Ep #108: How to Teach Kids the Language of Listening with Christine Miles

What if, essentially, everything you thought you knew about listening was wrong? And what if active listening, the thing we’ve been taught we’re supposed to do, was actually something we didn’t really completely understand? It was a tool that wasn’t built for parents and teachers.

My guest today, Christine Miles, is an expert at listening. And unlike active listening, she’s developed a pathway or a tool, a language of listening that’s built for parents and teachers to use with children and to teach children how to communicate. In fact, it’s so effective and so amazing that it’s being used to work with large companies, CEOs, and people all over the world.

If you’ve ever asked your child at the end of the school day, “How was their day?” and they say, “Good,” and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I need more,” or if you’ve ever had a child trying to tell you a story and they’re wandering here and there and all over the place, or maybe it’s a spouse or a friend, and you’re trying to figure out how to listen and get the story and the meaning of that story without being rude, oh my goodness, does Christine have the tools for you.

She talks about the three steps on The Listening Path® and tools in each one and makes it so simple and so understandable. And here’s the deal. She gives you six questions that professionals use to really listen, professional listeners, that you can take home and start using with your kids today. It is so simple and yet so profound, and I cannot wait for you to hear it. It’s coming up right after this.

Welcome to the Raising Healthy Kid Brains podcast, where moms and teachers come to learn all about kids’ brains, how they work, how they learn, how they grow, and simple tips and tricks for raising the most resilient, kind, smart, compassionate kids we can. All while having lots of grace and compassion for ourselves, because, you know what? We all really need and deserve that, too. I am your host, Amy Nielson, let’s get ready to start the show.

Christine, welcome to the show. I’m so happy to have you on today.

Christine: I’m absolutely delighted to be here.

Amy: Oh my goodness. I am just so excited about this topic because we’re talking about listening and the language of listening. Oh, it’s going to be so good, why it matters. So before we get into this, your passion for listening was born from a personal place. Can you take us into that story and just how it’s shaped your life and your work? And then let’s get into more of the how and all of that.

Christine: Sure, sure. Yeah, I always joke that everybody has a story. We know that because Oprah said it. So once Oprah says it, it must be true. So we all have some reason we do what we do and why we do what we do. And mine’s pretty obvious because I grew up with a mother who had mental health issues stemming from a very early childhood loss. She lost her mother from childbirth. It’s a little bit of a longer story. And there were mental health issues in the family, which probably she came by honestly as well.

But this profound loss really shaped my mother. She was motherless her whole life. And when she had the girl, she fulfilled kind of a little bit of a fantasy, which was, I have the mother I never had in many ways, that connection, like the mother-daughter connection that she so craved.

So there was a lot of responsibility laid on me kind of unconsciously that I would fill some of that gap. And my mother had pain that most people didn’t see. She was very exuberant and warm and funny, and she lit up the room, but below the surface was this kind of deep hole that could not go away for her. So my job was to understand what most people didn’t see.

So that was the burden side, and the gift side was that it formed who I was at a very early age, and I realized I was overachieving as early as high school from this superpower skill. And when I got into working first with individuals and families, because I was a home-based family therapist, my first job out of college, again, a longer story. But I learned that a lot of problems were because people didn’t know this skill with each other in families, in relationships.

And then when I started working in businesses, it was all around these misunderstandings and what wasn’t seen, heard, or understood, which is why I was being successful. And I thought there’s got to be a solution to this because we’re told to listen and not taught.

So that’s really how the mission was born through a series of both personal and business experiences that said, we don’t have a common language for this, and this is the problem that we need to solve.

Amy: Mmm. Oh, that’s so powerful. And wow, what a story. I was listening to that and I was thinking about a podcast I just listened to recently. One of the top podcasters in the world and has gotten into all these amazing places, and he started with absolutely nothing.

And he said, “I just wanted to be next to people and listen to them.” And he’s like, “I just listened to them. I would just ask them questions and listen.” And because I did that, they kept inviting me to all these things. And all of a sudden he just got bigger and bigger and became one of the top business podcasters in the world and has all this money and all the success from listening, which I thought was so interesting.

But then also, my goodness, how much it impacts us in our home in every single relationship that we have, in every part of our lives, this skill of listening, I think is so huge. And you talked about that listening is one of the most underdeveloped and misunderstood skills. Can you talk about what do you mean by that? How did we get there?

Christine: Yeah. So I really appreciate what you said and what I love is how excited people are about listening. It’s all so invisible. I said I’ve sold air for a long time because it’s like we know listening is everywhere. It’s like oxygen, but we don’t see oxygen. We just breathe it in.

