What Are Some Active Listening Lead-Ins?

ACTIVE LISTENING LEAD-INS

It is helpful to use a variety of expressions when you Active Listen. Repetition of one phrase such as "Sounds like..." or "You feel..." rapidly becomes irritating to your child and comes across as a technique rather than a genuine, natural and empathic response.

Practice using different words as you Active Listening. One way to develop your Active Listening is to think about starting with only one part. This can be either listening to "Facts", thoughts, ideas, information, or listening only to "Feelings".

Some examples are:

ACTIVE LISTENING TO FACTS (especially good in the No Problem Area)

• The fact is...
• You think...
• The idea you have is...
• What you are saying is...
• Your view is...
• You believe...

ACTIVE LISTENING TO FEELINGS

• You feel...
• It's really...
• So you feel...
• Looks like...
• Sounds like you are...
• Seems like your feeling...

Relax, make your Active Listening as natural as possible. Using analogies that are age and interest appropriate are also good ways to develop a more natural variety of Active Listening responses.

Lead-ins include:

ACTIVE LISTENING TO FACTS AND FEELINGS

• You feel...about...
• Its...when...
• You can't...and that's...
• You're really...because...
• The way you see it is..and that's...
• When...you're really...
• You are...that...

In it's complete form Active Listening includes both the "Facts" (content) and the Feelings.

• It's like being hit by a truck
• You feel your teacher really nailed you to the wall
• You got hung out to dry
• She really shot you down (military or video gaming)
• So it's like you really struck out (sports)

*Excerpt from Dr. Thomas Gordon's P.E.T. Participant Workbook