Communication Styles

This week we had to evaluate ourselves and ask others to evaluate us in regards to communication.  I found the communication anxiety inventory to show the greatest differences between myself and the other two people that evaluated me.  I scored on the elevated level and others scored me in the low and mild level.  This was a surprise to me but to me this is a good thing that I do not show I am uncomfortable when speaking but I feel it.   It will be important for me to work at becoming more comfortable with myself.  When I become more comfortable than I will be able to share more.  I feel that I may miss out on what is being said or I am not sharing enough due to myself being uncomfortable.  As for my listening style I am a people oriented listener.  Although this is a good style to have I do worry that I trust people too much.

As I look at the results of all the different tests it surprised me all the different styles.  Each style is unique in their own way and each of them holds their own benefit.  I think what is important is that we are made aware of the possible issue that may arise if you are only one of the styles and not a combination of all the styles.  I feel that in order to be effective in the early childhood field you are going to need to encompass all aspects of the styles for different situations you may encounter. 

WK 3 Self Reflection

Communication is prevalant throughout my day.  I feel that I do communicate differently with different groups depending on who I am talking with.  When I am talking to my four year old daughter and her friends I communicate differently than in a professional setting.  I have to be flexible, patient and understanding with everyone I communicate with. 

The following are three different strategies that I feel will help me communicate more effectively with any group. 

1.  Treat others as you would like to be treated. 
2.  Showing respect through effective listening.
3.  Getting to know children and families to help me understanding their culture and home life. 

All three of these strategies will allow me to be a better communicator.  I want to make sure that my biases are not present when communicating. I also want to make sure that I am showing respect to everyone that I communicate with. 

Muting the TV

I decided to watch an epsiode of Blue Bloods which is a police officer drama on CBS. 

As I observed the showed with no sound I observed a lot of facial expressions.  Many of the expressions to me looked like sadness (people crying) and concern (wrinkles in the forehead appeared when talking to another person).  Talking with arms crossed and a lot of finger pointing.  I also felt that a lot of people appeared to be serious.  There was not a lot of smiling during this episode and the characters did not seem to be having a good time. 

When I rewatched the show again with the volume on it was a very serious show due to the story line.  The storyline was about a lady who lost her baby due to being punched in the face on the street.  The cops were struggling with finding a suspect. 

This assignment allowed me to really look at how people express themselves with their non verbal communication.  It was actually nice to watch a TV show where the actors could use facial expressions to communicate what they were saying without actually hearing any words.  I think that many of the assumptions I made were acurate due to being able to read those non verbal skills.  When I lived and worked in Alaska many times the population that I worked with communicated with non verbal skills.  I still remember talking on the phone to staff members at a specific location and a question was asked and they did not respond.  I actually said you gals are going to have to respond with words and not scrunch your face.  Everyone laughed but now that I think back on it I had to learn a lot about what certain facial expressions meant in the region that I worked in.  I think that a lot of us would be surprised with how much we acutally communicate with our non verbals skills. 

Competent Communication

When I think of a competent communicator i think of my friend Patrice.  She works in the Early Childhood field and I have been able to see her in action when she is advocating on behalf of young children.  When she talks people listen.  She has a voice that people listen to.  She also is able to say what she wants but is able to bring it down to the level that people understand.  She doesn't try to sugar coat her stories.  She also is able to make people laugh even when there is a serious conversation happening.  Patrice also gets her facts straight and wants to have the knowledge of what she is going to speak about before she goes and does a talk.  

I admire Patrice and the way she goes about advocating for early childhood services.  I would want to model my own communication behaviors after her.  I would want to be able to gather the facts and knowledge of the topic and then be able to present it to people.  I also want to be able to make people laugh when talking to them (and making them laugh at the right times).  I feel that this is an important trait because there are too many times that there are conversations that become SO serious and heated that people need to be able to step back and loosen up.