Lesson 3: Attending Behavior Attention Our clients should never have to work THIS hard to get our attention! Think of this as well...many times "GETTING ATTENTION" is the identified cause of student disruption in elementary school...or so the teachers sometimes say...well, if that is true, why do the students need to go to such heroic measures to get attention? In preparation for this Lesson, read Chapter 3 in your textbook Learning Outcomes Upon completion of this lesson's material, students will be able to:
Teaching Reading Chapter 3: Attending Behavior - Basic Communication Paying Attention Have you ever tried having a conversaton with someone who was not attending to you? They were distracted, not making eye contact? How did you know they were not attending? What did you do? In our busy lives we can sometimes fail to attend to what is going on around us...add to this the alure of technology and our ability to remain "connected"...but what are we connected to? What is the effect of all this technology around us on our ability to attend to what is going on? As counselors we develop a comfortable "vigilance" as to the behavior of our client. It does not read as clearly as words, but they are taken into consideration when we work with clients. We attend to:
Under certain circumstances we need to pay very special attention to behavior:
Becoming a Samuri As we develop these skills we become like Samuri, focused and attentive to the moment. This has a profound impact on the way our cllients respond to us. This is PLANNED...this is what we want.
As we develop our skills:
What do we attend to? Careful about this one...we can lead clients by attending only to things that WE think are relevant. While this is part of our training, we need to recognize that clients are motivated to please us and when we give subtle cues that it is OK to talk about somethings and less OK to talk about others, we may miss things. Empathy Carl Rogers is the one who brought empathy to the forefront of our awareness.
Empathy is like Rewards and Punishments - it is assessed by it's effects. If a client is "resisistant" maybe YOU are not being empathetic enough? Assessment Lesson 3 Quiz You will need to do this experiment at home! Pick a time when someone in your home is trying to tell you something. Make a direct effort to be distracted and "not listen". After a short time the individual may become irritated so be ready to stop the experiment and tell them what you are doing! Ask them how it felt to be "not listened to"...did they feel unimportant? Did they think you were being rude?
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