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In a class on effective communication styles, the facilitator used an allegory about her dog. Her and her husband had gotten a rescue dog. When they took the dog for a walk, he would go psychotic when other dogs or even sometimes people were approaching. He would lunge and bark. They sought help from a dog trainer who told them, "cross the road". That when their dog was in that anxious state, there was no way to calm him down. That it was better to cross the street. That there was no way to communicate in any sort of reasonable way with a dog in a heightened state. She then explained how this was the way that her and her husband chose to communicate their unreadiness to talk. That they would refer to it as the feelings that the dog had and it meant they were not in a space to be reasonable.
When I heard the story I laughed and said that we also had a rescue dog who turns into a psychopath when on a leash and lunges and barks at other dogs. That we too had sought help from a dog trainer. But that ours had given the opposite advice.
Our dog trainer said that the only way to calm her anxiety was to walk her up to other dogs and as soon as she gets anxious or indicates any sort of aggression, turn around and walk away, then walk back and try again. He said to do this over and over again on every walk. Until she learns to approach other dogs without the urge to defend me or her or whoever she is freaking out about. Off-leash she is a sweet and gentle angel who lets our kitten jump on her head, chew on her tail, and let's children lay on her, read to her, and tell her their stories, and she is perfectly happy to be with other dogs. Put her on a leash and she has a whole other personality.
I realized that that's how I often communicate. Approach and retreat, approach, retreat, approach again, retreat again.
2 completely different styles of communication taught to us by our rescue dogs.
There are 4 main types of communication styles:
Aggressive = I win
Passive = you win
Passive aggressive = no one wins
Assertive = both win
Talking about being assertive feels very cliche and like therapy talk. And yet it's such an important skill to learn. Being able to communicate in healthy ways is a path to healing and well-being.
That doesn't mean we won't fight tooth and nail sometimes, say things we don't mean, and feel a deep regret after a fight. But we pick ourselves up and start again.
Assertive communication sometimes means being able to walk away and come back to the conversation later. It might mean "crossing the road" and avoiding the talking until it's a better time.
The approach and retreat method of communication is a bundle of passive, passive aggressive, and sometimes simply aggressive styles.
1: "can we talk about ..."
2: "Not right now."
1: ".... I really want to talk about it."
2: "I don't want to talk right now."
1: "okay .... Can I just say one thing and then I'll leave it alone?"
2: (starting to fume) "...."
1: "well I just wanted to say ... Never mind!" (Walks away. Walks back) "can we just talk for a minute?"
2: "NO! I don't want to talk right now."
1: "FINE!" (Walks away ... Walks back) "I'm not going to be able to sleep until we talk about it."
2: "$@#%"
Are there are times that it is okay to keep going back? To try to soothe the anxiety of the conversation by slowly approaching again and again, relieving the fears by repeated attempts to start the conversation ...
I don't think so. I don't think that there is a time or place for that. Even children need time to cool down before having anything resembling a reasonable conversation.
As a teacher I often wait until the next day to deal with an incident because I need time to cool off so that I can have anything resembling a reasonable conversation.
I often say to my students "if you ask me to decide right now the answer will be no. If you give me time to think it through, I might have a different answer." Often my answer turns out to be "yes".
Often in my frazzled 2:55pm tidy the room and go to your lockers before you all miss the 3:00 school bus and don't forget your boots, and this isn't your basketball, and wait you forgot your planner and yes I forgot to sign it do you have a pen?, how did that marker get up on the light fixture, end of day 100 yard dash ... asking me if we can play soccer baseball instead of badminton in gym class tomorrow is NOT high on my priority list. In the past, I would have said "no" in an exasperated tone. Now I tell them they have to wait if they want a reasonable and rational answer.
Although they have yet to master the art of not-asking-your-teacher-for-favours-when-your-teacher-is-frazzled-supervising-18-late-for-the-bus-grade-8-boys-who-spilled-milk-on-the-carpet-and-a-whole-box-of-Cheerios-on-the-floor-after-someone-threw-a-shoe-at-another-boy's-head ...
they do understand and respect "you'll have to wait for an appropriate response from me".
So maybe when you walk the dog, and there's another dog approaching, it's better to cross the street. Because it is the easier thing to do, the safer thing to do, the more humane thing to do.
And if you think about it, if I had a leash around my neck, and I saw someone coming towards me with a leash around their neck too, I would do everything I could to protect myself, instinctively, from what looks like a bundle of fears.
Trying to have an important or necessary conversation with someone who is instinctively trying to protect themselves by any means necessary is like climbing into a pool of hungry sharks, intending to convince them/manipulate them/trick them/beg them/violently scream at them not to eat you, and foolishly believing that you will eventually find the perfect passive aggressive way to get these hungry sharks not to eat you.
The next time you are attempting to communicate effectively and your gut tells you, woah this isn't a good time, just cross the street.
The street will still be there after you walk around the block. It's not going anywhere just because you walked away from it. It'll be there when you get back, with or without the lunging and barking dogs who turn into psychopaths when you put them on a leash.
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