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| Learning to listen to children |
Listening is a delicate, much more difficult than it might seem.
It's already delicate if it relates to another who speaks the same language, using our conventions and our categories.
Becomes difficult with an "other" who speaks another language and adopt thought patterns different from ours and this is the case, listening to a child by the adult.
Communicating with a child is much more difficult than it might seem.
Good intentions are not enough.
Indeed, we could say little provocatively that good intentions are not enough, but not only, at times, are not required.
The actual communication with the child is a communication between two parties instinctive, so it is not mediated by intentions.
I can be in front of a child and have no intention to be interested in his problems, I can be distracted by other thoughts, but if that child has of himself hidden signs of an experience that somehow reminds of my childhood, I acknowledge those signs, even without being aware of it and will stay upset, even without being able to understand what troubled me.
The Authentic listening requires above all that those who want to know how to listen first listen to himself, recognizing their emotional universe and conflicts that the helping relationship with children can turn into him.
Can we really listen to a child , understand his needs, being able to keep in our minds his suffering, only if we make a challenging path of personal growth and we have agreed to face the child that we were.
Only by acknowledging our emotions and our suffering we can really put ourselves in the game and to have an authentic relationship with the children we meet.
