Austin Scholar #66: How an online test can save your family’s internal communication
& my family’s communication challenges
Hey, y'all!
This week from Austin Scholar...
Austin’s Anecdote: My family’s communication challenges
How an online test can save your family’s internal communication
Scholar’s Sources: My favorite mental health resources (for mental health awareness month)
It’s been a pretty quiet week for a change. I’m just wrapping up my junior year academics and starting to dive into college admissions preparation. The latter of which is a bit scary, but we’ll get to that in future weeks.
On another note, it is the final week of Mental Health Awareness Month, so I thought a mental health-aligned newsletter was due. Learning about communication styles has been super helpful in my family’s growth (and all of our mental health), and I’m really excited to share everything I’ve learned with you.
Austin’s Anecdote: My family’s communication challenges
I like to think I’m a logical person–most of the time. Unfortunately, I’m also a teenager. An emotional, dramatic teenager who doesn’t know who she is yet. While this isn’t a bad thing, necessarily, it does make it extra challenging to handle conflicts with my parents.
I’ll be making a rational, clear argument one moment, then be crying and frustrated the next, with no clue why. Which is hard on both of my parents: my super rational, analytical dad and my loving, sentimental mom.
When we try and communicate our feelings, no one’s happy. My dad states facts, my mom is empathetic, and I use a confusing mix of facts and feelings that no one but me understands. Let me illustrate:
My dad: Austin, we need to put screen time limits on your phone. You need to focus more on school.
Me: Well, half of my time on my phone is related to Twitter and learning new things. The other half is a brain break.
My mom: We feel like it would do you some good to talk to us and do things as a family instead of being on your phone.
My dad: And, you’re 1,000 Twitter followers behind your target goal, so you can probably be spending your time on Twitter in a more productive, less time-consuming way.
Me: So you want me to get more followers but spend less time on Twitter?!
My mom: Let’s talk about this further and create a screen time boundary that everyone is happy with.
Me: *gets emotional because I’m overwhelmed and a bit hurt that my parents don’t think I’m putting enough effort into school and our relationship*
My dad: *freaks out because he doesn’t know what to do with crying*
My mom: We can table this discussion and come back to it–
Me: *storms out of the room and dramatically slams the door*
Yeah, it’s not very productive. Our conversations are impacted by our inability to recognize each other’s communication styles and manage each other’s different strengths and weaknesses. My dad and my similar communication style often leads to a lack of authenticity and hiding behind logic. And my mom and I sometimes clash because I don’t take her feelings into account when I’m talking.
One important thing for me to mention is that no one did anything wrong. We’re simply different people who react differently to situations and experiences. But we have learned some things (through lots of trial and error) that have helped us communicate better.
I’ve already talked about some of the logistical changes in my newsletter, how texting saved my relationship with my parents, but the deepest change came from being able to understand each other.
But, in order to understand each other, you must first understand yourself.
I’m analytical. I love creating and using templates. I’m a decent writer. And sometimes, if my thoughts aren’t written or planned out, I can get blinded by my emotions and shut down in conversation.
My parents want details, action items, and authentic emotions. They’re both great at listening and compromising.
As we’ve uncovered all of our strengths, weaknesses, needs, and communication styles, we’ve come up with a system for having challenging or deep conversations.
When we have something we want to discuss, we set a future date to talk about it, so that all parties have the chance to compose their thoughts. Then, I follow the DEARMAN template (I adjust it when needed) to explain my position and narrative regarding the situation. My parents do the same. We share our Google Docs with our DEARMANs and we make comments on each other’s Docs. Eventually, we arrive at a solution or compromise, and we discuss in-person if needed.
The templates help keep a balance of rationality and emotion for me. My dad loves the “business transaction” aspect of it, and my mom loves how my emotions and thoughts are clear in my writing. It’s not perfect, but it gets the job done.
The three of us have learned to navigate our individuality to create a space where we can have those hard conversations without straining our relationship.
I like to think it makes us happier people.
How an online test can save your family’s internal communication
My family was able to navigate our problems because understood our own strengths and weaknesses and how we communicate. (And just to be clear, this didn’t happen overnight. It took a lot of effort).
So, you might be wondering: how can you replicate this?
Well, the first step (this is what my family did) is to take the Clifton Strengths Finder test.
This test is designed to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses in four categories: executing, influencing, relationship building, and strategic thinking.
Here is my results page after I took the test: