Lesson in COMMUNICATION from a 3-Year Old

The other day my 3 yr old son was playing with the musical Tigger doll as seen in the picture. The way it works is that you press the button on his left foot and he does a song and dance while lighting up. However, the problem with this particular Tigger doll is that there is some sort of malfunction in the button on his foot. To get him to work, you have to press and hold the button the entire time or else Tigger stops singing and dancing. Well, as my son was trying to get Tigger to work, I heard him say in very cute, by high-pitched tone, “I can’t do it, Dad.” So I said to him, “You have to hold it.” So he did just that. He proceeded to lift up Tigger and set him in his lap. Then he looked back at me as if to say, “Now what?” Struggling not to laugh, I said, “No, you have to squeeze it.” My son looked at Tigger while pondering my suggestion. He slowly lifted his hand and then squeezed Tigger’s nose. I busted out laughing at this point. HE WAS SO CUTE! He was completely misunderstanding what I meant, but all the while doing exactly as I instructed him to.

We often find ourselves having the same form of miscommunication in our relationships. However, in a marriage or a parent-adolescent relationship the miscommunication isn’t as cute as seen here with my 3 yr old. It is almost as if we just cannot understand how our spouse or teenager, for instance, could ever interpret our requests or suggestions as anything other than the way we pictured in our minds. One thing we need to understand when it comes to learning to effectively communicate is that misinterpretations don’t go away with age. We are no better at mind-reading at 30 yrs old than we were at 3 yrs old. Effective communication is a skill that can be taught, but never mastered. We owe it to ourselves and to those we care about to continually work hard at improving our communication skills. One lesson I hope you take from this post is that “mindreading” is a HUGE No-No! We should never assume the other person should “just know” what we are saying or talking about.

My 3 yr old is learning more and more about how to effectively communicate every day. Watching him grow and learn is an awesome experience. I think it is so neat when I get the privilege of seeing something “click” with him; to actually see him “get it.” When this happens to us as adults, the adorable-factor can be ruled out, but it can be a very rewarding experience still. So hang in there.