Dear Just Ask Ju­lia,

I am 15 years of age, my par­ents are di­vorced for a year now, and I live with my moth­er and my sis­ter who is 7-years-old. My moth­er does not lis­ten to what I say nor does she care about me. She's too busy in her own life or my sis­ter's life to help me. How can I get her to lis­ten to me?

Sin­cere­ly,

Cares-less

Dear Cares - less

Say­ing that your mom does not care/lis­ten are two very dif­fer­ent mat­ters. Par­ents can show their car­ing in many ways; some par­ents buy the best and nicest things for their chil­dren, while oth­ers may con­sid­er giv­ing you a roof over your head, a bed to sleep in, and a hot meal as car­ing. For ex­am­ple, if your moth­er did not care for you, she would not want to know where you go, who you go with, what time you come home, or any­thing else that has to do with you for that mat­ter. I think it's safe to say she does care about you and your sis­ter. Your mom is go­ing through some is­sues of her own and may not ex­press her­self as car­ing as be­fore to you or your sis­ter due to cir­cum­stan­tial fac­tors. Deal­ing with the sep­a­ra­tion from your dad, work, or­gan­is­ing and pay­ing bills such as lights, elec­tric­i­ty and ba­sic needs like pro­vid­ing food are im­por­tant, but un­der­stand that your moth­er's TOP pri­or­i­ty is you and your sis­ters' safe­ty, health and over­all well-be­ing. Now, your mom not lis­ten­ing to you is the is­sue at hand. To be a good lis­ten­er means to fo­cus your at­ten­tion on the mes­sage and then re­view the es­sen­tial in­for­ma­tion. Many feel that lis­ten­ing comes nat­u­ral­ly, where all you have to do is al­low your ears and brain to fo­cus on a sound and you ab­sorb the in­for­ma­tion. In ra­tio­nal think­ing, this is true how­ev­er, there are tech­niques for your mom and for you to de­vel­op, en­hance, and im­prove on your lis­ten­ing skills.

These tips work for EVERY­ONE young and old. Please feel free to share these tips with your par­ent as the first step in work­ing to­wards healthy lis­ten­ing habits. First step, I en­cour­age you two to talk to each oth­er. When speak­ing, look each oth­er in the eyes, be in­ter­est­ed, if you don't un­der­stand, ask ques­tions for clar­i­fi­ca­tion. If it helps for ex­am­ple, take off the TV, close your lap­top and take the ear phones from your ears to give your un­di­vid­ed at­ten­tion. Sec­ond­ly, lis­ten pa­tient­ly; lis­ten as though you have all the time in the world to hear each oth­er talk. As you lis­ten, try to make your feel­ings clear by stat­ing them in your own words. For ex­am­ple, mom I feel sad when I hear you ar­gu­ing on the phone or daugh­ter, I feel frus­trat­ed when you don't pick up your dirty dish­es from the ground. Third­ly, avoid cut­ting each oth­er off be­fore you are fin­ished speak­ing. If there is some­thing you need to say, wait till the oth­er per­son has fin­ished her state­ment and then re­ply.

Re­mem­ber you both have the re­spect and right to ex­press your opin­ion. Next, pay at­ten­tion to non­ver­bal mes­sages. Many in­di­vid­u­als use non­ver­bal mes­sages as their way to com­mu­ni­cate that they are lis­ten­ing. Your tone of voice (loud, sar­cas­tic, an­gry), fa­cial/body ex­pres­sions (rolling eyes, twist­ing of face, cross­ing of the arms, shak­ing of the feet) can lead the oth­er per­son to think you are not lis­ten­ing to what is be­ing said. Try to sit up­right, with alert eyes and ears, hands by your side or on the desk and feet place flat on the ground. And fi­nal­ly when you are ask­ing each oth­er ques­tions and lis­ten­ing to what each oth­er is say­ing, ask ques­tions that in­volve a re­sponse that is not just a yes or no state­ment. For ex­am­ple, in­stead of ask­ing did you have a good day at school/work; you can ask 'how was your day to­day?' Try these tips for ac­tive lis­ten­ing with each oth­er and see if you no­tice your skills start­ing to im­prove. Re­mem­ber one of the most im­por­tant skills in lis­ten­ing is be­com­ing a good lis­ten­er your­self.