Teaching Children to Listen: A practical approach to developing children's listening skills

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Because children DO have control over their body and language, the most common (and frustrating) power struggles occur when children use their bodies and language to defy our requests.

Distractibility, 0–1 years: babies can only hold their attention for a few moments and they are easily distracted by new sounds or objects. Create a combination of two or more features. For example, ‘Swap places if you are a boy and you like apples.’ The ‘mother’ starts by herself, and the other children start away from her, normally near a wall or fence. Keep going like this: one sentence at a time, with the next child carrying it on by saying ‘and then.’Put out lots of rubber spots in a random array all over the floor. The spots should all be at least two meters apart, and you need at least as many spots as children. The spots are the rabbit holes. Poor listening skills can have a huge impact on a child’s life and learning. A failure to attend and listen can lead to difficulties in understanding, following and completing tasks successfully. This one works well if the adult is the ‘mother’ in the game, but with a bit of practice, children are able to do it OK as well (hopefully!). Many of them can also be played with children for years after preschool as they will still build vital listening and memory skills. 1. Broken Telephone Teaching your child to listen is a process that relies heavily on communication and consistency. Here are some tips to help you successfully teach your child the importance of listening, the first time:

Craft activities are great for children to follow instructions. Make sure you detail every step of the creative way so that you improve their listening skills, alongside their concentration and fine motor skills. Do origami, paint a picture, or turn a simple toilet roll into a cute animal with your little ones. Make up a word or sentence and whisper it into your child’s ear, who must whisper it to the next family member, who continues passing the message around the table. The last person to hear the message says it out loud.

offers training and resources for parents and education professionals to enable them to develop the listening, speech, language and communication of the children they work with. Developed through our own continuing work with children as speech and language therapists, we deliver training that is evidence based and practical, providing strategies, activities and resources to overcome the barriers that children with speech, language and communication difficulties can face.

Start by simply showing children the difference between hearing something and listening to it. Tell them the same story but in two different scenarios. First, let them walk around the room, play with their toys, or look out the window to explore the outdoors. Then sit them down and make sure they look at you to truly listen to the story. They'll instantly see the difference between the two. Vary the sentences by using alliterations (e.g. my tiny teddy is talking) and rhyming sentences (e.g. do you have a blue shoe?). Fully integrated attention, 5 years onwards: children can now carry out a task, focus their attention in various sized groups, ignore distractions and maintain their attention for a reasonable length of time. Eleven Reward Resources– Use our handy certificates, reward notes and charts to praise your children for their amazing listening skills! It is important to note that not all children will follow these stages rigidly. Also, as mentioned earlier, other factors can temporarily affect children’s ability to listen and attend. Poor listening and attention skills

Here is a brief explanation of the importance of this skill, followed by 17 simple listening activities and games. Why Listening Skills Are ImportantThink about it for a moment. What is your normal, knee-jerk reaction to the 10,000 requests you get from your child every day? “NO,” right? Hearing what someone tells you is one thing, actually listening to it is another thing altogether! Active listening skills for children include paying attention to what others say, focusing on both the words and their meanings, and understanding the verbal text.

Clearly, there is quite a lot going on in this simple question and so it is no surprise that some of our children struggle to listen. These can all be practised and improved through various fun activities and exercises, as you'll see in a minute. Importance of listening skills Attention under voluntary control, 3–4 years: children begin to control their own focus of attention and can shift this between an activity and the speaker. However, children still have to look at the person speaking. Children love this game and often giggle their way through it. It takes a lot of concentration to not move and first listen to whether they should perform the action or not.

One super handy way to reinforce active listening skills is to ask children to repeat what they've just heard. You can have them repeat certain details or full parts of the story to truly challenge them. Remember that “not listening” should always be a wakeup call for us. While it might seem like defiance or inattention on their part–it is more than likely a way to get our attention or express their need for power.