“Angela, clean your room! Angela, clean the bathroom! Angela, wash the dishes! Angela, switch off the TV! Angela, do your homework! Angela, do this and that! Angela, Angela, Angela……. ” How many times in a day do your parents call your name? Do your parents call you to complete many household tasks? Do you do these tasks when you are asked to? If you do them, you are being a good listener and you are following their rules. In this article, I want to tell you all about listening, different types of listeners, and some of its benefits.

To listen, you use your ears to hear what people are saying. Good listeners pay full attention to what the other person is saying so they can fully understand everything they are being told. After the person is done speaking, they either do what the person told them to do or take a second to understand and take in the information in.

My mom has this book called “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens” that has daily readings from January 1st to December 31st, which we read daily during devotion time. For the month of August, the habit in discussion is called “Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood”. It explains the good and the bad listeners.

Bad or poor listeners do not pay full attention. Poor listeners space out, pretend to listen, select what to listen, do word, and self-centered listening.

When you space out, you pay no attention whatsoever to the speaker and your thoughts are elsewhere. When you pretend to listen, you often say things like yeah, uh-huh, and cool. You say these to pretend you are listening but really, you are not. Selective listening is when you only pay attention to certain parts of what someone is saying and you get the whole meaning wrong. For example: “You can have the cake after you do five laps, Angela.” said mom. “I can have cake!? Where? Where?!” screams Angela. Angela only paid attention to the cake part so she didn’t even hear about running five laps.

Word listening is actually listening to the words being said but not looking at the speakers body language and feelings resulting in you not knowing the true meaning of what the speaker is saying. Self-centered listening is when you think everything the speaker is saying should be in your point of view. You always want the speaker to be in your shoes instead of you being in the speakers shoes.

Good listeners show respects to others, gain more information, and have better relationships with those around them.

Bad listeners are disrespectful, cannot learn much as they do not get full information of what is being said to them, and have poor relationships.

As you see, listening is very important. Listening well can determine if you are a respectful person, what new information you gather, and the kinds of relationships you have. You do not want to be that person who fakes listening, selectively listens, or just spaces out entirely in the class or day to day conversations. So, from now on, I hope you will listen more to anyone who speaks, whether it is your teacher giving you an assignment, your classmate telling you about their vacation, or your parents lecturing you about keeping your room clean. My mom says, “guys, you have 1 mouth and 2 ears, use your ears more”! Mmmh, what she means is …. guys listen more and talk less!

Thank you and happy listening, folks!

Angela-Acaye