Every day in lockdown I am hearing from people having major issues with their family members. While many are using this time as a family bonding time, many others are desperately waiting for the lockdown to open. Grown up children are locking themselves up in their room and parents are getting frustrated trying to get them to participate in the family. Couples are looking to steal moments and corners of the house to stay away from their partners. Many are reporting constant fights on small pretexts.
The question is why do we reach such a place? Agreed, we cannot like everything about our partners or our children or parents, but, why is it getting difficult to be civil with each other?
The major reason is communication gaps amongst the family members.
The most important aspect of communication is the one that does not fit easily into the definition
of communication – Expectations. We communicate largely as a response to our expectations from others. If you were to observe, when we are expecting love, we approach a person with loving communication. While we are expecting hostility our approaching communication is defensive or offensive.
When we live together we have many expectations from everyone. These expectations are largely based on our understanding of how the other person should be. How much we expect the partner to contribute in house work, how much do we expect the children to study, behave or contribute to the household, What kind of expectations we have from our in-laws etc.
When we communicate with these expectations in mind we may many times sound offensive, demanding, even nagging. Naturally, the other person responds in similar emotions.
For example, parents expect children to either study or behave as close to Godliness as possible. Parents, who are most of the time engaged in using some gadget or the other, expect children to only use gadgets for studies and otherwise not touch it. So when a parent sees the children engaged in their phone sets, they start the communication from the position of ‘upset’.
If we wish to work on our relationships for better, it is important to examine our expectations first. Let us accept that gadgets are here to stay and the ‘new normal’ for our children. Let us accept that teenagers do not like to spend a lot of time with their parents and that they have lot of secrets that they share with their friends, that our partners also need space every now and then and just because we are married does not meant they have to spend every minute of their free time with us… and so on..
Once we accept the basic reality of ourselves and the important people in our life, we can have much smoother communication most of the time. There would still be confrontations, we will still have to restrict the screen time for the kids but we will be able to approach the issue from a position of acceptance. This would ensure more peace in communication.
If you believe this can help someone, do share. To connect with me for relationship counseling, send WhatsApp message on 8446229088 from wherever you are in the world.
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