Am I Listening? Am I Hearing?
I was asked this week if I had ever thought about the difference between listening and hearing. Thought I would share what I have learned - listening and hearing are verbs. They are “doing” words. According to English Teacher Carly, there is a distinct difference as she explains in this short video.
Listening is paying attention, it is the act of concentrating on the sounds hitting your ear drum. Listening is the ability to focus on the sounds we hear. Listening is the ability to interpret what we hear and understand it.
Hearing is simply noticing the sounds around you which enter your ear. The verb to hear is the physical activity of sound falling on the ear drum and generating a perception of what we hear.
When you want someone to understand you, you would say, “Listen to me!”, rather than “Hear me!”
We have the ability to control what we listen to, yet we cannot control what we hear. Noise is heard, we can choose to listen to the noise or not. Along those lines, we hear the jackhammer, we listen to music.
And in English you have this wonderful difference between listening and hearing, and that you can hear without listening, and you can listen and not hear.
- Daniel Barenboim, Argentine Classical Pianist and Conductor
Our children make noise. We need to choose to listen. We need to listen when our children are talking. We learn a lot about our children when they speak to us, to their friends, and to other adults. When you are traveling in a car with your children and their friends, listen to the conversations. When your children are talking to adults listen to how they converse. Assist them in learning to speak in a way that leads to being listened to. Help them be good communicators by sharing positive ways to greet and say goodbye. Teach them to be good listeners.
Listening takes time, and energy. When we listen to our children, we are making an investment in them and our relationship with them.
As we listen, we are modeling how to be good at making an effort towards understanding each other. A learned skill with a great benefit as our children grow through their teens into adulthood.
