Quotable Mondays: Listen to Your Children

Listen to your kids when they are little, even if the things they have to say are no big deal to you. It is a big deal to them.

Listen earnestly to your kids quote

Today’s quote is:

Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don’t listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won’t tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff.

Years ago, I saw a TV commercial that shared this same message. There was a dad feeding food to his baby as his baby babbled on. 

This quote just strikes me as so true. I remember teaching Sunday School to a bunch of 12 year olds two years ago when a girl made a comment about some struggle she had and then said, “But that isn’t a big deal; it just seems like a big deal to me because I am a kid.”

While the comment showed a certain maturity and understanding, I told her that the things that matter to her now are important. We can always look back on our life and realize that what we worried about maybe wasn’t the huge deal we thought it was, but dealing with that huge deal at the time helped shape us into who we are today.

We wouldn’t be able to handle the bigger problems in life without having first learning to deal with small problems. 

Our children’s problems seem so small to us from our perspective. What is Earth-shattering to them is typically quite trivial to us. To them, however, it is huge.

It is “big stuff.”

And someday when they are facing things that we all deem “big stuff,” we want them to have a habit of talking to us and know that we care about what they have to say. We care about their concerns. We can be concerned because they are concerned. 

I just imagine my prayers and how the Lord can easily listen to my concerns with His eternal perspective and justifiably brush it off with “that isn’t a big deal.”

But He doesn’t.

He listens because it is important to me.

Sometimes He helps teach me that it isn’t a big deal–He gives me perspective. But it is loving, and He listened in the first place. 

The next time your child comes to you with that scribble on paper or that little worry, remember to listen and react because to her it is big stuff.

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2 thoughts on “Quotable Mondays: Listen to Your Children”

  1. You're so right. If I brush off something that is immensely important to my child in this moment, I am insulting him in a big way. I have to stop and think about that every once in a while.

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  2. thank you for reminding me. ive just came back from work and exhausted when my 5 yo daughter wanted to talk to me n i just yelled at her.thankyou again.

    Reply

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