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Communication is essential for a solid marriage, a healthy family, a successful soccer team and a profitable multi-national corporation. It is the mechanism that creates synergy when people work together to accomplish a goal.
There are over 23,000 books listed on Amazon on the topic of communication, so communication problems are not a secret. I will focus on one that hits close to home.
My wife tells me quite often, “It’s not what you say; it’s how you say it.” Sometimes, it is what I say that creates the problem but this article will deal with the “how.”
The concept of “it’s how you say it” applies to all communication. I will use a husband and wife as an example, but the principles apply equally to communicating with teenage children, with your kids’ teacher or with your boss at work.
Assuming that you know what you’re talking about and have the ability to express yourself adequately, communication will improve when you consider:
No matter what I am thinking or feeling, if the tone of my voice is not appropriate to my wife, my ability to communicate with her is drastically diminished. It helps me to take time to decompress from work or an intense situation before interacting with her so that my emotion doesn’t spill over to our conversation.
The volume of one’s voice is sometimes hard to gauge. Using the reaction of another can be a good indicator of your volume, but that could be too late. Consciously try to soften your voice, unless you are warning of danger.
The best way to engage another in a conversation is to begin with a smile. When we were dating, I would never have thought that scowling would be the best way to impress my future wife. The same applies to the message you send if you talk to another with crossed arms and a haughty look.
If the eyes are the windows of the soul, avoiding eye contact will give the impression that you are hiding something or that you simply are not interested. You might have something important to say but if you do not maintain eye contact, your message could be lost.
Sarcasm is the language of arrogance and/or ignorance. It can be used for humor sometimes, but you have to use caution. Sarcasm usually ends sincere communication.
Silence can be a useful communication tool. When I am pondering what has been said, it shows respect for the other person and their opinion. However, I know bosses that use silence to intimidate employees. In a marriage, the silent treatment never leads to resolution of a problem.
If I eloquently speak about a problem with my wife, but it is not the problem that she sees, I have failed. Being responsive to the other person is infinitely more important than eloquence.
You can’t fake “sincere” with people who know you. Often, you can’t fake it with anyone else. But, if we have the proper relationship with others, we can effectively communicate, even if we don’t express ourselves well.
The “how” is just as important as the “what” when communicating. Here is a simple example. We have all been complimented. We all know that the same words spoken by different people have very different meanings. Someone can say, “I love you” and it melts our heart. Others can say the same words and we know it is just hollow nonsense spoken only because it sounds nice.
As George Bernard Shaw said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” The best way to overcome that illusion of communication with our spouse, child, neighbor or boss is to consider carefully not only what we want to say but how we say it and how we can increase the trust in our relationships. As a result, our relationships will not only survive, they will thrive.
I have just been looking for a free app which can be used to support learning spelling at home and I have come across an app called 'A+ Spelling Test'. I have uploaded a picture of the app icon to this blog so you can download the right one. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find this app on Apple and not Android. It does not mean that it does not exist or there isn't an equally useful app available - I just haven't found it this evening!
Then when you click on that list, you need to ensure that the word is typed in correctly in the box (stick to lowercase) and you record someone saying the word clearly. Add each word individually and click next to add the next one.
Once you have finished the list, children can complete the 'practice' where they hear the word said (as it has been recorded) and type out the word. They can play the 'unscramble' game where they hear the word said and are given the letters to rearrange. Then they can 'Ace It' or complete a 'Test'. Errors are brought up straight away and there is an option to retest all or retest mistakes as well as emailing the completed test.
In addition to this, it keeps track of how many times it has been tested and logs how many times the children have got it correct.
Its a fantastic free resource and provides an additional tool to learning spellings which can be hard to motivate children to do!
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