Jonathan Livingston Seagull: A Story

This book was a present to me from a student.
I’d taught him how to listen and facilitated his thinking
and his present helped me to listen better and to teach listening better.
It helped enhance my questioning skills as well. A virtuous circle!

Nancy’s book is an absolute treasure.
She presents a narrative to provide a context for the work she developed.
Anecdotes are balanced with bulleted guidance lists to create a practical guide.
Although this is a book about listening and questioning, to facilitate thinking,
it is fundamentally about respect and deals with practical ways to create respectful environments, which nurture the people in them, whatever the setting. (business, educational, family etc)

This book will benefit anyone who works with people in formal or informal contexts
- parents, teachers, managers, friends, spouses – the list is endless.

Time To Think would make a valuable addition to every teacher’s and parent’s wish list.

If you want to do your bit for the next generation, buy it for a teacher near you!

Time to Think: Listening to Ignite the Human Mind

When my son was three years old he woke in the night screaming. He was so frightened that he could hardly speak. He’d seen the Easter bunny! I had been reading him a story about a little fluffy bunny in the run up to Easter and I couldn’t understand why he was so terrified. Years later he was able to explain.

Co-incidentally, in the run up to Easter that year, there was a huge promotion for the film ‘Roger Rabbit’. Roger was a manic, machine gun toting wild eyed rabbit that appeared in the commercials ‘blowing away’ his rivals with machine gun fire.

Every time I mentioned anything about the Easter bunny coming in the night to deliver a surprise present, my son imagined Roger The Rabbit rather than the fluffy bunny. Unfortunately I’d mentioned it quite a few times in the week before Easter, which only amplified his terror.

I imagined he was becoming increasingly excited by the prospect of a little friendly creature visiting and delivering chocolate but he was imagining a scene of mass murder!

I hadn’t come across Clean Questioning in those days, or I might have focused a little more attention on his view of the world rather than just feeding him (or so I thought) mine. Once I’d told him the Easter bunny doesn’t exist, he calmed – and he still managed to enjoy the chocolate egg hunts, despite the trauma!

I suppose the learning in this is to remember, when you think you are telling them one thing, they may be hearing another – and it can be worth checking out what they are actually hearing. Clean Language can help you do that.

For those of you who want explore in depth, then this tome is ‘full to brimming’ with explanation, theory and examples of modelling experience, through the use of metaphor. Metaphors in Mind: Transformation Through Symbolic Modelling by James Lawley and `~Penny Tompkins

If you’re keen to read more about the listening and questioning you’ve seen here on the blog, then I can thoroughly recommend Clean Language: Revealing Metaphors and Opening Minds By Wendy Sullivan and Judy Rees.

Drifting off to sleep last night,

I began to recall a time when I was walking down a corridor in a school

and I started to hear a teacher admonishing a child for painting the river in his picture the wrong colour.

“When have you ever seen a river that colour?’ she cried.

“…water is blue, not brown!

Do it again and make it blue this time!”

As I continued along the corridor I began to think about all the rivers I had seen

and realised that nearly every one of them had seemed brown of one shade or another

(mixed with hints of other colours and glints of light, of course).

I tried hard to recall if I’d ever seen a blue river

and to be honest I never had.

It reminded me of a time when as I child I stood by the sea with my Dad

and he gazed and pointed towards the horison and said with a puzzled tone,

“Where does it stop being sea and become sky?”

I peered closely and pointed to ‘the join’ to help him ‘make it out’.

“How do you know”, he said”

“Because the colour changes from dark grey to light grey” I said,

“… just there, see?”

(It did change from dark grey to light grey.)

“My teacher says the sky is blue but it’s not blue is it… look!” I told him.

” What colour do you see?” said my dad.

For the next week or so I noticed the sky and it’s changing colours

ranging from nearly black to nearly white,

with all the colours of the rainbow between.

And over the years I’ve noticed that British seas (and rivers) are almost never blue.

And back in the corridor I reflected on how our beliefs

and the conditioning we’re subject to from those around us

sometimes overrides, so easily,

what we can see clearly with our own eyes.

And as I continued to drift off to sleep,

I was glad to be reminded how important it can be

to encourage children to be aware of what they can see with their own eyes

and to know that their experience IS valid information.

That their data is NOT flawed.

And when they have faith in themselves to know what they see,

and to interpret the world from their own authentic experience

then they flourish

and we all learn something of value.

When I referred to children in my previous post, I meant old souls of course!

I love the quotes in this short video and I thought you might like them too – so take a look.

Richard wrote ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’ a wonderful (and short) story for children and the children in us all. Go read it!

Let’s take a closer look at how to do a ‘teeth pulling’ conversation and then at a way to connect on a far more satisfying and refreshingly informative level.

How to do a ‘teeth pulling’ conversation

1. Always be the first to start the conversation – YOU do the talking.

2. Always ask closed questions (ones that can be answered with a simple yes or no).

3. Keep on asking… question after question.

4. Ensure there are no silences in the exchange.

5. Get more and more disappointed…or annoyed even!

6. Give up!

How to do a ‘Clean’ conversation

1. Start off by listening… really listening… with all your senses.

2. Acknowledge what has just been said, by repeating it back to the child.

3. Then ask a Clean Question…

Choose from:-

• · …and what kind of…(repeat child’s words)?
• · …and is there anything else/anything else about… (repeat child’s words)?
• · …and where/whereabouts is… (repeat child’s words)?
• · …and what happens/ed just before.. (repeat child’s words)?
• · …and then what happens/ed?

4. Continue listening and being ‘quietly with’ your child during silent pauses, as they are thinking.

5. Enjoy the insights and the sense of connection.

6. Continue to delight in fresh new understandings!

Like most things in life, you have a choice.

You have the power to choose between frustration and fascination.

Choose wisely.

Next time you’re struggling with a ‘teeth pulling’ conversation…Think Clean!

“Learn how to turn frustration into fascination. You will learn more being fascinated by life than you will by being frustrated by it.” – Jim Rohn

To be honest, the walk home from school with the children can sometimes be frustrating for a parent. You’re looking forward to a cosy chat about their day and all you get is… a blank!

Q. Have you had a nice day?

A. Yes (or No)

Q. What did you do today then?

A. Nothing.

Q. Didn’t you do any work?

A. No

Q. What about painting then – have you done any pictures or anything?

A. No

Q. You must have done something – what about PE… or Maths?

Come on you must have at least done sums or something!

A. No

Q. So what did you do at playtime?

A. Nothing

… and so it goes on. I call it a ‘teeth pulling’ conversation. It can be irritating to say the least!

But how can you move the conversation along and encourage your child to share their experiences with you without ‘grilling’ them or ‘losing your cool’ at times like this?

In the next post I’ll be sharing two contrasting ways to do the ‘walking home from school’ chat to help you to find a way to make it more satisfying for you both.