Try This at Home: Don’t Interrupt

This week’s post is the final in the summer series, “Try This at Home.” Summer will continue on for a bit, but I’ll shift the focus here to getting ready for school. The practice for this week is, don’t interrupt. It’s a practice that will serve you well in any situation – now, with friends and family, and later, in your coaching work.
 
Reasons Not to Interrupt
 
Although we all likely fall into the interrupting trap at times, the damage of interrupting is intuitive. If we pause to consider, we’ll recognize some of the following reasons.
 
First, interrupting interferes with psychological safety. Psychological safety is the belief that you can speak up, take risks, and make mistakes without worrying that you might be humiliated or punished. Psychological safety is the foundation for trust and authentic connection. We want that at home and we need it to make coaching effective.
 
Interrupting can be viewed as disrespect. It sends the message that you feel the speaker’s words are unimportant. Interrupting dismisses the other person’s ideas, pushing your own ideas to the top.
 
Interrupting diminishes trust. It feels controlling, sending the message that the interrupter wants to drive the conversation. Others feel manipulated or undervalued.
 
Interruption disrupts thinking. Ideas that are in the process of being shared may not come to fruition, or at least aren’t fully expressed. Both the speaker and the interrupter miss out.
 
Jumping in too soon creates misunderstanding. The interrupter may make incorrect assumptions and respond based on their own interpretation rather than what was actually meant.
 
Of course, interruption interferes with listening. If you’re just listening for a chance to interrupt, you’re not really listening.
 
These real reasons should dissuade us from interrupting.
 
How to Avoid Interrupting
 
We know that interrupting has negative consequences, but it can be a hard habit to break – especially when our brains are spilling over with ideas we’d like to share. If interrupting is a habit,  not  interrupting  can become a habit, too. That’s why it fits well as a summer “Try This at Home” exercise. Here are some ideas to help you avoid interrupting.
 
To avoid interrupting, practice the pause. Take a breath and ask yourself, “Is it my turn to talk?” Stay focused and listening. Along with your own pause, wait for the speaker’s pause…It will come.
 
To avoid interrupting. pay attention to the tone and body language of the speaker. These give us cues about whether the speaker has finished. They also help us tune into their message so that we’ll be less-likely to disrupt it.
 
Be curious. Previous posts have talked about curiosity as a key coaching mindset, and it’s one that serves us well as we proverbially bite our tongues to keep from interrupting. Staying curious keeps the conversation open.
 
Another way we can avoid interrupting is to reserve judgment. Interruption often occurs when we feel the need to correct. Instead, keeping judgment at bay helps us listen longer.
 
Practice Now
 
There are four ways listed above to avoid interrupting, and each could serve as a cue or impetus. But we can’t do everything at once!  It might help to pick just one of these to start with. What will you do this week to avoid interrupting? Will you pause, attend to tone and body language, stay curious, or reserve judgment? What will be your first focus? I’m going to work on reserving judgment. Although it’s something I try to be mindful of, I know I could use more work with this, and judgment (especially to correct) is probably the main reason I interrupt some of the people in my personal life.
 
Avoiding interruption is something we can practice now and carry into our coaching work in the fall. When we don’t interrupt, we build trust, deepen understanding, and foster reflection – important for creating an effective coaching climate. Listening long will offer teachers the opportunity to explore their ideas out loud, honoring their agency and professionalism.
 
Interruption isn’t just a break in speaking – it’s a break in connection that creates distance. Patience and presence are the anecdotes we can cultivate this summer to replace the urge to interrupt.
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

When collaborating, colleagues match complementary strengths:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/video/teacher-collaboration-matching-complementary-strengths
 
 
Nurturing independent readers:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/nurturing-independent-reading-lives-in-middle-school/
 
 
Recommendations for adolescents AI literacy:
 
https://districtadministration.com/article/ai-and-student-well-being-how-to-support-student-learners/
 
 
Two questions to ask a teacher before coaching:
 
https://hbr.org/2018/11/if-you-want-to-get-better-at-something-ask-yourself-these-two-questions
 
 
5 Risks New Teachers Should Take:
 
https://www.teachingchannel.com/blog/new-teacher-risks
 
 
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
 
Want more coaching tips? Check out my book, Differentiated Mentoring & Coaching in Education: From Preservice Teacher to Expert Practitioner, available from Teachers College Press!  I’m so excited to share it with you! You can use the code: FDNS25 for 20% off. Click  here  and I’ll email you the free Book Group Study Guide that includes questions, prompts, and activities you can use as you share the book with colleagues.  I hope you’ll love this book as much as I loved making it for you!
 
Continuing with the "Try This at Home" summer theme, this week's post describes how conversational dynamics create relationships of power. I hope you'll gain insight for now and important practices you can carry into your coaching:
http://MyCoachesCouch.blogspot.com