Are you really listening?

Welcome back!

Are you really listening to what is going on around you? Or does the abundance of “noise” have you tuning out most of what you hear? I know I am guilty myself of only really “hearing” a portion of the information that comes at me every day, and I deliberately screen the news so I don’t have to hear every late-breaking story.

It reminds me of a situation with daughter, Megan, when she was in first grade. Her grades were good, and we weren’t aware of any problems until she participated in a routine hearing screening at school. The results came back recommending a re-screen because of questionable results so we scheduled another screening. That one also showed signs of hearing loss, and they recommended that we take her to a hearing specialist in a larger city for evaluation. We were stunned! We couldn’t understand where this hearing problem had come from - she had never had problems with ear infections, no accidents involving her head or ears. A playmate had tried to stick something in her ear one time when she was 3 years old….could that have caused the damage?

We talked to her teacher about her hearing. Yes, the teacher had noticed that Megan occasionally didn’t seem to hear well, both in the classroom and on the playground. Megan herself said she thought she had trouble hearing “sometimes”. So, we scheduled a thorough exam with the hearing specialist and made the 5 hour trip to the city to find out what was wrong. After extensive testing, the hearing specialist came out and gave us his diagnosis - There was nothing wrong with her hearing! She just had the ability to “tune out” whenever she wanted. Somewhat afraid to accept this diagnosis, we questioned Megan thoroughly about the times that she had problems hearing. It seems that she had been upset by some of her classmates arguing and saying mean things, so she had just stopped “hearing” them.

Tuning out sometimes seems like an attractive option. But as responsible adults, we need to hear and respond to what is going on around us. That means we need to really “listen” not just hear what we expect or want to hear. And then we need to absorb and act on the information we hear.

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