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Time to talk

by Alan Stewart

There’s a school of thought that’s expressed as: “Dare to build on your relationships rather than pursuing money. Success in life lies in relationships. “

I’ve learnt from them the value of understanding my place in this world, and I remember so much of what happened to me and understand more when I listen closely to others. My life is a simple movement circling around community, relationships and joy.”

Whether or not you agree with this fully, you may appreciate that there’s merit in this way of thinking. This is because it implies that getting on well with people is a “way of being” that brings its own satisfaction. Where does this start? In the home – not with the idea of “our children are our future”, but rather “we are our children’s future”. Parents can build a way of being together on a foundation of mutual respect – a way of living in which members make time to listen and ask questions of each other and in which nobody is patronising or treats others as inferior.

This is a life in which family members feel secure expressing what they feel passionately about, knowing they’ll be listened to carefully and are at liberty to talk about a range of subjects.

Conversation can flourish in such circumstances if the family is seen as a safe place to make discoveries about the world, and to talk about them and digest them, without fear.

A few years ago, a study in Australia found that fathers spent, on average, 90 seconds a day communicating with their teenage children. Yet there’s good evidence that children – including teenagers – want to spend time “hanging out” with their parents if they can talk about things that matter to them. Being heard when they relate their experience is very important to them and makes all the difference.

A child’s world is composed by relating to others – and much of their feelings of being respected come from expressing their feelings to someone who listens with care. For example, feelings about what happened at school or about current affairs. These are important for a parent or other relative to pay careful attention to.

What about stories of the family? You probably remember how much enjoyment you got from hearing about the lives of people in your family, whether they were alive or dead. This contributes a great deal to a sense of where we fit in the scheme of things, to our identity and feelings of self-esteem.

It has been well said that there are three kinds of knowledge. The first is about the world and where, for example, our little planet fits in the solar system. The second is to do with skills. How do we ride a bicycle, drive a car, use a computer? The third is “knowing of the third kind”. This is the knowledge of where each of us fits in a family, a community, a place of work or in the public arena. It’s the quality of our relating – which our senses tell us nothing about – that influences our deep knowing of who we are and that provides the framework of how we engage with the world.

What I’m suggesting is that time spent in conversation with children can influence their feeling of being an integral part of a group, and on their self-confidence. This could have a strong impact on their success in later life. Alongside parents, grandparents or older relatives can have a significant influence on children feeling treated well. They can introduce stories of lives lived differently from today. They can make time to listen and to play games. My two brothers and I had the wonderful experience of loving grandparents who knew how to tell a story in ways that captured our imaginations.

I remember very well hearing about how they met. Growing up in Scotland in large families (they were each one of nine children) the only way they could have a holiday was by children being “swapped” between households of friends. This is how my then teenaged grandfather got to know a young girl. When his family migrated to South Africa he carried her photo with him. And when he’d made enough money from digging for alluvial diamonds he went back to Scotland to propose marriage to her.

Such inter-generational communication helps produce a connection with the past and of being part of the family as a whole.

Alan Stewart is a member of the Hong Kong International Coaching Community (info@coachinghk.org)