Handling Conflicts

I can recall getting into a disagreement with one of my colleagues and it was about a whether or not the preschool school hall should have such a big gathering for Thanksgiving. See this co-worker was fairly new to our program and she just couldn’t grasp why we put so much work into our annual Thanksgiving Feast. To give a little insight, I worked for a preschool that provided services to low-income at-risk children and families and the area where our preschool was located was in a high crime area. So as we worked with these children and their families, we often enrolled children with many families issues such as poverty, lack of education, and incarcerated parents, and many came from single-parent homes. To make a long story short, this colleague of mine had never really experienced or worked with families with so many hardships that prevented them enjoying the finer things in life. So this was a total culture shock to her, seeing that she lives in and was raised in a more upscale area of the city. To her this was a whole new world and she felt that such a gathering for Thanksgiving was not needed. Since there was such a different in lifestyles for her, trying to understand the difficult circumstances of these families was really an issue for her. I tried to inform her that we make a big to do about our Thanksgiving Feast, because who are we to say that these families will even have a meal for Thanksgiving. All of the other colleagues were really excited about preparing for our Thanksgiving Feast and fellowshipping with the children and families that we serve. It was really a great experience and the families really enjoyed the meal, as we all sat family style and talked and built or formed relationships. At the end of the feast my colleague, stated that her eyes had been opened to a whole new world and to see the smiles on the children and families faces was really exciting for her and that she now understood why we strive to make sure that it is a great event. I also shared with her that we are always open to new ideas if she would like to share some with us for our next year feast.
Understanding this week’s resources about the third side, could have been helpful in this situation. Implementing them in this disagreement would have helped me to put myself in the shoes of the other person, which in this case my colleague’s shoes. It would have helped me to listen and acknowledge the point of view of the other person. Which in this case, my colleague had not been exposed to the lifestyles of others that were less fortunate then she was. This her this was a total culture shock.
To my Walden colleagues, I ask the question: How would you have handled this situation?

Communicating With Others

On a daily basis, I communicate with hundreds of people each and everyday. I communicate with my children, my siblings, my aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, colleagues, and the clients that I serve. As I communicate with each group of people, I communicate with each of them in my own special way. When I am communicating with my children, I use a certain tone and language, this language guides in my nurturing of my children. As I communicate with my siblings and other family members, I am more relaxed and laid back. I tend to use more of a low language and some slang. This type of communication occurs, because I am more comfortable with them and I know that I am free to be me. Communicating with colleagues and clients, I communicate in a manner that displays my level of professionalism. A high language is used as I work with my clients and colleagues.  So as I communicate I am able to adjust my communication skills and levels to reflect the current context.

Communicating through our body language

For this blog I watch a new reality show called Love and Hip Hop Atlanta. This is not a regular show that I watch, but as I flipped through the channels with the volume on mute, I was intrigued to use this show to help me complete my blog. Upon turning to this channel, I noticed the women's facial expressions. One of the ladies had a smurk on her face as if to say "I know she didn't" while the other ladies just sat looking kind of like "yep she said it". Standing in a circle, their body language suggested to me that there might be some sort of conflict going on. I assumed that because one of the ladies stepped back on one of her legs and then proceeded to fold her arms in an angry manner. The other lady that seemed to be in a conflict with her put her hands on her hips and then she rolled her head and neck and batted her eyes rapidly. And by being a black woman, without her even hearing the conversation, I immediately knew that she was pissed off. So after about 20 minutes of watching this show on mute. I decided to rewind it back to see what the conversation was about and just like I figured there was a conflict between two of the ladies and the other ladies were just on -lookers. Listening to them, I learned that one of the ladies is an artist trying to get her feet wet in the game of hip-hop and the other ladie is the girlfriend/babymama of a producer. The girlfriend/babymama has just learned that the potential artist is supposely sleeping with her man (producer). This was not a nice situation, because the women, were both upset and one tried to out talk the other. They used their body language to send messages of disapproval to each other.

I must say that this was an interesting task to engage in, because I have never really watched a movie or television show without the sound before. So it was interesting to try and use the individuals body gestures and facial expressions to try and figure out what is go on. It did make me mindful about making sure that both body gestures and facial expressions do not send negative messages to others. Just like words tells others about our feelings and thoughts towards certain situations, so does our body gestures and facial expressions. This little experiment will help me in my work with children and families because it will make me more mindful of the verbal and nonverbal messages that I am relating to them.