Don’t you love it when people interrupt you? When they can’t wait for you to finish before they jump in with their opinion? Doesn’t it make you feel special and seen and heard?
So next question: Do you want your children to feel special and seen and heard? How do you think it makes them feel when you interrupt them with your opinion? Remember our kids are just little people with thoughts and feelings.
“But I know what they are going to say. And they just ramble on and on. It takes forever to get things done!”
All true. If your main goal is to get things done and to tell them what to do.
But what if your goal is to reach their heart and help them make wise decisions on their own? Are there more effective ways to communicate than interrupting in the interest of efficiency?
Can I offer a suggestion to help you instruct more effectively? Consider the art of the pause.
A pause. A temporary stop in action or speech. It will do wonders for your conversations with your children.
It’s simple but certainly not easy. Let your children finish their question or statement. Then wait — 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi — and now begin.
Four of my grandchildren are in their second year of life. I can’t understand anything they say, but they all talk like I can. Their talk is a story full of characters and plot and inflection and tone. Just not legible words, but they are communicating like everyone should understand what they are saying. If I talk too soon in their story, they will look at me with this look of, “Can I finish?” Even at 1 years old, they do not want to be interrupted.
What about our 5-year-old? Our 9-year-old? Our teenager. Do they talk too fast and too much? Yes. Are their stories not that important to us? Absolutely. Do we often know the answer before they are finished? That’s a yes, too, but you would be amazed at how often the pause helps you to get all the facts in a decision.
Again, is the point efficiency or is the point reaching their hearts? For all our kids, just like the 1-year-old, they want to be seen, heard, and understood. When we interrupt and talk over them, we tell them what they are saying is not important. What they hear also is they are not important.
And yet a simple pause in conversations can speak volumes. And there are other benefits as well.
The pause gives us time to think about what we want to say back. How often do we say something to our kids and wish we had it back? An angry tone, a harsh word. We see the hurt we caused, and we just want a do-over. With the pause, so often we will have just a moment or two where we can think about what we are about to say. More likely than not, our comment after the pause will be wiser and less reactionary.
The pause teaches our children to listen to us. Do you want your children to listen to you? What are you teaching them about listening when you are interrupting? That’s right. When we interrupt, we are actually teaching our children to interrupt others, including us. When we respect their statements, they are more likely to respect ours.
Proverbs 18:13 says, “To answer before listening — that is folly and shame.” Let’s flip that proverb. “To answer after listening — with a pause — that is wise and uplifting.”
Go try it! Like anything new, it will be awkward at first but over time the pause will help you connect with your children and help them feel seen, heard, and understood.
