Approach with caution! As if there were a blinking neon sign that flashes over my mother’s head whenever I find myself attempting to engage in certain conversations with her. We have never had a “hallmark” style relationship but she was one of my closest confidants for my early adult years. I went to my mom with everything, the good, the bad, and the indifferent. I enjoyed our Saturday lunches with the occasional shipping trip, or the family getting together for Sunday dinner. But something has changed.
With this assignment my chosen goal was to learn to become a less defensive listener because I feel it will improve my relationship with my mom. To reach this destination I need to improve my active listening skills. I have a tenancy to speak before listening completely to what she has to say. The part that has me puzzled is because I have always been someone that people confided in. I assumed that made me an adequate listener. I am a pretty good judge of body language and usually able to tell how someone is feeling. I enjoy listening to people while trying to help them devise a solution to their problem. Generally, I can determine when someone has more to convey than just the words spoken or when someone is misinterpreting the message I am sending. The skills seem to almost diminish when I am hearing my mom speak.
Through my research, I have discovered there are several approaches that will assist in improving this situation. Some of the most basic approaches are simply listening. The key is to listen with complete attention that is free from all distractions. As we are concentrating on what the other person is speaking about and asking question to ensure adequate understanding many of the issues can be avoided. Our society has...
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... made many mistakes in my lifetime but my daughter is the most important thing in the world to me as all mothers feel about their children. It ended up in a tearful screaming, I can hurt you more shouting match. This is one of the reasons I chose this topic because she is very important to me and my daughter. I do not want my daughter growing up with images of my mother and me treating each other this way.
Works Cited
Anderson, Julie. "Developing active listening skills: can you hear me now? how effective communication will enhance your career." IDEA Fitness Journal (2008): 85.
Circle, David. "Relationships." Music Education Journal January 2006: 4. Journal.
Goulston, Dr. Mark. Just Listen. Broadway, New York: AMACON Books, 2010.
Whitbourne, Susan Krauss. "Fulfillment at Any age." 13 March 2012. Psychologytoday.com. Internet article. 2 February 2014.
James C. Petersen (2007), author of Why Don’t We Listen Better, offers practical advice on how to communicate effectively and connect with others. In order to help his readers, communicate effectively, Petersen (2007) divides his book into five divisions. Each division builds on the content in the preceding portions. Every segment provides a great amount of information, which will aid people in how they choose to communicate.
142-202. Print. Whitbourne, Susan. " Fulfillment at Any Age: Avoid the Fatal Attraction Effect in Your Relationship. "
The Importance of Listening for Professional and Personal Relationships Listening is essential for communication, yet is a skill in which most are lacking. Though we are listening constantly, knowing what to listen to requires an enormous amount of discipline and practice, which is vital for communicating effectively. Learning to listen will benefit all relationships from professional to personal and not being able to listen effectively can cause these relationships to deteriorate. “Indeed, although aware of the instrumentality of listening, even trained communicators often fail to listen correctly or at opportune times” (Cline, 2013). In order for all of areas of communication in an individual to flourish, listening must be emphasized.
She’s one of those old souls stuck in the fifty’s and refuses to see the 21st century. She is a good mother, it 's only when it came to me she lacked. I met my mother when I was four. She adopted my little sis and me. Through my younger age I hated her I absolutely hated her and she failed to understand why or explain to me so I could understand whom the lady was that I was staying with. Where my real mother was. She failed to help me see what was going on and with me only being four I thought she kidnapped me and I hated her. As I grew up I learned precisely what was going on and I no longer had a heart for her it dwindled down to more of a dislike. I understood why was with her, but I expended most of my early youth wondering why did this have to happen to me. And why did I have to be with her. My mother wasn’t a bad mother she only lacked the nurturing a love I needed. She held my early years against me and we’ve been stepping on thin ice ever
A vital aspect of interpersonal communication is the style in which one listens. While every individual possesses their own preferred method of listening in communication, it can be enlightening to analyze our own strengths and weaknesses so as to maximize effectual communication. Within the confines of four main listening style categories, I have chosen those which best describe my own personal listening style.
