Question Submitted anonymously via the
Teen Topic Request Form.
Date: Friday March 07, 2008
Time: 10:30 -0500
How can i effectivley [sic] communicate with my friends? It's impossible to answer this question in a way that's helpful to you because each person has a different understanding of the word "effectively."
What works is to state the problem using your last ineffective result.
Some examples:
Yesterday I walked up to a group of classmates and they were all talking. I just stood slightly outside the circle and only laughed when everyone else laughed. I felt like a jerk. I didn't know what to say. It was very uncomfortable. How do I be comfortable in such a situation?
Or, There's this girl I like but I'm afraid to go up and talk with her. How do I not be afraid?
Or, I told my Mom I'd be home at 4:00 and I arrived at 3:45. She yelled, "Where have you been? You're late. You said you'd be home at 3:00." These failed communications happen frequently. Actually there's two problems: "How do I get her to hear me and how do I get her to stop yelling?"
Or, I'm trying to get my dad to let me stay out until 11:00 on weekends and he refuses to listen to me. He just says, "I said no. Don't ask again." How do I get him to listen?
Or, I keep telling my boyfriend, "No sex," and he doesn't listen. How do I get him to stop asking without losing him?
You can see from these examples that each question addresses a different point of view about effectiveness.
I totally get your predicament. There's no adult around you to model the result you want, there's no one who can teach you. There's no class in high school, "How to communicate effectively." Teachers (and therefore their students who become adults) are not taught in schools/colleges how to communicate effectively
*. BTW; You are normal, it's the world that's insane. Most teachers have not learned how to communicate effectively. They have yet to learn how to assign homework in such a way as to cause all their students to do it and legibly. They are stuck blaming the system, the students, or the parents. They honestly believe it's not possible to have all parents attend PTA meetings, or, to have all students do their homework, neatly and on time. That belief keeps students stuck in mediocrity. Even together, as a professional group, teachers can't cause the legislature to fund them the money they say they need for supplies, maintenance or even the salary they say they need/want. What's worse, none are on this website asking a communication coach, "Some of my student don't do their home work, what is it about my leadership communication skills that's not working?" The leadership-communication skills it takes to cause all students to do their homework are the exact same ones it takes to communicate effectively when requesting funds.
Thank you for posting. Feel free to post a specific problem, or a result you'd like to produce?
With aloha,
Kerry
* For sure there are university courses with names such as "Introduction to the Principles and Fundamentals of Communication." And that's exactly what the instructors do, they introduce you to ... but don't require that you learn through to a skill level. There's even a course named, "Communicating Effectively," however, the speech-communication instructors of these courses themselves do not know how to teach to a skill level. By this I mean, speech-communication courses have the reputation of being the easiest, whereas they should have the reputation of being the one course on campus that a student must keep taking until he/she can demonstrate that they can in fact communicate through to mutual satisfaction with— 1) Their fellow students. 2) A panel of Instructors, (much the same as what graduate students must do to earn their M.A. degree). The problem with implementing this kind of curriculum is that the university must be willing to have students quit—which means they'd lose the student's tuition money. In a communication mastery program a teacher must be willing to allow a student to go through anger (in coaching jargon it's referred to as completing one's experience of using anger to produce a result). What happens when a student knows the teacher has seen through their act, and insists upon excellence, the student tries what has worked will all adults, they get angry. They pout, and give the teacher stink-eye, and badmouth the teacher to others; they try every trick that has worked with their parents and other adults (to get them off their back). A communicologist (a communication-skills coach) has the ability to just be with the anger and not react. Teachers (education majors) are absolutely afraid of a student's or a parent's anger so they back off and act polite. The teacher is afraid that he/she will lose their job, that the principal and administration will not believe and support them (back them up). This fear keeps everyone stuck in mediocrity.
Last edited 3/14/18
