Take time to stop and "hear" the roses!

I find the more I listen to my teenage girls (and the less I talk), the more they are willing to tell me.  I used to think it was a good idea to stop them mid-sentence when they would go on and on with the "drama" of the day, but I found that by saying less, I'm contributing more to their self-worth and their sense of accomplishment.  Sounds silly...how can you have any impact at all if you're not saying anything?  But the bottom line is that they don't always need you to say a word other than, "Wow, I'm really sorry that happened" or "Sounds like you've had a rough day" or even "I'm really proud of how you handled that".  They don't need you to fix it, they don't want to know how you would have handled it, they just need to know that you heard what they said and that you value their feelings.  You may think whatever they're going through isn't important in the great scheme of things, but in their world, at that particular moment in time, it's all that matters. :)