Listening to Your Grandchildren with Empathy

When you think of communication between grandparents and grandchildren, what comes to mind? As a grandparent of twelve and now a great-grandparent, I have found that much of our communication has involved their asking me about what things were like when I was in school, to telling me about plans they are making for the future, or frustrations in the present. Some of those frustrations include conflicts with their parents, often over rules and privileges, or challenges at school such as bullying or difficulty with a variety of courses or teachers who don’t understand how busy they are.

Since communication is a two-way street, I’ve begun the process of auditing my communication style with my grandchildren and adapting that style to the skill of empathetic listening, which plays a critical role in our 16-week online Grandcoaching course.

According to Life Coach Julianne Sanford, the overall approach we need to use in seeking to implement life coaching principles in our relationships with our grandsons and granddaughters is to come alongside them, or as Julianne warns, “Not pushing them from behind are dragging them from in front.” Her observation goes hand-in-hand with the Biblical concept of encouragement as expressed in the New Testament word, parakaleo, which means “called alongside to help.”  

To implement this approach, it is important to avoid what I call the “Let-me-tell-you” syndrome, which is so easy for grandparents to fall victim to. In an effort to share the benefit of our vast life experiences plus the ability to foresee hazards that may come along with the choices our grandchildren are considering, we find ourselves hearing our parents and grandparents saying “Let me tell you,” or even worse, “When I was your age.” Julianne identifies what she considers the greatest hazard in coaching grandchildren: “when you take over the story and start telling yours, and they don’t have the opportunity to get the help they need…” Primarily when that happens, they don’t feel listened to or valued.  Instead of listening, you make their story about you and not them.

Another member of the Master Life Coach Training Institute (MLCTI) team, John Coleman, cuts to the heart of the strategy. “Relating to our grandchildren using coaching skills involves listening first, then asking cultivating questions.

Empathetic, Active Listening

During a recent radio broadcast, John and I were discussing the priority of developing active, empathetic listening. We zeroed in on two Scripture passages; James 1:19 and Proverbs 20:5. While neither John nor I hold medical degrees, we gave our radio-listening family the obvious anatomical lesson behind James’ mandate to become “quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to wrath.” God gave each one of us two ears, but only one mouth. As John applied this to the Grandcoaching process, “We grandparents need to do twice as much listening as we do talking. Because we so often as grandparents are tempted to jump in with our solution to the problems our grandchildren are facing, often even before they have a chance to talk to us about them, we wind up short-circuiting the communication process. Also, we sometimes don’t hear our grandchildren because we haven’t had the same life experiences they’ve had.” 

John, Julianne, and I agree that the kind of listening to practice should be empathetic, not sympathetic. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines sympathy as “The feeling that you care about and are sorry about someone else’s trouble, grief, or misfortune. When a person is sympathetic, they may give useful advice, or look at someone’s situation with pity. But often they feel relieved that they are not engaged in the same struggle. Thus, the person who is struggling—in this case, the grandchild—may not feel listened to or heard.

Empathy, on the other hand, is defined in an online article published by Psychiatric Medical Care as “The feeling that you understand another person’s experiences and emotions” or “the ability to share someone else’s feelings.” At its heart, it involves attempting to understand why another person feels the way they do. 

Empathy is not about trying to fix another person’s problem, but “about listening to that person’s pain and sharing their difficult thoughts and feelings.” 

To summarize: the grandparent who seeks to apply faith-based life coaching techniques becomes a means for relating to his or her grandchildren. Although they want to be active and focused in the listening opportunity, their commitment should remain on—the heart of empathy and understanding how that person feels—rather than the heart of sympathy or focusing on how to fix the grandchild’s problem.

Elements of This Strategy

Our goal with this strategy is to enable grandparents to fulfill the command of Jesus as given in Matthew 11:15. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”  In our online course, we have developed a number of elements to equip grandparents, since listening that incorporates active engagement and empathy is not easy or automatic. 

• Putting yourself last: Often in conversation, we are barely paying attention to what the other person says. Instead, we are focused on what we will say in response. In Philippians 2:3, 4, the apostle Paul instructs us to “…in humility consider others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” I believe this has application to the process of coaching our grandchildren. Rather than succumbing to the temptation to demonstrate our knowledge and experience by providing quick answers, we need to demonstrate humility while focusing on what they are telling us without allowing ourselves to become distracted by how we are going to answer them. This approach fits perfectly with Paul’s word to the Romans, “we who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the week, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.” (Romans 15:1,2) Substituting “grandchild” for neighbor, and recognizing the importance of building up our grandchildren through the process underscores how to make this coaching procedure work. 

• Thinking before speaking: It’s been many decades since I was in high school, but I can still hear my English teacher, Mrs. Evelyn Jones, reminding us to “Put your mind in gear before you put your mouth in motion.” Timely advice for the 21^st century, and consistent with the words of James in the first century: “Know this my beloved brothers; let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, but the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” Often our temptation as grandparents is to tap into our past experiences and shoot from the hip with advice. Embracing the coaching principles will help us avoid that trap.

• Using “Yes and…”: Frequently our grandchildren will respond to a question with a partial answer, especially if the subject is a sensitive one. This is where Proverbs 20:5 comes into play. “The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a person of understanding draws them out.” One of the most effective tools for drawing out the rest of what we as grandparents need to hear is the technique of responding to what we perceive as a partial or incomplete answer by responding, “Yes, and….” Sometimes we will need to repeat these two words one or more times to get the whole story. And Proverbs warns against answering a concern before we have heard it. (See Proverbs 18:13)
• Disagreeing the right way: So, what do we do when our grandchildren make statements or assertions that are clearly wrong or un-Biblical? We can’t ignore them, but we can employ the reminder Paul gave the Ephesians to “Speak the truth in love. . . (Ephesians 4:15). 

Sometimes the issue involves a need for confrontation; this must always be done gently and in love. We find the guidelines in Proverbs 27:5, 6. “Better his open rebuke and hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.”

You may ask, how does this apply to coaching grandchildren? The right thing to do is lovingly confront that which is wrong, even when we risk their anger. As a grandparent, when I am willing to lovingly rebuke, I am my grandchild’s friend. When I ignore the wrong to avoid controversy, I am actually acting as my grandchild’s enemy. 

One of the most effective examples of how to lovingly confront someone who is clearly in the wrong is Nathan’s confrontation of David following the King’s adultery with Bathsheba and arranging the murder of her husband Uriah. The prophet came with the courage to speak with the King but didn’t just blurt out his confrontation. Instead, he told the story of two men, one extremely wealthy, and the other very poor. As Nathan explained, the wealthy man needed to provide a meal for company, and rather than taking a lamb from his large flock, he saw the lamb belonging to the poor man, who had treated that lamb as a family member, and had it prepared to be fed to his guests.

David’s angry response initially called for the man to be put to death, but then he backed off and demanded a fourfold repayment. 

It was at that point that Nathan uttered those pointed words, ‘You are the man.’ Because of that wise, loving approach, the King responded with repentance. At times I have used a similar approach in counseling or coaching situations, and specifically with children or grandchildren. 

When led by God’s Spirit, after careful reflection and prayer, God can use us as grandparents to break through denial and lead an erring grandson or granddaughter to repentance.