And so we get how important it is on one hand, but we don’t really understand the gravity of how important it is because we don’t see the costs. We don’t see the impact. We don’t make that connection that so much of what’s costing us is because we don’t really do this very well because most people overestimate their skills.

Research shows consistently that 96% of people believe they’re good listeners. All you have to ask yourself is, when was the last time somebody didn’t listen to you? It was probably this morning. And so we feel it when we aren’t listened to, but we don’t recognize it when we’re the one not listening.

Amy: Interesting. So we’re very good at feeling when people aren’t listening to us, but we are not so good at noticing when we’re not listening to others. Ooh, okay, that’s a big one. So we’re going to – we’re going to get into that. Is it partly because we think that we’re better at it than we are?

Christine: That’s one of the things. And we’ve never been taught what good listening is. So how do we know what it really is? Did you have any training on that? Not to put you on the spot here, Amy, but any formal listening training?

Amy: I’ve not had any formal listening training. I would say that I think that my dad helped me with this. When I was a child, I remember going to the hardware store with my dad and I come from a family of 12 kids. Getting any time with your parent was the best, right? So he took me to the hardware store one time. I think it was around 10 or 11. And I was so bored because he’s sitting here at this hardware store talking to the guy at the counter forever, you know, and I’m just like, oh my gosh, can we leave already, right?

And we were leaving, and he told me something so interesting. He said, “Amy, everyone is an expert at something.” And he said, “And they love talking about it. And if you’ll just ask them questions, they’ll teach you everything they know about whatever they’re good at.”

And I just, it kind of blew me away and has stuck with me for the rest of my life. And it changes, I think, how I walk into a room because you’re looking around instead of like, maybe trying to compete and find ways that you know, to fill our ego that we’re okay being in this room because we’re better at this, whatever, right? I don’t know.

But instead, you’re looking for the best in everybody, like whatever they have that they’re good at because you want to learn from them. Like, ooh, how can I learn from this person? And then you want to go ask them questions. So I feel like I got that. I don’t know if that’s the same listening.

Christine: Well, it’s certainly a level of awareness that is just crazy good and that you had that as a – such a profound moment. Aren’t these – these moments shape us, don’t we? There’s research around 10 moments that shape who we are in our lives, the most 10 significant moments. So that’s really cool. And look, so there isn’t an exact estimate, but it’s thought that up to 85% of what we learn is through listening.

So if you want to be smarter, and this is why listening is a learning skill, not just a, let me be good at interpersonal relationships, it’s both. Because we do learn so much from listening and it does make you smarter, and it also helps you become the smartest person in the room because when you listen to what other people say and then take it to the next level where you can tell them what you heard, then you somehow rise to the top.

I know this from personal experience and helping others learn how to do this because it just makes you smarter when you can pull everybody’s thoughts and thinking and learnings together. So it does, and yet he didn’t tell you how to do it.

Amy: Right. Yeah.

Christine: So we talk about behaviors and so our model for listening is most people know about active listening. And that’s part of the misunderstanding. So active listening is behaviorally based. It was designed by psychologists, Dr. Carl Rogers, for psychologists. So this is not an easy skill for the average Joe. And there’s 11 or 12 behavioral things we’re supposed to do to actively listen, like withhold judgment, ask good questions, be empathetic, make eye contact, repeat what you hear. I could go on. I can’t do 12 things at once. Can you?

Amy: Well, yeah, and I feel like we don’t get that whole speech when we hear about active listening. It’s like you’re going to listen and repeat back what you’re saying so that they feel like that you’ve heard or whatever. And I – yeah, they’re not telling you about the other, you know, 11 things you’re supposed to be doing at the same time, so.

Christine: That’s right. And most people, without training, only hear 50% about and remember about 50% of what is said. So how do you repeat something you didn’t remember? So it’s not that active listening is wrong, it’s just that it’s not really designed for the average person because we’re not therapists. We’re not all looking for that.

And the modern world has changed the world, and time is one of the most valuable resources, and we’re competing with a lot of things. We’re competing with attention spans, we’re competing with the pace of the world, we’re competing with screens, and we’re communicating in different ways that isn’t just, you know, face to face.

So it doesn’t work the same way. We have to listen on our devices even if we’re texting. We have to listen while we’re in other modes, and we need to adapt how we listen and change that, modernize it. So that’s part of my mission is to do that. But it’s – even if we just stuck with active listening, it’s just a lot to incorporate.

Amy: Yeah, it does feel like a lot. And I think we get so busy and so distracted. I think the times when I feel like my kids feel like I’m not listening, it’s because there are a million and five things going on in my brain and I’m thinking I have to do this and this and I don’t know, it just feels like we’re multitasking, especially maybe as women, we’re doing a lot of that. So how do we do it? Is there a framework that’s not doing 12 things at once that allows us to just kind of be in that space? Like what’s this framework for listening and how do we do it better in a few simple steps or something?

