The success of any relationship relies on the ability to communicate well. Communication is important in all relationships as it allows us to share our interests, concerns, and support of each other. It helps us to organize our lives and make decisions; and it allows us to work together. Effective communication is based on the way we talk and listen, how we respond as well as our body language. We can all learn how to improve the way we communicate because it takes more than words to create a safe, exciting and secure relationship. All too often the signals we send are not those we intend to send, and when this happens, both the connection and trust are lost in our relationships.
When we communicate, we can say a lot without speaking, through our body, our posture, tone of voice and the expression on our face all display a message. If our feelings don’t fit with our words, it is often the body language that gets heard and believed. Nonverbal communication is a rapidly flowing interactive process. Being aware and understanding the cues you may be sending along with the cues others send and pick up from your body language, may not be showing what you are really trying to communicate to others at that moment.
Given how much time my family spent together growing up, you would think that we would have learned to talk to each other somewhere along the way. And although some families that have learned to talk, listen and respond to each other, my family still demonstrates it Laissez-Faire communication style. My family was always quite dysfunctional when it came to communications, or at least it seemed that way every time my mother remarried. After my mother’s first marriage, I was termed an only child after the passing of my little ...
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...formity, because the only thing in life that is constant is change.
I have been shown over the years through my mother’s relationships as well as mine, that poor communication not only arises from the communication styles of the people involved, but from the family’s joint experiences, beliefs and expectations. Poor communication in today's family can also arise from structural and external problems such as the continual loss of jobs that has pushed my family, as well as others into financial distress and made our lives precarious. Even the families that are not facing such immediate stresses as how to get health insurance without a job, or pay the rent without an income, there are a number of stresses that are endemic in our society, including the fact that the rules governing family structures and responsibilities are far more complex than they need to be.
In fact, family is the bridge of life world. During the family, children learn how to relate with institutions, whether in school officials, healthcare professionals, and assorted government officials. In middle class, children are more on interaction with institutions. Alexander, as an example, learns from his parents that he has the right to speak up and gathering his thoughts in advance when he has to deal with institutions. He interrupts his doctor’s conversation with his mother and asks question to his doctor. By contract, children in working class or poor families frequently seem cautious and constrained. Harold primarily answers questions from his doctor rather than posing his own. Thus, Alexander is assertive and confident in dealing with professional institution unlike Harold who is reserved. Therefore, children’s ability to deal with professional’s institutions is affected by parenting
Communications generally occur in body languages: how the individuals interpret each other. Her essay is an event that is reoccurring more and more lately. The event results in a failure in marriage. In today’s society more and more people are splitting up or having divorces due to miscommunications. The essay, “Sex, Lies and Conversation,” that Deborah Tannen wrote is much use of today because it explains where miscommunications happen and she has her own studies and research to back it up. The essay goes into depth about her ideologies that cause miscommunications. Look at a miscommunication twice and do not be quick to judge because it will save plenty of
Family members’ ability to effectively express their emotions, insights, and ideas to each other reflects how well members relate to each other, and how well the family functions as a whole. According to Kirst-Ashman & Hull (2012) assessing communication patterns within a family is crucial to the planned change process that must occur in order to assist families reconcile their problems in the best possible way (p.331). There are various facets of communication in addition to verbal and nonverbal communication. There are at least five different paths of communication, referred to as avenues of communication, which include: consonance, condemnation, submission, intellectualization, and indifference (p. 331-332). An assessment of the various facets of communication used by a family is useful in indicating where change is
Normal families contain self-actualized individuals. Children in the family are able to be open and creative, and parents do not have too much control over the children that growth is not a possibility (Nichols, 2014, p. 132). Immediately from this information, I am aware that my family is not normal. I believe that my parents are “helicopter parents”. They hover over me and my brother, and this does not allow for us to be ourselves and to grow. Virginia Satir is given kudos to experiential family therapy, and believer that there were four dishonest ways those persons may communicate: blaming, placating, being irrelevant, and being super reasonable (Nichols, 2014, p. 132). In my dysfunctional family of four, I believe that each of us has played these roles. To be transparent, I believe that I frequently play the role of the blamer, bl...
Children enter the world as part of preexisting systems. They enter parental systems and families that already have rules, roles and boundaries, and more are made as children grow and the family develops. These transitions can be confusing and challenging for all members involved leading to feelings of fear, anger and even helplessness. Members within the family strive to feel competent and grasp at a sense of security as their family structure and organization shifts with each new addition or change. Normal family development is a delicate balance between change and stability. The most important rules to help maintain a sense of stability and security within the family, according to Virginia Satir, are the ones that govern communication (Bitter, 2009, p. 125). Rules via communication can be verbal or nonverbal but are usually intended to provide children safety as they advance outside the home. However, children hear absolutes in rules such as “Always listen to your elders,” which quickly becomes impossible to follow all the time. Children begin to question such rules and parental authority begins to lose weight. Children also learn rules by observing the behavior of their parents, who typically do not follow the absolutes in rules they give their children. According to Satir, in healthy families, rules are few and consistently applied and are humanly possi...
