeth, and the tension on the jaw when a parent (or teacher/social worker/ sibling/ therapist) has run out patience, which the child might equate with a loss of love, not least because it echoes their own feelings about themselves.

Rescuing

Cheering your child up when s/he is sad does NOT take away the sadness, it simply teaches hir to lock the tears away, whilst reducing the adult’s anxiety about and healthy acceptance of the child’s distress.

Asking your child to ‘buck up’ when s/he is scared; telling hir there is nothing to be afraid of; saying s/he is silly or stupid, does not help hir to be authentic and healthy. Shouting at an angry child simply demonstrates that displays of aggression are ‘ok’ if you are big enough! What you do is what you teach, so be a role model! You absolutely do not let your child control the situation, the family or you. To prevent this be in control of your own thoughts and feelings!  Later, when every one is calmer, when s/he has wept in your arms and is not so overwhelmed with emotion, thenis the time to help hir to think about the underlying issues.

Father: “Michael, how can we help our little girl to stop being so aggressive and making scenes?”

Me: “All that yelling, stomping around, threatening, slamming doors, sulking like a ten year old! When you stop behaving that way, then your daughter will see there is another way to show and to share feelings! So, one answer to your question is to be a role model!”

Father: That’s very easy to say!

Me: And not so easy to do? I know – and yet you demand that your daughter manages her emotions, controls her behaviour, and stops being the’ cause’ of your distress and dysfunction!”

Father: “That seems a little harsh!”

Me: “And how do you think your anger and blame seem to your daughter?”

Crafty Listening Good listening is a rare gift! It shows people that their thoughts and feelings matter to you. Craftylistening is much more than just good listening because you focus all your attention on another person. It involves self-awareness, self-management, empathy, courage, intuition and generosity of spirit.

Crafty listening creates space for people to think more clearly and time to reflect more deeply. Encouraging better connections in any relationship, it will serve you, your child/ren and your family later on.

Be warned! Crafty listening can be more uncomfortable than ‘ordinary’ listening because, for some, it doesn’t seem like listening at all. It lacks the usual interruptions and challenges. When the listener isn’t demanding justification, isn’t discounting beliefs s/he disagree with, isn’t interrupting all the time, many speakers struggle to handle that quality of attention!

Feelings rise to the surface more easily. The listener who may want to Rescue the speaker from the sadness, anger or fear sh/e is trying to share.

“It’ll be alright tomorrow, cheer up!” or “There’s no need to get upset, dear, I’m sure they didn’t mean it the way you think.” Or, “Don’t be silly, there’s nothing at all to worry about!”

Rescuing inhibits the sharing of deep rooted anxieties and concerns, which prevents old hurts from healing. They believe they are doing it for others but Rescuers are meeting their own needs. Crafty listening will directly influence your child’s ability to share and desire to trust you.

CRAFTY
Curiosity; Responsiveness; Assertiveness; Focus; Thoughtfulness; ‘Yes!’

Curiosity ABegins with a sense of wonder. Yes, it can be difficult to keep on wondering what your child will say or do next when s/he is so full of sadness, fear, rage, confusion and frustration.

Remember, in face to face communication, words are only part of the communication. Pitch, intonation, volume, etc., as well as body language such as eye-contact, whether you are sitting face-to-face or towering above your child, can all make a difference.

RESPONSIVENESS Respecting your child’s feelings can be difficult, especially if your own feelings are churned up. If you keep stopping your child from sharing more of hir troubles and traumas and s/he may believe you won’t be bale to encompass hir painful memories and deeper hurts.

ASSERTIVENESS This is necessary because, for your own sake as well as your child’s, it is vital that you are in appropriate control. If you are not, there is the danger that you will become the wicked wimp of the world, or become aggrieved and aggressive, neither of which is a desirable thing to be.

Focus Whate we focus on grows! Crafty listening means you need not be bored by your child’s boredom or whinging. You probe deeper, genuinely interested and fascinated by hir efforts to communicate. When a child knows that s/he is a fascinating being even if s/he is not entertaining, amusing, pleasing or compliant, even if s/he is shy, timid, angry, sad or scared, it can reinforce your child’s self-esteem and sense of belonging.

Thoughtfulness Hold your child’s pain and potential in your mind and think deeply about how you respond when you are together so that your responses can assist hir journey from Hurt, through Hate, on to Healing and beyond - to Wholeness.

Yes! Affirmative assumptions that you, your child and partner and, ideally, all your family are all in it together! You approach each conflict, argument, struggle, obstacle and set-back believing that, together, you will come through.