Christine: That’s part of the problem that I’m trying to solve. What’s the framework? And then two, how do we scale education so that it’s not a nice to have, but a need to have? Because there’s zero years of formalized education in schools on listening. I have a master’s in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. I’m pretty well credentialed here. I have a certificate from a world renowned facility on structural family therapists. That was my first career. And I’ve had zero years of formal listening training.

So and many, many psychologists, I was on a podcast with a well-known psychologist. She’s like, you know, I didn’t have any formal listening training either. It’s kind of part of the process, but it’s not really described or, sometimes it is, but not often. So the first is, rather than behaviors, we need tools. That’s part of the language. Rather than be empathetic, well, not everybody’s wired the same way to be as empathetic as the next. So to expect empathy when you show up is a really hard thing.

If you listen with the right tools, empathy will follow. I often joke, I don’t like to run, but if you throw a ball, I’ll chase it like a dog all day. So I’ll get into shape by virtue of doing the chasing. So when you listen well, empathy builds, develops. And this is part of why it’s important to teach this to our children. That’s part of it.

So the tools take the place of the behaviors and the tools do the work. So I call this The Listening Path®. This is what I created, and it’s the path to understanding. And what are the tools you need? And the metaphor is, you wouldn’t go hiking in the woods without tools or supplies in your backpack. That would be crazy. Yet we go into what I call the conversational woods all the time unprepared.

So what are the tools you need for your listening backpack? That’s how we anchor a language versus just pay attention, just make eye contact. It’s, oh, the tool will help me do what I need to do to get where I need to go in the conversational woods.

Amy: Oh, I love that so much. You’re not overthinking it. It’s just, you kind of develop the skills as you use the tools is what you’re saying. Ooh, I love that. So what are these tools? If we were just to break it down into, I know there’s so much more and we’re going to talk about your book and how we can learn more about this and things for teachers. But if you could just give us like a little bit of a, the 30,000 level view, right? Just like the quick, what are some of the tools that we can use?

Christine: Yeah. So let me describe the process first because I think at a high level, this will relate, especially for the parents, okay, and the teachers. So there’s really three steps to listening. And the first one is you have to get the story because when you’re listening, by the way, we talked before we started, like getting a story of your kid’s day. What do they say? Good. It was okay, right?

Amy: We’ve all been there. Um, well, I had lunch. I don’t know. Yeah, they don’t tell you anything. How was your day? It was good.

Christine: And so frustrating, right? So here’s the deal. We’re terrible storytellers, most of us, naturally. It’s not a skill that’s natural. So we’re starting in all confusing places. We confuse the listener. But when your child says good, that’s a story. It’s just your job as the listener to get it. Okay. So that’s part of what we have to understand that we’re always listening to a story and step one is to get the story. So there’s tools how to get that. I’ll go over that in a minute.

Then we think we’re done listening. That’s where most people think, oh, I listened, I heard it, I got it. The reality is that’s only the very, very beginning. The second step is probably even more important, which is, did I understand what I heard? Who gets to decide that? The person that did the talking, not the listener.

So what we tend to do is listen and then say, “I understand.” And I always say, the words “I understand” have nothing to do with understanding or the speaker feeling understood. That’s up for me to decide, not for the other person to decide. But we use this so casually. It’s really kind of diminishing the process and what we’re doing with each other on a human level, let alone in meetings, in businesses, in classrooms. All the misunderstandings start with the word I understood. I understand. To make sure we affirm that understanding.

And then the third step is the real goal of listening, and people like outcomes, I do too. And the goal is understanding, not agreement. So what’s the meaning of what you heard? Not just what the words were, not just what the story was. So you look for the story, you get it, you gather it, you listen to it. Then you confirm that understanding, step two. And then step three is, now what did that all mean?

And when you find that, then you’re in a different paradigm of listening, rather than just paying attention or, you know, having a conversation that really doesn’t go anywhere. So if you’re in a classroom, this means what did you understand about the math lesson? If you’re at home, what did your day mean to you or what did you gain from that? So those are the things that we’re looking for, and that’s a different definition of listening than I think most of us have.

Amy: Mmm, yeah, that’s so good. And I love that you gave us the goal for the end is the meaning. Like, what is the meaning? And that’s really what we’re trying to get to and the story is just part of getting there. Ooh, so good. Okay. So that’s kind of the process and then do you have some tools for each of the steps?

