How is your communication? What do your unscripted, daily, in the moment communications sound like? As my wife reminded me recently when I was fussing at my kids, we need to be aware of how we sound. Here are a few simple ways of evaluating how we sound. When you don’t like what someone is saying, do you interrupt? When you are losing an argument, do you get louder? When you are angry, do you sound gruff or hostile? When your children don’t listen, does your volume increase? Have I missed anybody?
We all have heard that our communication says a lot about who we are. That may be true, but even more important than that, how we speak can set in motion how our children learn to deal with others. Communication for the most part is learned through modeling and mimicking. This is easy to see with a young child that has learned to use “big” words very appropriately, yet does not know what they mean. Their observation has made it possible for them to use words with abstract meanings in the appropriate place in conversation without actually understanding those abstract meanings. It was modeled and they mimicked.
Even more important than what we say, how we say it is also mimicked. When we are short with our children, they are short with their siblings. When we interrupt when frustrated or get loud when trying to explain a position, we will see it come back to us in the future. Interestingly enough, not only will we hear it from our children, but when it does occur we will usually punish it as inappropriate. What a confusing message we are now sending to our kids. “It is OK for us to talk and sound like that, but how dare you do likewise.” We have to remember that the very manner in which our children use in dealing with conflict, we most likely have taught them. This does not mean that we should ignore inappropriate behavior; it means that we need to make sure we are not adding to the development of that behavior.
Here is a summer project. Change how you sound with your family. Here are a few ideas. Listen to each other completely….no interruptions. Keep your volume low. When frustrated, take a break. Stay away from making threats or ultimatums. Don’t leave discussions in frustration, work to resolutions. Use kind words. When you blow it, apologize. When your children demonstrate problematic communication, point it out and redirect it. Give them a chance to succeed prior to pouncing with a consequence. When we begin to sound differently, so will our kids.
By Keith McCurdy [email protected]