Mindless Listening

I am embarrassed to admit that I react to others messages without thinking much. I usually just say "oh yea?" or "I agree" or "is that right". I am not the type of person that has a lot of patience with people, especially if I am busy or not interested in what they are saying. I think I do this a lot with children, because I do not want to take the time to tell them that I did not understand them, so they need to repeat what they just said. I got caught being a mindless listener from a child. I was babysitting a set of twins who are 2 years old and their older sister who is six. One of the twins started talking to me and I did not catch one hundred percent of what she said so I just said "oh that is pretty cool". After I said that the older sister tells me, "I know what she really said!" To just kind of play it off I said, oh what did she really say I did not really understand everything. I told her what I heard, hoping that I was right. I started listening at the beginning when her sister was talking, but when she started talking so fast I just ignored what she was saying. I was a little embarrassed that a six year old had better listening skills then I did. I did learn that I need to improve my listening skills because people will notice when you are not truly listening.