Christine: Absolutely. Yeah. And just to go back to what you just said, like, would we watch a movie that didn’t have like an interesting moral or, I mean, they’re, it’s just not the same, right? If we don’t get something out of it. So the same is true in life and it’s always hidden inside the story. We just have to know what we’re looking for.

So if we go back to the path and imagine being in the woods, what you need to gather a story are first two things. You need to know where you’re going. So just like if you were hiking a trail, you need a map. If the trail’s not marked, you need to know where you’re going or you’re just going to get lost on these side trails. And our goal is to find the destination, not just to hike a couple steps. So the first tool in The Listening Path® is a map. And what that is, it’s a map to the story. And stories have two important parts. They have facts, and they also have feelings. I’ll go off on a little tangent there if I may.

We don’t socialize our kids enough to talk or ask about feelings. So we raise adults that are afraid or uncomfortable or uncertain if they should ask about feelings. And that’s such an important part. Again, you wouldn’t watch a movie that had only facts. You couldn’t tolerate it. It’s just devoid of any interest and it’s devoid of people. So it’s a PowerPoint in corporate America too often.

So we need to look for the feelings as well as the facts. Those two things together make a cohesive narrative. And as parents, and so here’s a tip for your parents and teachers, when we only ask about how was your day in terms of facts, we miss a lot of the story. That’s part of what shuts things down quickly because I don’t tell you just about, well, I had lunch. Okay. But I know that’s where people start with a fact, but when you get to the feelings is when the story really opens up.

Amy: That is so interesting. And I love this idea of it being in both directions, right? So one, we’re kind of like as parents, we’re like, well, what did you do? And we’re kind of looking for like this list. And they’re like, it was good. And you’re like, okay. Right? So they felt good about their day. Okay. So I love that you’re like, okay, so we’re trying to listen to feelings because that’s part of the narrative.

But I also love that you’re talking about facts and kind of differentiating those two because I think sometimes too, we end up kind of feeling like our feelings can be facts, and that’s not necessarily really healthy. And so being able to just name both of them, that these are the facts that happened or whatever, right? Or we can talk about facts, but it’s also really important to talk about feelings, but it’s also really important to know that they’re not always the same thing.

And that’s such a beautiful way to teach some emotional health and just awareness of emotions and feelings. And so I just love that. That’s so good on so many levels. I love that.

Christine: I really appreciate that kind of reflection of what you just said. I think the other problem is that most adults can only name three primary emotions. Like this is again, go back to Brené Brown and Atlas of the Heart and that work. That terrifies me, and I know it intellectually, but emotionally that sits on me when I hear that research very differently.

So we have to help develop that as early as possible so that we have more than happy, angry, sad, or, you know, we need deeper, more conversation around this so there’s a language for emotions so that we’re not isolating, especially in this very technology screen-driven world because we’re more disconnected to our emotions than ever because we’re medicating with scrolling so much as well.

So that’s why we need to know that stories are only stories if you have both facts and feelings. So when you’re in a conversation, you’re looking for both. So that’s on the map.

The other thing is just like movies and books, stories follow a path. They follow a framework. They’re called different things. Sometimes it’s called the hero’s journey, the four act structure, the three act structure. We sort of know this, especially as an educator, but we don’t think about this in terms of how we listen or talk. We just think about it as what’s on the screen or in the books.

But we’re more effective communicators when we tell a story in an orderly fashion. Not so much on listening, unfortunately. I’m trying to change that. But we listen to a story in a very similar way that we tell it. And what happens is we need to get all the story. So the second tool on The Listening Path®, there are four stops on a story. There’s a beginning, a struggle, a tipping point or a turning point, or an ending or what we call in The Listening Path®, a new beginning, because we think stories end and then begin anew.

So when we hear ”good,” we’re in the middle of the story and we don’t even know it. That’s where we have to make sure we get all four stops. We need to get the beginning and the struggle and the tipping point, and we don’t know where the word good shows up, but most likely it’s somewhere right in the middle because what you’re looking for, well, that’s not very helpful. What else? Instead of what’s back at the beginning?

Amy: Mmm. I love that. Okay. So kind of giving them, and what’s so interesting about that is this is something that kids are actually supposed to be learning right on an academic level, like in how to write a story or how to tell a story, right? Is this concept of beginning, middle, end, right?

And I love that you have in there, there’s beginning, there’s the struggle, there’s the tipping, like it just makes it more interesting and fun. But teaching them this is not only going to help them academically, but it helps them in their ability to communicate and to recognize their own story to listen for it in others. Oh, so good.

Christine: I just think about your home and having eight children. One of the things for all the parents listening to cue in on is your kids are not starting at the beginning. They’re just dropping something on.

