Communicate effectively

Culture diversity exists in our daily life. People group up with the similar culture based on nationality, language, political affiliation, sexual orientations, music boundary, food boundary, economical class, and religion view of the world around and so on. Communication different occurs among people who are with culture different. I found myself communicating differently with people in my workplace while greet each other at arriving at workplace. Communication of "have a good day" would be a greeting with a hug in my workplace derived from western culture. I saw my colleagues would hug each other whenever they arrived at workplace. I was the exception to them since I rarely hug people compared to my colleagues who hug people as normal as they eat Hamburg. They and I greet each other with word "good morning" instead hug. I grow up in the culture people did not hug each other. I do not remember I have ever hugged my mom, dad, mother-in-law, father-in-law, all my siblings, and cousins!! I am still feeling strange of getting hugged by my only daughter arriving home when I met her at the airport till nowadays. However, I learned a lesson. Once a time, a 3- years-old boy fell down from the scooter at the playground outside and scratched his knee. I picked him up, cleaned the blood on the scratching with soap water, and put icepack and bandage on the scratch. it was a minor injury on the skin of the knee. By acted naturally, I did not hug him while he was crying. Instead, I said, "you are okay." By the time, his mom came to pick him up. she saw he was still crying. she reported to my supervisor, said, "Sara did not love my son; she did not hug him while he was crying". My supervisor said to her: “did Sara nurture, did Sara teach?” The mom said "Yes, She did. But my son just needed a hug." when supervisor feedbacked to me, I felt so astonish. Only a hug! I had to hug the child whenever he was crying after the event. I knew this is the family culture of showing love. Showing love is easy for me and hugging a child is the same easy.

In order to communicate effectively with others, the first strategy we could use is that open mind to people whose culture is different from us. The Platinum Rule "Do to others as they themselves want to be treated" is a principle that would help us effectively communication while working with children and their families. Be flexible, culture responsive, and respect to the children and families in order to meet the needs of children and their families. The second strategy we could use is "put listening ear on". I observed the class this week for which words a teacher spoke to children the most often. “Put you listen ear on” is frequently words used in the classroom. “Do to other as you want other do to you.” (Gold Rule) Listen is not just heard. It refers to a process of recognizing, understanding, accurately interpreting, and responding effectively to the messages you hear.” (O’Hair & Weimann, 2012). Be an active listener. Effective listening tends to reduce the frequency of interpersonal conflict and increases the likelihood that when conflicts emerge they will be resolved with a "win-win" solution (Williams, S.). The third strategy we could use is present our message clearly for other easy to understand. Language with ethics skills such as verbal, nonverbal, picture illustration, and chat figures combined with ethics would help us deliver the message in a positive way for other to understand and build the common sense.

References:

O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication: An introduction. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's

Williams, S. (n.d.). Listening effectively. Retrieved from http://www.wright.edu/~scott.williams/LeaderLetter/listening.htm