Communication is a crucial part of our daily lives which can be interpreted in various ways. Although, many couples think they have no problems communicating with each other; however, the issue among genders still exists. Learning to talk and listen can improve relationships in many ways. Therefore, Deborah Tannen, John Gray, Susan Page, and John Gottman focused on improving communication skills between genders.
My motivation to research, discover, and stimulate social change is rooted in my childhood experiences. As a young child I grew up in a household filled with domestic violence, which ultimately ended with the suicide of my father. I subsequently came to know a variation of the typical American nuclear family: a single parent household. As I began to study family dynamics further, I was able to see my life experiences in a broader context. In hindsight, I now realize the impact and weight my own mother had on my personal development. It was through her strength, determination, and optimism that I was able to find the spark within myself to set goals and dreams for my future. She encouraged me never to accept anything at face value, including the way our society attempts to define my womanhood. As a result of this, I now question American culture’s classification of a ‘successful’ family and the factors that determine a ‘stable’ family.
We, as humans, have the propensity to vary in how well we encode and decode messages that are both written and spoken. This is because people tend to range in a variety of highs and lows with regard to their verbal language abilities. This would a lot for differences in nonverbal communication as well. Nonverbal communication refers to the exchange of information between people and an explanation or establishment of the meaning of information by any means other than the use of spoken or written words. It includes message through a multitude of behaviors (expressive channels) such as facial expressions, bodily movements, vocal tone and pitch, and other channels that are comprised of a variety of cues related to the encoding and the decoding of messages. The communication and interpretation of nonverbal behavior draws on tacit, implicit knowledge that all human beings possess (Ambady and Rosenthal, 775).
Nonverbal communication is rich in meaning. Everyone communicates through nonverbal gestures and motions. I realized that you can decipher a lot from an individual or individuals by just paying close attention to what they do, and that words are not really necessary. Watching two people interacting, I figured that they are really close by their space communication, eye language, and body movements.
Nonverbal cues involve everything but the spoken word which includes: body posture and facial expressions, gestures, eyebrows, eyes, tone of voice, speed of delivery, inflections, volume, and proximity. Even one's attire sends messages to others. Each area of the nonverbal has the power to send a message; combined they tell the listener what is meant and what is felt. The power of the nonverbal cannot be over-rated; it will almost always ...
Communication is important in relationships as it allows us to share our interest, concerns, support each other; organize our lives and make decisions; and it allows us to work together. Effective communication is based on the way we talk and listen, how we respond and our body language. We can all learn how to improve the way we communicate.
In conclusion, Dr. John Gottman demonstrates how communication is vital in any relationship and not just marriage. Personally, I consider a relationship to be a reciprocating affair in which every party plays a role to sustain it. In the event of a conflict with my partner, my go to plan is not to criticise, but to give room for dialogue in order to establish the root cause of the conflict.
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) mentions effective communication more than one time on the website. Effective Communication is part of the vision and mission statements for this professional organization. The ASHA’s vision statement is “Making effective communication, a human right, accessible and achievable for all” and the Mission statement is “Empowering and supporting speech-language pathologists, audiologists, and speech, language, and hearing scientists by advocating on behalf of persons with communication and related disorders, advancing communication science and promoting effective human communication” (“About ASHA”, 2011).
Additionally, her parents have to make a lot of financial decisions because they are the primarily ones that help out the extended family that is still in Vietnam. Her dad always tries to send money back to Vietnam as he is the sole person in the United States on the paternal side. Many arguments happen as a result of this because her mom wants to focus on making sure that their family’s needs are met first. Her parents’ filial piety ideals are different whereas her dad is more focused on the extended family, and her mom on the immediate family. Despite the differences, care of family members is considered an important duty and role. Family plays a central role in family dynamics.
...tention to how people react to one another’s comments, guessing the relationship between the people and guessing how each feels about what is being said. This can inform individuals to better understand the use of body language when conversing with other people. It is also important to take into account individual differences. Different cultures use different non-verbal gestures. Frequently, when observing these gestures alone the observer can get the wrong impression, for instance, the listener can subconsciously cross their arms. This does not mean that they are bored or annoyed with the speaker; it can be a gesture that they are comfortable with. Viewing gestures as a whole will prevent these misunderstandings. Non-verbal gestures are not only physical, for example; the tone of voice addressing a child will be different from the way it is addressed to an adult.