1. Leads:
I never could have thought that I can ever obtain tools that can help me somewhat control and direct conversations. Learning about leads was very interesting and very useful and I found myself using it with my 12 year old tutee whom was having a “making a new friend” problem. My tutee Fatima really admires this girl called Abir whom she thinks would be a wonderful friend. And you can tell by the way Fatima describes Abir that she’s really fond of her. But, Fatima was very hesitant to ask Abir to be her friend. So I took the chance and validated her feelings towards the matter using reflection lead. Once they turned out to be mixed feelings, I confronted her and used interpretation by saying something like “you seem …show more content…
They are just a bunch of unspoken rules that people abide by without questioning them. BUT NOT ME! My fascination does not mean that I’ll abide by most of them without questioning them. One of the things that really bothered me as a child is the fact that you have to refuse a gift around three times and having the gift-giver insist that you take it, before you actually take it. It’s just lost time, just take it and say thanks! I can remember at least six occasions where I was chastised as a child for taking candy, gifts and money immediately without performing the refusal ritual. Even now, whenever I offer someone something and they say no, I usually respect their first response and back off (but apparently, they are expecting me to keep insisting (?)). Also, why does our tone and body language change when dealing with “the helpers” but not with European Foreigners? I have always seen this happen, especially in my family. The words and the tone they tend to use are more of order and command. But I hate this! Whenever it occurs in front of me I try to point it out to them (and it has helped them realize what they were unconsciously doing which led to some changes). I also try as much as I can to give proper humanistic and equal attention to these girls by talking to them, smiling at them, learning greeting words in their language because the way people treat them here might as well make them forget how to smile and forget the fact that …show more content…
On the quality of our communication, I’d say that we are making a progress. The topics of communication vary and can be done freely but it is the how we communicate that is the issue. Many times I’d find myself being interrupted, and/or not listened to which may or may not have caused some tantrums to be thrown. But now I’m working on my temper issues and we’ve established the “wait for your turn rule” and we’ve made progress on applying it. Even if I don’t think we’re a super healthy family, I think we are better than other families. No fight has ever lasted more than a day, and most of the fights we have end shortly because one of fighting members decide to suddenly burst into laughter which makes the other person laugh as