Can you hear me now?
Last week I spoke in Vernon Hills, IL for the most amazing event with both teens and parents combined into one audience. Imagine four hundred 7th and 8th graders with five hundred parents seated behind them. Their theme: “Can you hear me now?” brought out the questions kids, parents and teachers ask out loud and silently. “Can you hear that you are special? That you are unique? That you count and make a difference? Can you hear the message that parents and teachers care and want what’s best for you? Can you hear the quiet tug in your spirit, your conscience guiding you to good decisions… if so will you listen?”
It’s one thing to hear, it’s another to listen. To be here in the moment, now with someone and to really hear them inside. “Are you here? Now? Can you be here, now? With me?”
“Please be here!” It’s the cry of the heart to be heard, seen, and noticed. “Listen to me… please, please listen to me” is the real cry spoken between slammed doors, across kitchen tables, seated on the edge of beds, or during a long drive. Each event is potentially filled with caring conversation. “Okay, go ahead… I’m present and ready to really listen.”
I look out at a gym of hormones with tennis shoes and into the eyes of parents filled with every emotion from deep concern to apathy– from looks of “thank you for offering this” to “why do I have to be here?”
As I speak to this group I wonder… Who is here to listen and really hear the needs of these kids? Likewise, will these young teens hear the parents who are here for them and with them? Will they be here, now, for each other and challenge all that is possible from one another? Will they stand up for the what’s in their best interests long term and against anything that could derail their and their peer’s journeys through adolescence?
Are they ready to listen and be here to hear?
Are you?
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pixielee Says:
November 11th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
i saw you first speak in 1988, i was a senior in high school and you did more for me in weekend that anyone had done in my life. You gave me hope, inspiration, and courage - and offered me all those things “until i could offer them to myself” - it was a huge wake up call for me. i have a picture of you and i that hangs on a mirror, and i purchased a set of cassette tapes that i still listen to all these years later. Just yesterday a friend was saying how she needed to have a talk with her child and i said ” i heard this motivational speaker years ago and he said if you ever want to talk to your kids, take them for ice cream, an hour away” - laughs - and thats just what my friend and her child went and did and that talk they needed to have, happened.
I am sure sometimes it appears we arent listening, not hearing, not getting it .. but it does stick in our heads and sometimes when we least expect it we hear your voice and go HEY i get what he was talking about now!
Thank You for being the inspirational person you are and sharing it with the world!! ~ Alyxx lee, Northwest High School, Omaha NE class of 89