Active Listening Tips for Homeschool Parents

Nov 11, 2026 | Homeschool Tips and Support, Latest

Are You Really Listening?

Have you ever been in one of those situations where you are talking to someone but you know they’re not listening? Not really listening, anyway. Or maybe you are the one

Last week my adult daughter came over to visit. She was chatting with me in the kitchen while I was making dinner and was telling me all about her workplace drama. Honestly, my mind was elsewhere. I tried to feign attention, though: I nodded. I periodically threw in a “mmhmm” and “wowww.” I even asked a few follow-up questions. She saw through it, though. Eventually she stopped and said, “Hey, you’re not listening!”

Busted! I was thinking about when the dinner would be ready, the chores I needed to do for the evening, people’s emails I needed to return, and a whole host of other busywork. I was physically there but not truly present for the conversation.

What is Active Listening?

Not long ago, I did an article on tips for improving attention span. One suggestion was to practice active listening by focusing on what someone is saying instead of planning your response. It sounds simple, but in practice it can be one of the most difficult habits to build, especially if you are anxious or struggle to detach from the mental burden of your obligations.

Most of us were never formally taught to listen as children. We were taught to speak, read, write, and answer questions, but listening was simply assumed. But listening is a cognitive skill that needs to be developed just as surely as any other. How easily our minds drift! If you’ve ever walked out of Mass with no memory of the readings or homily you just heard, you know what I’m talking about. Just as a muscle needs exercise to grow stronger, our attention needs exercise to stay focused.

Active listening means giving our full attention to the person in front of us. We set aside our phones and mental to-do lists in order to understand what the other person actually means. We listen to truly understand, not just plan a rebuttal. We exercise deliberate patience with the speaker and ensure our minds are fully present. This does not come easily (especially in a culture of distraction), so we must nurture it with great deliberation.

Active Listening in the Homeschool

I think this has special bearing on homeschool families since we spend so much more time with our children relative to our public school counterparts. This is why it is especially important for us to cultivate this habit when we interact with our children. Children notice when we are not present, just like my daughter did. If we want them to be open and honest with us about their thoughts and struggles, it is important to ensure they feel heard. A child who feels heard is far more likely to keep coming to us as they grow up.

Active listening also makes us better educators. When a child is stuck on a problem, our instinct can be to jump in with the explanation. But if we offer an explanation without understanding what the child is stuck on, we deprive them of an opportunity to learn. If we make ourselves listen first, we can identify what specifically our child is getting tripped up on. A child will often say, “I don’t get it,” when they mean, “I forgot how to carry the one.” It might also mean “I’m hungry,” or “I’m afraid I’m just bad at math.” The only way to know is to attentively listen to what they are saying to us and treat their words as important feedback that gives us the information we need to help them.

Some Practical Tips for Active Listening to Children

• If you have something in your hands, put it down, whether it’s a phone, book, cooking utensil, etc. Putting it down focuses you on the other person and shows them you are fully present.
• If you legitimately cannot listen because you are engaged with something else, instead of just pretending to listen, say, “Give me two minutes to finish this and then I’ll be ready.”
• Repeat back what you heard before you respond: “So you’re saying your brother took the game without asking?” This simple step slows the conversation down and often defuses an argument before it starts.
• Ask follow-up questions about what they say in order to better understand what they are communicating.
• Do not try to steer the conversation towards what you want to say. This is about listening and understanding what your child is expressing, not interposing your own opinions.
• Be comfortable with a little silence. Children, especially teenagers, often need a pause before they share what is really on their minds. Don’t feel like you need to fill every space of silence with words.

In Closing

You can also create opportunities to cultivate this habit directly with your children. For example, here’s a game you can play at the dinner table: before anyone responds to someone else, they must first summarize what that person just said to the speaker’s satisfaction. This is based on the rules of the old medieval Disputatio, where participants in a debate had to summarize their opponent’s position to the opponent’s satisfaction before they were allowed to make a rebuttal. Over time, this sort of thing builds the kind of attentive charity that serves our kids well in sibling disagreements, in online class discussions—and, someday—in their marriages, friendships, and workplaces.

“Let every man be swift to hear, but slow to speak, and slow to anger” (Jas 1:19).