Listening without Fixing

My daughter comes home from school and tells me her ex-boyfriend has been calling her names.

And there I am again: a psychologist being a mom, forgetting the psychologist part.

I feel the hurt with her. I want to protect her. Honestly, sometimes I feel rage. My mind is already running ahead: What can I do? Who needs to know? How do I make this stop?

Those questions come from love. But when I move straight into fixing it, something happens between us. I stop really hearing her. I start listening for a problem I can solve instead of staying with what she’s telling me.

Then we’re talking about my suggestions. She may hear my questions as criticism of how she responded, or as a list of things she should have done differently. The conversation shifts away from the person who called her names, and suddenly she’s trying to defend herself to me, too.

That’s the part that hurts to admit. I want to be a safe place for her to land, and my rush to protect her can make her feel judged.

I tell other parents to slow down and listen first. Knowing that doesn’t make it easy when it’s my own kid. I have to catch myself and say, “I got ahead of you. I’m sorry. Tell me what happened.”

And once I’ve actually heard her, I can ask the question I want to remember:

“Do you want me to just listen, or do you want help figuring out what to do?”

Sometimes she does want help. Once she’s had room to say what happened, she might ask what I think. Then we can talk through her options together, including whether she wants support addressing the name-calling.

Sometimes she doesn’t want solutions yet. That’s harder for me. I still feel protective. I still want to take the pain away. But I can sit beside her without turning my discomfort into another thing she has to manage.

Listening first doesn’t mean I don’t care enough to act. It means I care enough to understand what she needs from me before I decide what to do. If I’m worried about her safety, I can say that plainly and take it seriously. I can still begin by hearing her.

This is how I’m psyching life: I can talk the talk, but walking the walk when it’s my own kid is a whole different story.