Little girl was asked how to deal with ‘bad listeners’ — her simple advice on keeping conversations alive has adults taking notes
Listening is an important skill that people might overlook in many scenarios. It can also be awkward for a person trying to make a conversation or get a point across while talking to a bad listener. So, a little girl shared a simple technique people can use to keep the conversation going, especially when they are talking to a bad listener. The girl shared that she had even taught the technique, which involves a simple hand gesture, to her parents. Recess Therapy, who go by @recesstherapy on TikTok, posted the clip on Saturday, December 20, 2025, which has received over 517,300 views.
"Do you think some people are bad listeners?" the host asked the girl. "Some people. Like my brother. If you guys are bad listeners, some people should be bad listeners to you," the girl responded. She pointed out that there was a technique that could keep people from veering off topic. She put both her thumbs and forefingers together and linked them with each other. She asked the host if he knew what the gesture meant. The girl went on to explain that it was "linking" and gave an example of what she was trying to say.
"It basically just means like, if someone says, yesterday I went to the movie theater. You're not going to just say, 'Oh, cool. Okay, I went to the water park,'" the girl expressed. "That's something else. It doesn't even have the same subject." She pointed out that people could instead ask follow-up questions like what the person watched, or if they had any popcorn or not, and so on. The host responded, "So linking, you do this if you're like, you are just moving on? It's like, let's keep talking, ask me questions?" The man revealed that he didn't know about this before, and the girl was excited that he got to learn about something new.
People appreciated the girl's technique in the comments section of the video. @kamogelovinolia789 wrote, "So basically, don’t start talking about yourself when someone else is sharing about themselves. Linking! You better teach them, baby." @michaelabioye599 commented, "And that gesture she demonstrated, I believe, came from that symbol your device shows you to create a link or click on one. Smart!" @dokidekucosplays remarked, "I agree, but I also don't think it's wrong for someone to say they went somewhere else. I do think it should be done only sometimes, though, because it is nicer to let the other person know you do care about what they said."
@aihalz expressed, "Actually, I didn't know I had this problem of not 'linking' until very recently at the ripe age of 25. She's onto something." The page often shares such videos with kids. In another video, a kid shared that he wanted to become a horror movie director when he grew up.
You can follow @recesstherapy on TikTok for more such content.