And we do this with our spouses too. We start in the middle. And why is that? Because when we’re telling a story, the brain is our enemy, and when we’re listening to a story, the brain is our enemy because we’re thinking about our impulses, the stories inside of our head, all the things and we’re not organized in that subconscious brain. We’re a mess. We’re all over the place.

So we don’t think – when we write, we have to think about it in a structured way. When we speak, we’re not practiced at being structured. So this is a lot of my day with my partner, my nieces. Wait, wait, wait. Where are we? Take me back to the beginning because I know that if I’m confused, that I’m missing the context.

Amy: I love that phrase, “Take me back to the beginning.” And that just makes you feel, like you just said that to me and I instantly like, I don’t know, had this feeling of validation. Like, oh, they want to hear my story, you know? Like, I love that. Like I’m being listened to. So I, you say I’m good, right? You ask your kid, how’s school today? It was bad. It was good, whatever. Ooh, okay, you got to take me back to the beginning. Tell me more. Ooh, I love that. That’s such a good phrase.

Christine: And it’s, takes me to the third tool. And by the way, where did you start with me today, rhetorically I asked, is take me back to your beginning, Christine. Where did this start? Like, it would be a disservice to your listeners to have me just jump into, oh, what a listening, let’s do all this, if they didn’t understand who I was and why this is important to me and where this comes from. So, lovely that there’s podcasts now that we’re organizing people to listen in this way.

But it’s such an important thing that you did because it wouldn’t make sense to the listener. They’d be confused off the bat. So this is no different when we’re talking to our family or somebody, you know, if we’re in school and we’re talking to a colleague, if they’re talking about something in their classroom that’s a problem or a student, we’re usually stuck in the middle and we just don’t realize it because we’re not trained to listen for that.

So the third tool in gathering the story, you have the map and the stops. That’s what you have to get. But you need a tool to navigate the path. And just like in the woods, it’s easy to get lost because there’s lots of side trails metaphorically. And when people talk, there’s lots of side trails and sometimes we’re like, I’m pretty sure that’s relevant. I don’t know if that’s relevant. What do I do with that? Is that even part of this? Like, where are we? Correct?

So we have to organize the speaker to tell us the story in a way we can understand. And we need a compass to do that, to point the speaker in the right direction. So that’s part of we need to go back before we go forward. So there’s essentially six questions on what we call the Compass that are the most powerful questions that listeners, professional listeners and podcast interviews and journalists use. And one of them is take me back to the beginning. And the second one is the one you just naturally went to, which was tell me more.

Amy: Mmm.

Christine: Take me back, tell me more, then what happened? How did that make you feel? And then for adults, we teach, hmm, because when we’re listening naturally, we nonverbally with almost imperceptible words, hmm, we encourage more. And then the last question is, it sounds like you felt. People develop a language of emotion and sometimes they don’t have the words so we can insert that and give them the language to help move that into the conversation. So that’s the compass.

Amy: Oh my gosh. I just love that so much. And it’s so cool because we get to feel like these are the questions professionals are using, but it’s so simple to use that in our home or in a classroom. Like I can just follow that outline, and that’s so good.

I think it’s interesting too because as you were talking, I have kids that want to talk to me and tell me stories, and I have a lot of children, right? That want to come and talk and tell me stories. And sometimes it does get really hard because they want to talk for a long time and their stories get very long and they’re all over the place. And it’s just getting like, I’m feeling like I need to move on and do something else and the story is getting long.

Is that me being a bad listener? Or are there tools to kind of help children learn how to tell a story in maybe a slightly more direct, succinct way if it’s getting like really a lot? Is that a problem? Should I just listen as long as they want to talk or is there a way to help coach that into a way that’s respecting them and helping them feel validated, but also respecting myself and my time and maybe teaching them a skill? I don’t know.

Christine: I’m so glad you brought this up because this is what I mean about the modernization of listening. So what you just said to me, you put in terms of your kids. I just had a conversation a couple months ago with a chief financial officer of a large company, and he said the exact same thing to me about when his employees come in. Because it’s not that he doesn’t want to listen, it’s that he can’t spend 45 minutes figuring out all of that. He has to be more efficient than that. The reality is you don’t have that kind of time. You have enough love, but love and time are very different things, aren’t they?

So this is the paradigm shift. We tend to think it’s polite as a listener to just let someone talk, but they’re not organized. So as the listener, rather than the speaker being in charge, the listener needs to be in charge. You need to guide the speaker, and these questions help you guide the speaker. It’s not rude, it’s not not polite. It keeps them on the main path to the story.

