Category: Parenting

How to keep listening (even when they go on and on)

Super-listening is one the many superpowers I’ve been expected to develop as a parent of autistic kids.

This blog is about my baby who didn’t talk. I have other babies that did. And, oh my goodness, they talk. Easily thirty minutes without pausing on whatever is their ‘thing’ at the current time. Briefly throwing out a question like ” who is your favourite Pokemon” to check you’re listening, and then monologue again. Here are my top tips for how I surf it:

  • Whenever they get a new craze, invest twenty minutes to read a wiki on it this means that you can bring in a little bit of reciprocal conversation on the topic they’re interested in, to model good conversation skills. Also means that you can quickly come up with plausible answers to pop quiz questions, even if you tuned out.
  • Make listening face and noise It doesn’t actually matter if your attention wanders. I find that they don’t expect much of you beyond a chance to unspool their mental narrative
  • Mirror their reactions. Laugh when they do even if you lost track of the joke. Look concerned when they look concerned. It’s about nurturing joint attention and emotional connection – rather than the facts.
  • Give them thirty minutes to talk about their thing, and then insert the question you really want the answer to. For example “why were you upset after school yesterday”. The pay off for an hour of listening to Pokemon is that once they’re talking about one thing, they’ll be on a talking roll sometimes.
  • Take them with you when you have driving errands primetalkingtime without eating into your free time.
  • Enjoy the fact that they want to bring you into their world. It’s a compliment. And it’s setting up the idea that you care about their ‘stuff’.

And the look that you gave me made me shiver

Cos you never used to look at me that way. And I thought. Maybe I should walk right up to you and say: “It’s a game we like to play”?

Look into her angel eyes. One look and you’re hypnotised. She who must take your heart and you must pay the price.

Look into her angel eyes. You’ll remember when they were paradise. But now it wears a disguise.

Don’t look too deep into those angel eyes.

Now I’m lonely I sit and think about her, and it hurts to remember all the good times

And I wonder does it have to be this way? When I see you, can I take away all the pain?

Look into those angel eyes.

She said she was sick. I said she wasn’t. We both cried. I’m sitting in a corner on my own feeling like I let her down. Two miles away, she probably agrees.

Angel Eyes