Active listening skills.

The reason I am making this thread was because I read a thread here that had someone using active listening.

Just out of curiosity, how well do you guys incorporate active listening to your everyday conversations?  For those of you that aren't familiar with active listening, it means that you are actively showing and demonstrating that you are listening.
So for example: You would go "mm-hmmm","I see" or "I understand" WHILE the person is talking to show that you are listening. You would also make eye contact for most of the time of course.

To go the extra step. You would restate or paraphrase on what you just head. For example: "Let me see if I am getting what you are saying right... blah blah blah".

Active listening is an essential skill to have because it will improve relationships with people. Especially if you are in the business field.   Feel free to share tips in this thread too.

what else are you suppose to do with your ears?

zantac_2 said: what else are you suppose to do with your ears?

haha. fair enough.

i just process what i need to know. the rest goes out the other end.

zantac_2 said: what else are you suppose to do with your ears?

Drawing eyes on your eyelids helps make you appear to be awake and listening while you are actually sleeping.

I tend to do all the talking. You can listen to me

I was part of this volunteer group and as a university graduate, I had to mentor high school students. As a required session, we had to learn how to actively listen to others. Before then, I wasn't really an active listener but after I learned, I practiced it as much as I could. Now, I incorporate it into all my relationships - acquaintances, co-workers, friends, and significant other.

Active listening is especially useful in your conflict management toolkit, but even in non-conflict situations where you need to communicate effectively with your client, for example, it is extremely important if the subject matter is complex.

To put it simply, if you do not have active listening skills... then you can't be a parent. It's that important.