So when your child starts to go a little off on a side trail, you go, “Whoa, wait. Tell me more,” or, “Then what happened?” That moves them along a little bit. We start to wander. We’re just like your toddler wanders off. You’re not going to let him walk in the street. You’re going to go, no, no, no, this way. You’re going to guide them back to the sidewalk. We can do that in a conversation, and then it’s not that we’re not allowing them to talk, we’re helping them talk about the things that really matter to the story to get to the meaning.

Amy: Ooh, I love this. I’m so excited because I feel like this is a thing I have conflict in my own heart about sometimes when I’m like, I like to keep things efficient, you know, because I have a lot going on. And so finding a way to communicate this, right, and do it from a place of just love, right?

Like I so want to understand the meaning of the story you’re telling me, and just kind of bringing it back to that love and I want to understand and I want to understand what you’re trying to share and get the meaning from it. And then guiding them and helping them learn that skill, because you’re right. It does affect you in your work later and your ability to communicate with your boss or communicate to the people you serve or communicate with anyone.

Christine: Yeah. And we have to manage our days and our time in this fast-paced world. It’s a powerful skill. When children or adults, when you allow them to talk, when you give them the space and you do this well, they’ll talk. I mean, I just was at with an IT team at a company, and it’s funny because one of the guys said, “I realized how powerful that question, ‘Tell me more’ is because people will tell you more.”

And so, yes, they will, and you better be ready to guide them back when where you need to go if you have a time sensitive – you know, be careful in an airplane. When you say, tell me more, you might just be spending your flight telling so. So, but it’s not rude. It’s a powerful way to be on the journey together because otherwise we get distracted, our brains take over, then we’re off and, and then we’re really out of touch because now we’re not engaged in the conversation and that’s really what hurts. Not guiding someone to tell it in a way that’s more effective.

Amy: Yeah, I love that because it does show that you’re interested and you’re trying to keep it focused. I think sometimes when you kind of know that children are feeling a little bit out of control and they’re needing you to be the adult and provide structure, whatever. I think sometimes in our stories, you even hear people like, “Oh, I forgot where I was,” or, “I kind of lost my train of thought,” or whatever, right? And so maybe being able to be that person that helps bring structure to the story can just be kind of giving like really healthy parameters and helping guide and keeping it focused and, oh, so good.

Christine: Yeah. We have something for high schoolers that we go deeper into how to gather that story, but this is the basic tool. If you only use those six questions, you’ll get more than you ever did asking very specific questions, by the way. I mean, we’ve had large company sales teams tell us one meeting with a customer, I got way more than I did in five. Only those five to six questions.

So that’s step one. So for your parents and teachers, add, “Tell me more,” and, “Take me back to the beginning.” That’ll help orient you in terms of the facts. The Compass is designed with facts and feelings questions, so you’re guaranteed to get both. I designed it that way on purpose. You can’t miss getting the feelings because it’s one of the questions. And if people are interested, they can download that off of our website, which I’m sure you’ll give them later. So if they want to learn more about that, we have that as a giveaway.

Amy: Yes, and you have a book as well coming out that’s a children’s book that’s kind of for children and parents to work on together to like build the skill together. Yes.

Christine: That’s right. It’s going to be out in September. It’s called The Listening Path and it’s a story gathering adventure of listening to understand. So parents will learn the skill of using the Compass to get the story of their day from their child, and then ultimately the child can do the same for parents because we want children to learn to be interested as well.

We had a high school student that went through the program using it in his school, not the book, but the program, and he went home and his mother was having a tough day and he used the Compass as well as some other tools and found out that here she was having a whole bigger problem than he was ever realized.

And she had a full conversation with him about what was happening and he then understood she wasn’t just irritated with him. She was really struggling with something and it became a very healthy conversation between a son and a mother, which was really special, but he wouldn’t have found that out if he didn’t have this in his toolbox.

Amy: Oh. So powerful. Oh my goodness. We are like running out of time and I’m thinking, okay, can we get just like really quick, like some tools from step two and three?

Christine: Sure, sure. Like I said, most people think they’re done listening. Rather than I understand, do a short summary of what you heard. This is a really powerful thing. So here’s the good news. You’re going to remember a story that’s filled with facts and feelings more than you’ll just somebody who’s disorganized in how they talk about it. So we’ve organized somebody, now you’re in control. You’re following the map. You know what you’re looking for. A lot easier to tell the story back.

30 to 90 seconds. Just your child tells you about their day. Recap it. We call it shining a light. So in the woods it’s dark, you need a flashlight to see. The speaker is completely in the dark about what you heard. Shine a light so they can see it. And that in itself creates a whole different level of connection. Just doing that. That’s the first step to understanding you, to truly understanding you. So that flashlight is critical.

Amy: Mmm. So good. Okay. So is that kind of that primary tool for step two? Is that just recap?

