NON-Violent Communication

The biggest disagreement that I have that has effected my life for more then hours is one argument I had with my husbands brother. He lives in Tennessee and we live in Utah. 6 months before the argument we went down to his wedding. It was a fun time but his marriage did not last. 6 months later they were divorce. He came home to his parents house for a weekend to deal with all that he went through. He was into drugs and alcohol. When he did these things he was violent and this is what caused the marriage to end. He also does not have a high regard for women due to his relationship with his mom and other women in his family. We were living with his parents at the time. This was five years ago and we had a 4 year-old and a 1 year-old. The whole time he was here he was rude to his mother and father. My husband had an accident and he and grandpa watch our kids. Anyways so when it was time for him to leave the girls and I were in the house and so was he. My oldest keep asking him if he could do things with her and he would make up a story as to why he could not. The he preceded to tell her lies about when he would see her again. By this time I was done with his lies. I asked him to stop lying to her and tell her the truth. He said that he was not going to do that because it was not fair to the child. I said well your lie will create false hope in her. Then he got mad and we started to have a screaming match. He mom walked in and told us to stop he called her all kinds of  awful names. By this time his dad came in and he tried to break it up but we just continued. Honestly to this day is was stupid but many things caused his reaction to my question. We are still not speaking even now. What I have learned from our resources is that I should have let it go because he was not in the right frame of mind to receive my asking appropriately. He say me as an object and same with my daughter. He was selfish then and still is. When he was home two weeks ago he say he did not need family and all he wanted was acquaintance out of his family. He only sees his side on everything. What I have also realized is why I have be upset with him all these years. I am looking at my self-deception of the situation. My issue with him is the way he disrespects his parents and all women in general. These are my issues not his. I have begun to write a letter to apologize for picking the wrong time to talk about lying to a child. I also am apologizing for my issue with how he was in the past. His parents have told me he has changed and his fiance acts like he has changed. I am still judging him on his past actions. This argument bothers his parents because they want family to get along and spend time together. The problem is that many things have not happen in the past with this family to make forgiveness easy for the boys. I am working on forgiveness toward him but it will take time. I could not apologize until I knew what I had to apologize for. This argument was not about being right or wrong it was about how one person mistreats people who love him. He does not like women who stand up for themselves and many other things. He sees his family and other individuals as objects. I have to look at him as an individual who is struggling to understand his world is not perfect and he cannot control everyone. I as a person need to learn to argue with individuals with a calm more collective way so that the environment can be productive. His dad has wanted me to write him an apology letter since that day but I could not until I understood why. He called me many names and said hurtful things because he was hurting and not in a could frame of mind. This is more about healing things that never should have been. It will take time because he will never admit he was wrong or in the wrong. He parents are pushing and they just need to let it go. We will work it out or not.

communicator and others who evaluated me.

What is the one thing that surprised you the most?
What surprised me the most was how similar the scores came out. I found this survey difficult because the individuals who I asked to complete it did not understand the questions. They also did it on themselves first. I had to ask them to redo the survey. When they did the results were similar to my personal results. The way I communicate with individuals I do not know does not always make a good impression. This is what I have gained that because of my anxieties I do not come across as a friendly person or someone you can talk to.

What other insights about communication did you gain this week?
Communication is not an easy task. Communication is very complicated and if you do not look at individuals as human beings instead of object you really are not communication with them. How we perceive ourselves also effects how we communicate. Being comfortable communicating with others in large crowds is what many individuals have to learn how to do. I have seen individuals who are natural at it and some that have had to work at it because of their career path. I also see how many people view individuals differently when it comes to communication styles.

So from the survey I have that I have some people oriented skills, action oriented skills, content-oriented skills and time-oriented. I really do not understand the results though. For my listening skills I focus on details and scheduled in important to me. I have communication anxiety which I already knew. I feel uncomfortable in many communication situations. It also says that my high anxiety might stop me from accepting influences from others. These results might cause my communication with other professionals to be not very success full. I may not be able to accept influences form others and my family members. My middle child has anxieties when it comes to communicating as well. She will not say good bye to anyone as fear they will not return. So I need to evaluate myself to see where I can improve.

Communicating differently

Strategies that I have gained from this week have just helped me reinforce what I already do. When I am communication with someone I try to see the as a person who is important and needs my full attention. Their cultural background does not influence my judge meant. When it comes to working with families and children it is very important to me to understand. So, many times children are misunderstood by adults because they do not listen. This is why it is important to me to see all sides of the conversation. I am their to help and not hinder a child's learning and development. Examining the actions and the child's cultural background is what I have learning from the resources. I must observer the whole context of a situation. When I was in junior high we had a foster child come live with us. she was of Hispanic culture. She had been through several homes before ours. When she arrived she expected us to be prejudiced against her. She found out quickly we did not care and we were there to help her. Before she left our home she told my mom that she realized that she was prejudiced because she always expected white people to treat her a certain way. Our family opened her eyes to the fact that you need to see a person or family with open eyes.

Episode of a Televison

For this assignment I chose to watch a episode of Thunderbirds which is a cartoon. I watched it first with out sound and found very interesting hand gestures and I watched more of their eye movements. Watching with out sound helped me actually watch the episode instead of just listening. One of my ah moments was that because I have children I do not really watch shows I more listen. i am doing many things at once so I listen more then I watch. While watching the episode with out sound I realist how much our face tells things about us or about the situation. I saw frustration, excitement and anger. It was very interesting what I got to see. When I watched it again with sound I was not at all accurate on many things that were going on. With the sound on I realized that the characters involved had a very good relationship and they were very antagonizing to each other. They worked together to solve a problem even though they had strong personalities. It was very interesting looking at a episode with and without sound. Many gestures do not tell you all the story. It was nice to be able to hear what i did not understand.