{"id":176,"date":"2025-12-31T19:39:02","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T19:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/childguidance\/?post_type=back-matter&p=176"},"modified":"2026-04-25T05:41:59","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T05:41:59","slug":"empathetic-listening-practice","status":"publish","type":"back-matter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/childguidance\/back-matter\/empathetic-listening-practice\/","title":{"raw":"Empathetic Listening Practice","rendered":"Empathetic Listening Practice"},"content":{"raw":"

A Little Practice<\/h2>\r\nUse the handout on Active Listening Techniques and choose some responses to the following statements made by a child you have chosen to listen to.\r\n\r\nFor each one, think about what is important in the message you are hearing.\r\n
\r\n\r\n\u201cSusie is mean! I\u2019m never going to be her friend anymore.\u201d\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nWhat is your guess at what the child is feeling? How would you Reflect that back in a respectful, effective way?\r\n\r\nWhat is an open-ended question you might ask?\r\n\r\nI would not suggest paraphrasing this statement. The two sentences are very clear, but not likely the truth. They are a means of expressing the depth of the child\u2019s feeling at this time.\r\n
\r\n\r\n\u201cJohny kicked the ball really hard playing kickball. Tom wasn\u2019t looking and it hit him in the head. He ran over to Miss Jane and told her Johny did it on purpose just to hurt him, but he didn\u2019t, he was just playing the game. Miss Jane looked really mad and she went over and took Johny to the office.\u201d\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nHow would you paraphrase this back to the speaker? What the main point of the story?\r\n\r\nWhat do you think the speaker is feeling? How could you reflect that awareness back to him?\r\n
\r\n\r\n\u201cRonnie ruined my art project! So I\u2019m going to tear his up into a thousand million pieces.\u201d\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nAssuming Ronnie\u2019s art project is safe from danger at this point, and you have wisely decided to just listen to help this student, how would you just reflect back that you \u201cget\u201d how he\u2019s feeling?\r\n\r\nAfter you have acknowledged his strong feelings, you could even paraphrase by saying something like, \u201cYou\u2019re so mad at him that you wish you could destroy his project to get back at him.\u201d These kinds of listening responses take the pressure off and invite the child to continue to talk. The child will be much better able to come to","rendered":"

A Little Practice<\/h2>\n

Use the handout on Active Listening Techniques and choose some responses to the following statements made by a child you have chosen to listen to.<\/p>\n

For each one, think about what is important in the message you are hearing.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cSusie is mean! I\u2019m never going to be her friend anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What is your guess at what the child is feeling? How would you Reflect that back in a respectful, effective way?<\/p>\n

What is an open-ended question you might ask?<\/p>\n

I would not suggest paraphrasing this statement. The two sentences are very clear, but not likely the truth. They are a means of expressing the depth of the child\u2019s feeling at this time.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cJohny kicked the ball really hard playing kickball. Tom wasn\u2019t looking and it hit him in the head. He ran over to Miss Jane and told her Johny did it on purpose just to hurt him, but he didn\u2019t, he was just playing the game. Miss Jane looked really mad and she went over and took Johny to the office.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

How would you paraphrase this back to the speaker? What the main point of the story?<\/p>\n

What do you think the speaker is feeling? How could you reflect that awareness back to him?<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cRonnie ruined my art project! So I\u2019m going to tear his up into a thousand million pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Assuming Ronnie\u2019s art project is safe from danger at this point, and you have wisely decided to just listen to help this student, how would you just reflect back that you \u201cget\u201d how he\u2019s feeling?<\/p>\n

After you have acknowledged his strong feelings, you could even paraphrase by saying something like, \u201cYou\u2019re so mad at him that you wish you could destroy his project to get back at him.\u201d These kinds of listening responses take the pressure off and invite the child to continue to talk. The child will be much better able to come to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"menu_order":4,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"Practice","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":["ken-breeding"],"pb_section_license":"cc-by-nc"},"back-matter-type":[27],"contributor":[61],"license":[56],"class_list":["post-176","back-matter","type-back-matter","status-publish","hentry","back-matter-type-appendix","contributor-ken-breeding","license-cc-by-nc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/childguidance\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/back-matter\/176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/childguidance\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/back-matter"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/childguidance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/back-matter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/childguidance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/childguidance\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/back-matter\/176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":177,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/childguidance\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/back-matter\/176\/revisions\/177"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/childguidance\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/back-matter\/176\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/childguidance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"back-matter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/childguidance\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/back-matter-type?post=176"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/childguidance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=176"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palomar.edu\/childguidance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}