Christine: That’s one of two tools to affirm understanding. The second is what we call a water filter. So in the woods, you can’t drink the water out of the stream necessarily, it might be contaminated. Our brains are the greatest enemy of listening. So our brains pollute a story, just, or contaminate a story that we hear with our own thoughts and feelings, the memories we have, the biases we have.

So we need to check in with the speaker once we’ve summarized it, used our flashlight. Did we get them? That’s how we filter out whether or not we really understood them. That’s where we say to the speaker, “It’s your, up to you whether I got you, not whether I thought I did.” So when we do that, we learn how to really look for what that answer is and make sure that we actually got the speaker. That water filter is as simple as telling the story back and then saying, “Do I get you?”

Amy: Oh, I love that so much. Yeah, you’re talking about our filter and I’m thinking immediately, yes, right? And there’s been times my kids have said, like told me a story, I would say specifically with my teenagers maybe, and they’ve told me something and then I kind of am moving on to, “Oh, yes.”

And I have my own filter, right? Like I’m relating it to some story I had back in high school or, you know, whatever, right? And I’m talking and they’re like, “No, not, that’s not the same thing,” right? They’ll say that’s not the same thing. And I’m like, “Oh, okay. Shoot. We had our filter.” Yes, okay.

Christine: And then – we don’t advise our kids right away. We’ve already lived through their movie in a lot of ways. You know, we all have our unique experiences, but the reason we remember the story is because even though our kids don’t see it, we live through some of the trauma that they’re living through, right? So then our own story pops up and then what do we want to do? Tell them how we handled it. Tell them what we did. Tell them how to go about this. So we advise and talk.

So how do they learn to solve their own problems? How do they learn to come to their own conclusions? If you retell them what they told you and you get to a genuine I get you, you got me. Now they’re either going to come to a conclusion or you could say, “Can I tell you what I did or what I would do in this situation?” And then you’ve earned the right to start advising because now you understand them and they know it. And that’s a whole different matter. Yeah.

Amy: Ooh, I’m feeling like this one got me moment. I it’s such a like, oh, let me just, I’m such a fixer and I’m like, I just have the best idea of how to fix that. And I’m trying to learn this skill, so I love that you’re talking about this because this is something I can use and do better at like right now.

Christine: Wonderful thing to want to help people solve problems. Like that’s not a bad thing by the way. And it’s just better if somebody can solve it themselves. You’re still going to help them. You’ll just help them in a different way. Salespeople have the same problem. They want to solve their custo – they’re not all out for money and that’s why they want to sell you stuff. They genuinely like to help just like mothers and fathers do. And that gets us into selling instead of helping someone problem solve themself.

Amy: Mmm. And when you meet someone who’s really good at that, you notice because they spend so much more time asking questions and finding out about you than just trying to tell you fixes. And then you feel so understood. And then when they ask, like, “Well, do you want to know what I would do in that situation?” You’re like, “Yes! You get me. Please tell me what you would do.” Help us figure it out ourselves. This is so powerful.

Okay, we’ve got to wrap up here. Tell me step number three is like getting the meaning, right, out of it. So what tools do you have for that part?

Christine: So this is where this takes a little practice. Step three, in terms of getting to the understanding and what we call the insight, which is inside the story, is now using your thoughts and feelings. You’ve heard everything. You’ve gathered the story. You’ve used your flashlight to summarize it. You’ve used your water filter to make sure it’s a clear, understood story. Now you have all that.

Now you use your thoughts and go, “Well, here’s what I think this meant.” Oh, this is what you learned. And that level of insight, now you’re providing something that the speaker may not have thought of before. And that’s really when you earn the right, by the way, to tell them. Once you go, well, it sounds like what you learned from today is you don’t like it when your best friend says things that hurt your feelings. And then you go into something else.

So once you get these tools mastered and you really get the story clear, then it’s much easier to find the real meaning and what’s below the surface and hear what’s not said. So that comes from the use of the tools, that insight pops up. We start to decontaminate our thoughts and feelings and use them in a more powerful way to really genuinely reflect back and find the meaning inside the story.

Just like when we watch the movie, we figure out the moral of the story. Very rarely at the end of the trailer do they say, “And the moral of the story is.” We figure that out from being engaged and engrossed in a movie that’s interesting, then we figure out what the moral is, don’t we?

Amy: Yes, we do. Oh, so good. And I just love that word decontaminate. We’re decontaminating their story from our own stuff. I just feel like that’s such an important step. Oh my goodness. This has been just so good.

And I know you, we talked about you have a tool because I think teaching kids this stuff from when they’re little, oh, can you imagine? Of course you can. How this would change relationships, how this would change really their ability to perform well in school, but also then in work, life, and in really in every part of their lives, if we can start this young.

