Sunday, November 9, 2014

How we communicate

         This blog assignment was so much fun and so very enlightening. I had to watch online because we are in a no television period in my household. I watched an old episode of The Cosby show, it really took me back to my high school days, I enjoyed the memories. The family seemed very close, both parents appeared to work on their own interpretation, and don’t necessarily agree on decisions about issues. The younger children (girls) were involved more than the other two children characters. The father seemed angry at the middle girl about something that she did, so he demanded the phone number and called to confirm. At the end the girl seemed happy because she gestured a ‘Yes!’ with a forceful arm movement, dad clearly did not change his mind about his decision though.

For the remainder of the show the characters move from one scenario to another, dad seemed to always be controversial about something, he and the boy came in apparently excited about what they did. Mom and dad had some disagreement in the bedroom, he ended up on the coach. There is a lot of body language going on in this show, along with a lot of facial expressions. The comedy was family based and had a lot of conflicts going on.

After watching again with the sound on, I realized that there was no real disagreement or anger in this show. I was right about the family being very close, the children were loving to one another and were very respectful of their parents, and everyone was respectful of each other. The father was very loving and had fun guiding the children to truth and a good attitude. Mom was a school teacher and dad a doctor, they were both great parents who disciplined with love and wisdom. I based my interpretation of the scenarios strictly off observed body language and assumptions or judgments, I would say even my own schemas. The episode was fun, I went on to watch a few more of them and enjoyed it. Well, I realized that all the funny faces, popping eyes and stomping turned out to be affectionate passion built into the show.

My guess was way off about the bedroom scene of disagreement, it was funny because she wanted a sandwich and he suggested leftover chicken, she said no and before he left the door she wanted the chicken, what I thought was a quarrel was  the husband doing one of his ‘I know you Claire’ act. This exercise brings clarity to my understanding of what it means to truly observe with all our senses. . I now have a deeper understanding of the importance of having effective communication skills. We need the different types of skills so that we can really understand each other. Listening, non-verbal, verbal, hearing, observing, recognizing difference in tones and applying contexts, these help the communicator in understanding the messages being sent. We have to listen and pay attention to what someone is saying to us, body language and other non-verbal communications are important but are not the only channels. We have to hear what is being said or we may misinterpret and therefore misjudge what the other person is trying to tell us. This can lead to frustration and issues with relationships.

contradicting verbal and nonverbal communication


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