Assertive Communication- How to Use It in Your Everyday Life
Assertive Communication- How to Use It in Your Everyday Life
There are many ways to communicate and to make your point. If things go wrong, it is very often because we communicate too aggressively or too submissively. Aggression, submission, assertion... What does all that mean?
We all react in at least three ways (but often four): aggressively, indirectly aggressively, submissively or assertively. The best way to explain this is by taking a concrete example.
Let's take an everyday situation: The lady in the house comes home after a day's work. She finds her husband lying on one of the couches with a newspaper over his face. The TV is turned on. The dog, who obviously has been out in the garden most of the day, is sleeping on the other couch. She almost can't see the floor of the living room because the toys of the two children are all over the place. In the kitchen, the plates after lunch are still on the table. The milk is on the table with food leftovers here and there. She can even see a coffee cup and corn flakes from the breakfast. The dishes are on the zinc and on the table. Glass from a broken glass is on the floor.
Now, let's say Olga is coming home and finds this scenario: She goes directly to her husband, takes the newspaper, and throws it away. She walks to the TV while kicking toys on the floor and turns it off. She kicks the dog. All that while she is yelling loudly and clearly that she is tired of living in a pigsty, that no one ever thinks a bit straight in here, that they never respect others, that they are worthless pieces of trash and that she should have listened to her mother who repeatedly told her, this man was a nogoodnik loser, and she should have waited and married Henry, who was such a nice and understanding person.
This is aggression: Olga says a lot, very quickly and very loudly. She is feeling hurt and hurts back. However, what will she obtain? She will obtain that everyone will be really quiet for a while, and maybe, maybe, the next couple of days. Things will be fine, but on the third day, it will be back to normal. What does Olga want? She wants her family to participate in the daily duties. Will they do that from this day forward? Most probably not.
Then you have Mary. She comes home and sees the same scenario. She kisses her husband, who may or may not notice it. She calls the dog down and begins to clean the place, prepares dinner and pretends that everything is just fine. While she is doing that, she feels bad. She feels no one respects her and no one loves her, but hey... It could be worse. He could be beating her. She will think of what she could say, what she should say but she doesn't say it.
This is submission. Mary doesn't say anything and in fact, doesn't accept this either, but she doesn't dare to say so. What if she said something, and then he left her? What if she couldn't find another? So she accepts being treated as a slave. Sometimes, there is a slave-revolution and when the cup is filled, she becomes an "Olga" for a minute or so. When this is done, everything goes back to the way it was.
No change will happen in Mary's situation either.
Suzanne comes home and sees this scenario. First thing, she begins to clean the place while she speaks very loudly. She says: "What a pigsty! How can you guys live in this? How can you be so thoughtless and incomprehensive of the most elemental principles of hygiene and respect. You guys never think of anything else than yourselves. Egoists are what you are. Never a thought about others..." When it is over, she cooks dinner and at the table, no one speaks. Everyone feels guilty and bad.
That is indirect aggression. Suzanne won't come through with her message. She will hurt others, make them feel guilty, be seen like a grumpy lady, but she can do it all over again in a couple of days.
Then we have Isabelle. She comes home, watches the scene and says: "Well, guys, it looks like you have taken a real relaxing day. But there is no reason I have to clean all this for you. So Jimmy (to her husband), would you take the dog out and clean the couch, please. Tim (child one) you clean the floor in the living room and put your toys back in place. Tom (child two), you help me put things into the dishwasher. And after that... And she goes on delegating so everyone does something and helps each other.
This is assertion. Isabelle reaches her goal. She didn't attack anyone and told what had to be said so the situation could evolve and change.
If it is something that only happens once in a while, no reason to do more about it than that. If it is a recurrent problem, it will be important to take a talk about it with all the family to solve this problem. But this is another story.
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