Communication struggles come to light due to home schooling…
Heiske: ‘Now with the kids at home, I find toys (or things my kids define as toys) everywhere. I like a tidy house. A tidy house results for me in a clear mind. When I come home after a busy day (pre-Covid times) or try to work in a messy house (now), it makes me restless. And the whole family will notice it’. 
There are two important communication approaches:
- Communication for relationship, where you want the other to behave in a certain way since you need something; it has impact on you.
- Communication for growth (a.k.a. feedforward), where you want the other to adjust their behavior since it will enable them to perform/feel better.
IMPORTANT: Feedback is not the same as a conversation for relationships. Feedback is typically the word that is used for a conversation for growth. Since too many people have negative associations with ‘feedback’ and a conversation for growth is about sincere willingness to help someone else to perform better in the future, we prefer to use the term ‘a conversation for growth’ or ‘Feedforward‘.
Heiske: ‘What I do’
In this ‘messy house’ case, I should have a communication for relationship. In other words, I should share my need with my husband and kids.
What I typically do in a grumpy way, while observing the mess: ‘what a mess! Please clean it up as fast as you can!’ 
What I should do, is follow this approach:
- Observation: I see it is a mess
- Feeling: It makes me restless
- Need: I like come home in a tidy house
- Request: Can you clean up before I arrive?
By following this approach, everyone knows WHY I have this specific request. It is about my feelings; me feeling restless, with all consequences. Others can help me in such a way we have a good living all together.
The thing is, that we as humans nowadays experience difficulties with calling out the feeling something gives us. And this is key in a communication for relationship.
We as humans nowadays experience difficulties with calling out the feeling something gives us.
What do you do?
Do you recognize this?
Do you apply all the steps in situations where you need to have a communication for relationship?
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