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by
Dan Coulter, Coulter Video
Who do you listen to?
We generally listen to people we respect.
Which makes it kind of ironic that we don't always listen to
ourselves.
A few days ago, my wife pointed out an article about listening
written last year by teacher Andy Dousis, who noticed his fourth
grade students excluding a classmate from their activities. This
classmate had trouble making conversation, so he sometimes
pushed or grabbed others. He had other challenges, too, and
often sobbed in frustration.
While the other students were initially patient with this child,
they became less and less tolerant as the year progressed.
In looking at his own behavior, this teacher realized that the
good example he'd set at the beginning of the school year had
slipped away from him. In September, he had put considerable
effort into integrating this "difficult"
classmate into the class, and his students had responded. But as
the year wore on and he'd gotten busier, he'd become impatient
and spoken sharply to correct the child's inappropriate
behaviors. The students were simply picking up their cues from
their teacher. A good person and a good teacher, all it took to
start fixing his approach was to listen to himself and realize
what he was doing. Things got better for the lonely student and
everyone in the class benefited.
This story brought to mind a conversation I had with a mother of
a grown son with Asperger Syndrome at a conference in
Philadelphia where my wife and I spoke. The mother explained how
no one had known about Asperger Syndrome when her son was
younger. She now looked back sadly at the way she had initially
reacted to her son's difficult behaviors without meaning to. One
day her four year old daughter, after continually hearing Mom
speak sharply to her older brother, looked up at her mother and
said, "If you'll be nice to Jim, I'll be nice to you."
In that moment, her world changed. Even before a diagnosis
helped her better understand her son's condition, her daughter
helped her listen to herself, and be more of the mother her son
needed.
This mother wasn't alone. When my kids were little, my wife
pointed out to me that I spoke to our son with AS in a very
different, and less patient, tone than I used with our daughter.
I confirmed this listening to myself on some home movies. It's
easy to respond with the first thing that comes to mind to fix
an immediate problem, but in a way you might regret later. I
learned to change my responses.
This also was when I learned to patiently explain to my son how
I expected him to act before he went into a situation, and even
practice beforehand.
The change wasn't instantaneous, but he did start doing much
better. In fact, he'd often work hard to follow our
instructions, then look up at us with an excited face and say,
"I did it right, didn't I?"
This can be such a basic fix. Just listening to ourselves and
making any changes necessary to say what we really want to say.
One of the best feelings in the world has got to be listening to
yourself talk to a child, and liking what you hear.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dan Coulter is the producer of the
videos, "Understanding Brothers and Sisters with Asperger
Syndrome" and "Understanding Brothers and Sisters on the Autism
Spectrum." You can read more articles on his website:
www.coultervideo.com
(Links to Andy Dousis' article in the Responsive Classroom
Newsletter and in Education World)
http://www.responsiveclassroom.org/newsletter/19_2nl_1.html
http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/responsiveclassroom/responsiveclassroom015.shtml
Copyright 2008 Dan Coulter Used By Permission All Rights
Reserved
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