Three Ways to Help Kids Feel Heard

If there is anything I learned through this 2020 quarantine experience; it is the importance of being heard. Not only for us adults but for the kids as well! When you think about it our kids really didn’t feel heard when they were brought home from classrooms they didn’t return to, when sports seasons were cancelled, when afterschool activities were cancelled. It took some behavioral struggles at home to realize that they needed to be heard just as much as we adults did, and I needed to change things a bit to facilitate that. There are three things my husband and I focused on to make sure the kids felt heard this year.

This post has been sponsored by Blue Microphones. The opinions expressed are my own. 

 

One on One Time

I know spending one-on-one time with each child is sometimes easier said than done (especially when your kids are younger). One of the most important things I realized was that the one-on-one time doesn’t need to be a production. Simple activities at home have been helpful in making my kids feel heard and loved. Here are some things we have been doing:

• Walk around the neighborhood (I can take my son in the morning since he is done with virtual learning earlier and then take my daughter in the evening after dinner).
• Board/card games
• Reading a book; this is simple but probably my favorite. Even my eight-year-old who is “too-old” for a lot of things and is an avid reader loves to snuggle up while I read to her. 
• Picnic lunch/snack date: my kids LOVE picnics! We pack up our favorite snacks and go to a grassy area near our house (or sometimes even our own backyard) and connect. This one is a little harder to do one-on-one because often times both kids want to be involved.

 

Active Listening

When we started to spend more time at home, my husband and I noticed we were on our phones a lot. Whether it was responding to a work email, reading a news article or being sucked into a group text; our attention became divided. We both got into the bad habit of reaching for our phones constantly and passively listening to the kids when they were talking. They figured out quickly that they weren’t being heard and my husband and I realized we needed to change. It is a bad habit we are still working to fully break. Now, we put our phones on silent during nonwork hours and make sure we are making eye contact and listening to the kids when they are talking. Instead of canned statements like “oh really?” and “that’s nice” we ask follow-up questions to make sure that they know that we are hearing them, and we want to know more.

 

Do a Distance Learning Check-In

In the beginning of distance learning my daughter was very nervous about video conference calls. I could see it affecting her confidence and she abruptly stopped contributing to the class conversations. We wanted her to be comfortable expressing her opinion across all learning mediums, so my husband set up practice video conferences to help her feel more confident in her distance learning classroom. This made my daughter more comfortable in her video call skills. I hear her contributing so much more in her virtual classroom!

We started looking into microphones when my son was complaining about his teacher not hearing him well. We went the headset with built-in mic route and it was a minimal improvement. When Blue Microphones asked to send us their microphones, we were excited to see the difference. Blue Microphones come in different price points and the cool thing is that you are getting the same premium microphone at the various prices, just different features. I chose the Blue Snowball iCE for my six-year-old son because I know he likes to fiddle with everything and I didn’t want him to be tempted to do the same with his microphone. I can’t tell you how many times he “accidentally” left his Zoom call daily (thank goodness for his incredibly patient teacher!). With the Blue Snowball iCE, he isn’t tempted to move it around and the tripod makes it harder to tip over. 

We chose the Blue Yeti Nano for my eight-year-old daughter because we knew she wouldn’t fiddle with the tilt and we liked the mute button being right on the microphone. This went back to comfort and confidence as it gives her more control to quickly mute when her brother at the next desk over starts singing in his virtual kindergarten class! The Yeti Nano has the option of cardioid pick up patterns which helps minimize background noise, perfect for when the kitchen table becomes the classroom and I am preparing dinner in the background.

My husband also loves to borrow the Blue Yeti Nano when he is giving his work presentations to make sure his sound is crystal clear and the background noise limited. 

Overall the kids feel like they are heard more clearly with minimal effort and it is a bonus that they aren’t yelling into the computer anymore.  

Distance learning has been a learning experience for all of us and we are finding new ways to make sure the kids feel heard. What has worked for you in your home?

 

With love,

Shahla