In the last fifteen years or so, I have really tried to start paying attention to my Dad. I may have mentioned this in an earlier post, I don’t remember. I know it sounds like I completely ignored him. That is not the case. My parents are not getting any younger, mid-sixties at this point. I have read too many stories about people who didn’t take the time to realize their time was limited. They neglected to take advantage of these folks while they are still around!

That sounds a little dark… basically, I want to listen and take to heart what they have to tell me. The other day, I took two of my kids to their house. I was sitting in their living room, just chatting. My dad happened to mention something to me. We were talking about my oldest girl, Katarina, and he said that I needed to take the time to listen to her, really listen to her.

Don’t get me wrong, Kat and I talk a lot. She is also a writer (like her Daddy). Kat often writes down her thoughts and feelings in the form of stories, songs, verses, and even psalms. What if I read what she wrote with the goal of understanding her emotional world? He said she would teach me. I would become a person she felt like she can rely on even more. I knew she would write when she was having a hard time. I did the same thing at her age. Heck, I do it now. Some of you have read those articles.

“What our kids say (or, in this case, write) can really impact us,” he said. “Let me show you something.” He led me into the dining room, a weird place for this, but there it is. He showed me something I wrote for a school assignment when I was fifteen (pictured above). A year below where Kat is now, fifteen. This simple little sheet of paper was something my Dad had paid attention to. “For decades now,” he said. “I have been trying to live up to your words on that paper. I haven’t always been capable, but it has been my goal. To be the man that you thought I was. I wanted you to feel proud that I was your Dad.”

He had paid attention to what I wrote and listened well. Advice from a fourteen-year-old isn’t something the world often listens to. Teenagers are teenagers after all, but I am really trying to listen to my own teenagers; my own kids, when they talk, write, sing, etc. They are speaking to me, in the best ways they know how. It isn’t always respectful. It isn’t always super clear, but I am listening. You may not believe the teens around you are listening. But, if you take the time to listen, they will too. Let me tell you a quick story.

I don’t remember how old I was, but it was around the time I wrote that thing about my dad. I wanted to play basketball. It’s crazy because I am about as talented at sports as I am at being a rocket scientist. That means not at all. Anyway, my way of shooting a basket was to do a granny shot. If you don’t know what that is, think of the stupidest way to shoot a basketball, and then double it.

Now, the kid in that video makes this look like it’s a great idea… it is not. Be prepared to be made fun of a LOT if you happen to try to play basketball this way. Trust me, I know from experience. I argued back and forth with my dad about this. I tried to tell him that I knew what I was talking about. That this was how I knew to shoot the ball and that it was fine. He disagreed. In fact, he eventually got really frustrated with how I wasn’t listening to him and gave up. Telling me that if I wasn’t going to listen, then I could just do it any way I wanted. We had begun yelling at each other, fighting about how to play basketball.

He went inside the house. He vented to my Mom about how I didn’t listen to him. He was frustrated that I acted like a teenager who knew it all. He was very frustrated with me. An hour or so later though, my cousins came over to play and what did we decide to do? Play basketball of course. My Mom went over to the window and cracked it open as played. Then, she called my Dad over and made him sit down to listen to us. As my cousins and I played the game, I repeated my Dad’s words to them, verbatim! I was also doing my best to shoot the ball exactly as my Dad has shown me.

As a teen, I was too stuborn to admit he was right to his face, but I listened. As the handwritten note above states, I respected my Dad. I listened to him even when, in my teenage angst, I may not have admitted it to his face. So my fellow parents out there, your teens are listening. Your kids in general are listening. Are you taking the time to listen to them speak? I am trying and it is worth your time to do the same. If you listen, they will listen.

D. Michl Lowe