I have demonstrated good active listening skills as long as I can remember. I pay attention and listen in class as well as outside of class with peers or at my internship.
Listening and understanding what others communicate to us is the communication process needed for interpersonal effectiveness. If you listen well, you will understand the meaning of the message. If you are unfocused, you will not know most of what the other person is saying. However, there is a range of listening skills that can be learned to develop the communication effectiveness. Firstly, encouraging listening points to the listener that is willing to do more than listen. Usually it provides feedback that supports speakers to say more. Fur...
The ability to listen effectively significantly impacts all relationships, be it professional, personal or social. The prevailing issue with effective listening, however, is two-fold, in not truly understanding the meaning of listening and not possessing the tools required to be an effective listener. The skill of listening, according to Dr. Robert Bolton (1979), extends beyond simply hearing sound as a physiological sensory process but instead requires and involves interpreting and understanding the sensory experience or what is being heard (p 32). It also is an active experience wherein the listener is fully engaged and has absorbed the information of the speaker while showing interest and providing feedback, all while demonstrating that they have heard and understand the message. It is a fair assertion that most people in varying relationships and environments listen in what is considered passive capacity, or only digest and process bits and pieces of the speaker’s message.
As The Gift of Listening describes, “Opening one’s heart and listening at a deep level does not come easily and is rarely achieved simply by life experience” (Browning & Waite, 2010, p. 151) There are different aspects to being a good listener that are often difficult to achieve and lead to poor listening. One significant challenge to listening is the attention needed in order to actively listen to another person. Proper listening does not occur due to a passive process but instead it takes deliberate action and thought towards what a person in saying. Like previously stated, actively listening is achieved by sitting in a comfortable and open way and maintaining good eye contact. When a person does not exhibit these techniques good listening often does not occur. The challenge of utilizing different techniques in order to listen to others in a better way often gets blocked by barriers that make active listening unable to occur. In our society today one major barrier to listening is technology. In a casual setting, proper listening often doesn’t occur due to someone being tied to their cell phone. The millennial generation is often guilty of passively listening to others due to the mobile technology that is being used today. Many conversations occur without eye contact or full focus on what the other has to say and instead is spent staring at a
Overall, listening is something that is crucial to life and is something that I need to improve on.
Isay, Jane. The secret that became my life, Psychology Today 2011. web. 2 April. 2014
Use communication skills effectively, use active listening by listening to the other person and paying close attention to what they are saying, asking questions and rephrasing what the person says to ensure understanding.
In all aspects in life effective listening plays an important role in our lives, both professionally and personally. As many of know from experience listening is never easy in fact it can be difficult to understand what is being said by the speaker. Because of laps in attention we tend to misunderstand some of the messages that are being relayed to us or disregard them altogether. Effective listening is important for receiving the correct feedback from those you’re speaking with and requires a focus that should be central to what is being said or what topic is being discussed.
Listening is one of the most powerful tools of communication and is a process that is used to receive, convey a meaning, and respond to both verbal and nonverbal messages. It is what we choose to do and it requires more work than speaking. Oftentimes, people simply misunderstand the difference between listening and hearing. Hearing is a passive process that takes in sounds and noises and listening is what you choose to do. This selective process includes 5 phases that can be acquired for us to become effective listeners in the future. The 5 phases are attending, understanding, remembering, critically evaluating (listening), and responding. Once the 5 different areas are understood, we will become aware of what needs to change and how we can change them. This will also allow us to improve our listening skills in the workplace, school, at home, etc.
I never really talk about the affects my father’s motorcycle accident had on me because it hurts to know I went through something like that at such a young age. Where I am now is where I want to stay because it is nothing but progress from where I was then. I may have grown from my father’s motorcycle accident, but also developed a lot of good and bad memories that I would not trade for the world.