Why is it that what you say to your family and what they hear are different? If you say “no,” your child hears “maybe,” and if you say “maybe,” she hears “ask again and again,” and “yes” is just around the corner.” Grant and Martha discuss ways that families communicate and miscommunicate. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Family Communication and Miscommunication”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.
And I’m Grant Barrett.
We often talk about the differences between what people say and what they mean and what other people understand.
So I was pleased to find a funny little write-up on the blog of a woman calling herself Mommy Nolan. Writing from Logan, Utah and using her experience with her own children, she writes about the things that she says and what her granddaughter understands. And they’re not necessarily the same things.
For example, if Mommy Nolan says no, her granddaughter hears maybe. And if she says maybe, her granddaughter hears ask again and again, and yes is right around the corner.
Oh, yeah, that’s exactly what happened in our house. The phrase was, can we see about it? Mommy, can we see about it? And she would say, yes, we can see about it. And somehow that was satisfying for everybody. I don’t even know if we got what we were asking for, but the answer was satisfying.
That’s right. Children don’t necessarily understand ambiguity, right? Right. They don’t understand gray areas, and maybe is a lot of times skewed towards yes or skewed towards no, depending upon how often they’re able to get what they want from their parents.
Right. I’m thinking we usually won, but now that I recall, I’m not so sure. But there’s another thing that happens with communication. In my house, as you know, I have a two-year-old, and he speaks fairly well, but he can’t always get his message across.
So what he does is a kind of misdirection. If he doesn’t want to do something, he will then ask to do something that he knows will say yes to, such as use the potty, because he knows that we’re trying to get him to use the potty all the time, right? It’s a manipulation. We know we’re being manipulated, but we can’t say no because we don’t want to untrain him from asking to use the potty.
So if he doesn’t want to go to bed or if he doesn’t want to go out, he might ask to use the potty so that we’re forced to do the thing that he wants. And then, a minute or two later, he’ll always ask to do something else that he really wants to do instead of go to bed or go out.
Grant, that’s brilliant. That’s what dog trainers do. They tell you to interrupt the bad behavior and then give them a different command. That’s what your kid is doing to you.
I am training him with a whistle, or is he training me? No, he’s training you. Clearly.
Well, we’d love to hear about cases of miscommunication or misdirection in your household. What are the things that you say that people misunderstand? And what are the things that people do in order to get around giving you what you’ve asked for? Let us know.
The number is 1-877-929-9673. That’s 1-877-W-A-Y-W-O-R-D. Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.