So we’ve talked a little bit about your book and how parents can start implementing this at home and working with kids with this at home. But you said you had something for teachers as well to maybe use in schools, in the classrooms. What does that look like?

Christine: Sure. Yeah, I wrote the children’s book because I didn’t have anything for parents and I thought they deserved the help they’ve been asking for. The reason I created, it’s called The Listening Path® Elementary Classroom Program. The high school program will be out in the fall. That’s called Mastering the Listening Path®.

But starting in first grade, the tools that I just described, basically it’s a plug and play program that teachers facilitate in the classroom. I animated myself. I created a movie and truncated that into 11 lessons so that I can teach the story of the path and they can use the tools and language of listening in their classrooms, in the hallways, and in recess.

So we have this implemented in Ireland, in Canada, and the US and over 20 classrooms and growing. So I mean, I was at one of the schools last week that we visited and one of the young kids asked me, just like you did, why did you develop this program, Christine? And I told him my backstory. And to he responded telling my story back to me and then asking if he got me.

Amy: Mmm.

Christine: Fourth grade.

Amy: Fourth grade. Wow. That’s so impressive.

Christine: Autism and ADD, pardon me, Asperger’s and ADD. So this is a language. And so the teachers are finding that one girl said, “My mom is a math teacher and she teaches me my math homework, and I use my water filter to make sure I’m clear before I go have her tell me anything else,” because she wants to make sure she gets it before her mother moves on.

So this is a, like you said, a learning as well as a social skill. And what I wanted to do, I needed help from the teachers to scale my mission so that we could reach the students, but I also know they’re already burdened enough and I wanted something that would help make their lives easier from something they teach, but also that could transform their classrooms back to focus, connection and better learning rather than just pay attention. So that’s what the program, the program’s designed for them in mind and I think we’ve hit the mark.

Amy: Oh, that is so good. Okay. And you were just talking about that and I was thinking about what I’d learned years ago around parenting. If we spend, there was like this parenting pyramid and we, you know, it was, I think the discipline pyramid, right? And the actual like top of the pyramid where we spend the least amount of time is discipline because if we come down here and we’re focusing on relationship and then communication, like does the child understand what they’re supposed to be doing?

And when you were just talking about that related to math, right? Does the child actually understand what they’re supposed to understand before we move on? I feel like that applies in all these other ways too. Like, sometimes I sit there and I’m like, why hasn’t my child, you know, especially when they’re younger, why hasn’t my child just done the thing I asked? Right? And only to realize after trying to listen a little bit better, when I was having a good moment around that, that they really didn’t understand what I was asking them to do.

And so this Listening Path®, right, around story, but also, I think would help develop in some of these other areas for just clearer communication in general.

Christine: I love that pyramid. I mean, one of the teachers talked about the Magic 1-2-3 and how this was a similar thing that she could just say, “Let’s use our Listening Path® tools,” and they would focus into something else. It was like a mnemonic for them as well.

But yeah, I think that’s the power of it in terms of what you’re describing. And it also communicates why to do something, not just what to do. And when we get the why, even as young people, we’re more inclined to do it. So that’s part of communication. Managers, I tell them all the time. You can tell people what to do, but when you tell them why, that’s a totally different buy-in. So you change that dynamic at home as well.

Amy: Oh, my gosh. Christine, this has been so good. And we’re going to drop links for you, our listeners, in the show notes to go to Christine’s website so you can get that freebie. And you said in your freebie, you have those six questions. The Compass.

Christine: The Compass and why these questions and it’ll give them everything they need to know.

Amy: Okay. So go get that right now. And then you can also get the book that is the children’s book that’s for children and parents to read together. And I love that you’re like -reading like a children’s book is such a great way to kind of bring parents and children together and have that language building, right? So then you can refer back to it later.

I just with my kids, right, if I’ve talked to them about the thing before, if we’ve read a book about it, then I can go back to it, okay, I’m doing this and they’re seeing me do it, right? And anyway, so I love that shared language that you’re building with the book. And then something for teachers to use as well. And oh my goodness, if we could like implement it in these different places and kids are getting it from these different places. Be so good.

Christine: Yeah. And if any teachers are interested, you know, please reach out. You can reach out on the website. We’ll get in touch with you. The program’s very cost effective. We’ll help support you if you want to sell it to your principal or an admin because we know that they don’t have the budget necessarily. We align to all the core standards. So we have a lot of things that will help make the case for them if this is something they’re interested in.

Amy: Fabulous. Thank you so much, Christine, for coming on and sharing. And we will include those links in the show notes. And thank you so much for coming and sharing about the language of listening and The Listening Path® with us today.

Christine: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

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