INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION

"Discover what you already know and then you will find out how to fly" (taken from the book "Jonathan Livingston Seagull").

This is the sentence with which the teacher started the lessons on interpersonal communication.
The work done on active listening, the role-plays, and the interactional activities combined with the different themes on the course gradually led to questions and to doubts on communication and its difficulties. These were based on the problems arising between the teachers at the crèche, on the doubts about which methods to use with the children and on personal experiences of communication and interaction.
The desire to gain theoretical knowledge was connected with the need to carry out practical experiments in order to communicate clearly and in a positive manner. Therefore alongside the activities concerning interaction and communication, the teacher decided to organize moments for autogenous training and for relaxing in order to try to eliminate problems of communication and to let the participants fully understand their own feelings and to be in contact with their emotional history.
The training activities together with the other guided ones on perception (for example when the trainees were blindfolded…), allowed the participants to get to know the world using the senses, other than sight. In this way it was possible to understand that we learn about the world and interpersonal relationships first through our subjective perception which is, however, limited and influenced by our own history, our own feelings, and our ideas and values. Understanding that by using our own perception it is not possible to know the world objectively, enabled the trainees to reflect and to connect all this with teaching methodology.
For example a two-year-old child tells the teacher: "I don't want that classmate, he's ugly, he kicks me, he's dirty". If in this case the teacher had decided to take into consideration only what the child had had immediate perception of and had heard, she would have probably supported the child's reaction and would have destroyed the relationship between both children or would have created more problems by saying: "you mustn't say this sort of things, you must say sorry, it isn't true". Either kind of behaviour on the teacher's behalf could give rise to problems in communication and to even more aggressive behaviour such as hair pulling or spitefulness. If instead the teacher sits down with the child, and listens to him, looks into his eyes and talks and asks questions, this will help both children, in a sort of a catharthic way, to overcome their feelings of anger and humiliation. Of course this second type of behaviour requires a lot of patience on behalf of the teacher and it is much more tiring.
In this way communication is not only a way of exchanging information, but also a way of establishing relationships.
At this point it is important to consider listening again; this means being inside another person's experience, listening from the inside, but at the same time remaining outside and being able to understand what a child is saying without being submerged by it. If the teacher at the crèche, instead, becomes involved in the child's perception, she will probably react according to how she feels herself by punishing the child, telling him to be quiet, supporting him or making him feel ridiculous. This will be a result of what the teacher feels within herself and not to what the child really means. The child will suffer the consequences of the adult's reaction and will not react, but will introject his anger.
Listening without entering into confluence will allow the teachers to understand the child's point of view, will help communication to be clearer and more detailed and will allow them to reformulate the child's feelings by saying for example: "you're telling me that you don't like sitting next to that class-mate" and so on , until they manage to find out together the reason why one child does not like the other. It can be noticed that it is not possible to be objective about something until we really know what the child is feeling in that particular moment.
Another activity was a pairwork between the trainees on the course, which consisted in sitting in front of each other and taking it in turn to listen to each other for five minutes. Afterwards each participant described her partner in detail to the whole group and spoke about the relationship they had established. This activity was carried out to put into practice another risk of communication: interpretation (of another person, of a fact,of an event). Talking in the first person, communicating directly, describing what has happened, showing one's own feelings, paying attention to the link between the verbal message and the non-verbal message are all aspects which help to make communication clear and to help the listener understand the message. Communication is in fact clearer and the message can be understood better if the teacher says: "When you do that, you make me cross" instead of saying to the child: "You're a naughty child!".
Clarity, simplicity, precise terminology, knowledge of one's own emotional state and respect for the other person are all necessary if a message is to be expressed adequately. In terms of relationships this means offering oneself in a descriptive, empathetic and flexible manner towards the other person and towards oneself. If the message is not expressed clearly the following situations can arise:
- Omission: in other words important information is not given. For example: "This morning I feel on edge". This is a statement, it does not clarify anything. It would be different if the same person said: " oday I got cross when I got to school because there was sheer chaos in the playroom. I can't stand it when everything is untidy and I have to clear it up".
- Distortion: when information about something is given as if it had not already happened, when it is, instead, still hapening. For example: "It is difficult to join a group which has already been established". It is different and shows one's present feelings if one says: "I find it difficult to join a group which has already been established".
- Generalization: when an experience is described without using and giving information about the so-called "question-words" (who, where, when, ...). For example : "Nobody understands me". The information about "who" and "in which circumstance" has not been provided. It is different to say :"I feel that, when you criticise my work without letting me explain my ideas, you don't understand me".
In terms of relationships some of the following forms of communication can be useful:
- Descriptive communication: expressing reality clearly by avoiding interpretation and evaluation and reporting what has been perceived and asking questions to obtain information;
- Representative communication: expressing in a personal way by showing one's emotions and expressing them in the first person (I feel..);
- Regulative communication: rules are established within each context and group. If these rules are made clear and aimed at flexibility and the functionality of the group they will be able to guarantee authentic and clear interaction.

Children are experts in communication: they know how to be simple because they are straightforward, frank, genuine and clear. At the same time they know about the complexity of communication:they understand when there is a connection between gestures and words and when an adult is really interested in what they are saying. We adults are the people who need to rediscover how to communicate clearly and sincerely because we are full of the misunderstandings which time has generated. The sentence which was used at the beginning of the lessons on interpersonal communication is meaningful for this reason because, by listening to oneself, by understanding, by being indulgent and by rediscovering spontaneity, it suggests going back to being children in order to be able to interact and understand oneself and others.
The activities, the role-plays,the full immersion, the games used during the training all helped each of the trainees to be, at the same time, a source of enrichment for the others, sharing the same language and experiences but offering her own personal qualities. The consequence of all this for the work carried out in the crèche can be summed up as the gift of creativity.
Creativity when communicating with children gives the teacher a feeling of "being light". By using both hemispheres in the brain and our mental and linguistic abilities, by telling and inventing stories with colours, with our hands, with games and with pictures it is possible to use all our potentials of creativity to represent conflicts, experiences and even wishes which are not likely to come true.
There is a place in which order, clarity and knowledge encounter darkness, difficulties, the unconscious: that is the place where metaphors are to be found.

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