subject: Communication Ability Engenders Happy Social Skills [print this page] Happiness is a word too often bandied about today because it is such a difficult word to gain a clear definition as to what it really means. It seems that people who can communicate well seem to have the ability to engender happiness in themselves and in others and this social skill is not appreciated as much in our western culture today as it should be.
Lack of education has a lot to do with bad communication skills I think simply because many people today lack the vocabulary to describe precisely what they mean or feel. This in turn has led to wide use of four-letter swear words that depend on voice inflection for meaning yet are still extremely limited for the person expressing the idea to communicate meaning to the person they are speaking with. This lack of ability to clearly express their meaning engenders in people a feeling of dissatisfaction and unhappiness.
Unhappiness leads to frustration which leads all the way down the road to anarchy. So in such a technology savvy world as we have available to us today, why can't we communicate better? Simply because we depend on words, written and spoken, to express ourselves in a meaningful and satisfying way.
The spoken word uses voice inflection and is always accompanied by body language. How we hold our mouths, where our eyes look, how we present our bodies to the person we are having a conversation with and a myriad of other smaller, tell-tale signs that humans use everyday to communicate with each other. This is a social skill we start to learn in early childhood and we build upon for the rest of our lives.
The problem today begins in the first few months of a baby's life. Babies bond with Mothers in nature and humans are no different. A baby first learns how to manipulate their Mother's emotions to get what they want through crying. Mother's learn very quickly what each cry signifies from her baby.
Then the baby learns to understand Mothers soothing comforting words followed quickly by reacting to her body language. With Mothers returning to the workplace so soon into a new born babies life, then getting parked in front of a TV to keep them entertained, a child has extremely limited time to learn the social skills they need to learn from a Mother.
Fathers are important here too but unless they are the first to bond with a baby, it will take longer for their influence to become apparent. Anyone, can only do one thing at a time and a baby cannot bond identically with two people at once.
If a child is fortunate enough to have a Mother from whom they can learn these communication skills early, seems to have much better communications skills later in life. Some of the best educated people one could ever hope to come across have some of the most difficulty communicating feelings to people. Here the lack of communication social skills is simply because of inability to read the unspoken verbal communication signals that cannot be learnt from books.
Good verbal and written communication skills leads to a more contented and satisfying social life that is a skill set that can best be learnt from interacting with books, family and friends.
