Relate and Communicate

When my Mother died recently, the whole process of waiting with baited breath at the hospital, reassuring family members, and coping with grief reinforced my belief that relationships may be the most significant element of our lives. When we are toddlers, we need our parents and families to acknowledge our presence with respect, to encircle us with hugs and kisses, to assist us with learning about the world around us, and to protect us from elements we are too young to realize may hurt us. When we are children, we need parents and other caring people to provide healthy role models and meaningful environmental stimulation in order to grow into self-assured, strong, competent and socially-responsive adults. When we are in our middle adult years, we need relationships to create the synergy that is necessary for cooperative ventures. Together we build homes, high-rises and bridges. Together we organize musical and artistic events, humanitarian projects and businesses. We need to collaborate to create healthy marriages and functional families. When we are old, we rely on relationships to help us cope with the disabilities that old age brings, we thrive if we still have social gatherings with friends and family, and we remember our adventures with people in the past. We are social beings. Relationships are crucial to a life well lived. Every thing that we accumulate is not taken to the grave. How we relate to others, how we influence the growth of others, how we make an impact on the world around us—this is what really matters in the end.

Therefore, it makes sense for us to pay attention to the quality of those relationships that we create every day. If we try to live in an aware manner, becoming involved with our moments, and evaluating our experiences, then we have more hope of creating relationships that nurture us and that we may value. A relationship isn’t something static that you can grasp in your hand, like an object. A relationship is really more like a verb—it exists only in its creation and maintenance. Actions build relationships. It takes reciprocal actions of loyalty, kindness, patience, empathy, honesty, and unselfishness to create the atmosphere of mutual trust that is the major underlying component of any good relationship. With trust and integrity, we can make assumptions about the positive intentions of others, so that our interactions may flow easily throughout both pleasant associations and problem solving.

A relationship is like a river of communication. There may be boulders in the way, but water can flow around them. Moreover, just as river water can be pristine or polluted, communication can be clear or polluted. Water is best clear, and communication is also best clear, since the truth will out in the end, anyway. Unambiguous communication allows us to realize what we have to deal with, and to feel comfortable with others. Polluted communication is the cause of much misery in the world. The older I get, the more I realize how polluted communication leads to power mongering, fear, missed opportunities, misunderstanding, discrimination, and insecurity. People need to communicate their feelings, thoughts and needs openly to their family members, at the very least. When people spend every day with co-workers, they need to be able to communicate shared goals and methods, and personal requirements. For every interaction, both parties need to respect themselves and others, and to reflect this respect in their words and actions. Communication is not just verbal. So, a healthy relationship is made of a flow of never-ending constructive interactions. Adults need to nurture those who are weaker than themselves, including children, making sure that their needs are taken care of, too. They may need to read between the lines and check out their guesswork. They need to care.

Communication is usually learned by example. Formal instruction in the home is usually limited to reminders to say polite words, to avoid swear words, to watch the tone of voice if it becomes belligerent or sarcastic, to remember words of apology and forgiveness, and other small details. However, the topic of communication is immense. Whole courses at university are devoted to this topic, both in psychology and sociology. Most people could do with some objective evaluation of their own communication techniques and patterns. We have all seen children in public getting scolded or punished in impatient, uncomfortable and disrespectful ways. Communication is not just about how we say something. It is also about what we have to say, and how we interpret the situations in our lives.

We have a lot to learn, as a society, about this topic. Every day in the news, we see evidence of communication going awry. Politics, criminal law, domestic strife and community issues all display examples of communication that either didn’t happen, or got twisted, or revealed selfishness, or got stopped in its tracks before proceeding to resolution. However, even when truthful communication reveals basic discord between people’s beliefs and values, good communication skills used by participants and mediators can lead to an honest search for solutions. I recently read a quote about how war is the ultimate failure of imagination to solve problems. So, communication is the means whereby people can live together in harmony.

Because Banbury Crossroads School is so devoted to the emotional and social growth of our students, we support the use of good communication by teachers and amongst our students. We have realized long ago that parents also appreciate input on this topic, seeing benefit within their families and marriages through learning new options for dealing with discord. Therefore, several years ago, we began offering P.E.T. (Parent Effectiveness Training) classes at least once a year. This course is based on the work of Dr. Thomas Gordon, who was nominated several times for a Nobel Peace Prize. Judy Arnall, herself the author of Parenting Without Distress, taught most of them over the years, although she has also recommended a few other presenters, such as Donna Joy.

The next time we are offering this course will be next autumn. These sessions are always extremely well-attended, with the class size being limited to 10 to 15 participants. We invite any parent who wishes to extend their understanding of how to listen, how to complain, how to problem solve, and how to deal with values issues, to join us next fall for this valuable opportunity. Please call the school for information at 270-7787. If we all learn and deal better with the people around us, we will inevitably change the way relationships work in the future. The investment of time is worth it!

By Diane Swiatek, Principal, Banbury Crossroads School

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