Good Friends; Strong Families The Podcast
Welcome to 'Good Friends, Strong Families,' where family coaches and lifelong friends Angela and Anna, armed with over a quarter-century of combined experience, share research-backed strategies, heartwarming chats, and a dose of humor to make your family stronger, more joyful, and deeply connected. Join us in building resilient families through friendship. 🎧💪❤️
Good Friends; Strong Families The Podcast
Empowering Family Conversations for Better Understanding
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Can a simple shift in your communication approach transform your family dynamics? Discover the power of "I Messages" in our latest Good Friends, Strong Families episode. Angela and Anna dive into a communication technique that focuses on taking ownership of our feelings and expressing them without blame. We promise you'll gain practical advice and personal insights to help you articulate emotions and needs in a way that fosters understanding and empathy. Learn how this method can be particularly beneficial when teaching children the art of healthy communication from an early age.
Join us as we share real-life examples and actionable tips on using I-messages to navigate family conflicts and stressful situations. We'll explore the importance of timing and setting for these crucial conversations, ensuring you can address issues without escalating tensions. By acknowledging feelings and setting clear expectations, you’ll be well-equipped to improve overall communication dynamics and create a more harmonious family environment. Don’t miss this opportunity to master the art of I-messages and strengthen your family bonds like never before.
Welcome to Good Friends, strong Families, the podcast where every episode equips you with a new skill, surrounds you with support and provides actionable steps you can immediately implement in your family life. I'm Anna and I'm joined with my co-host, Angela. In today's episode. We're going to talk about a communication technique called iMessages. This can truly transform the way that you connect with your family. We're going to break down the what, why and how, so by the end of this episode, you'll be prepared to foster a deeper bond and communicate better with your family.
Speaker 2Okay, I want to start us off you ready. Or bond and communicate better with your family? Okay, I want to start us off you ready. I feel happy when we record together because it's a fun time for me and I want to do this more often that was my positive eye message.
Speaker 1Okay, I was going to start with who here would identify as a great communicator. Who here would identify as a great communicator.
Speaker 2I feel like there should be some kind of like a prize for excellent communication.
Speaker 1I feel like we're always told how important communication is. Yes, and I don't know. It's like do we just think that we're supposed to like? You're either born a great communicator or you're not. Do your parents teach you to communicate. I don't know if they teach you this. They do teach you how to communicate, but did they teach you like functional ways, healthy ways to communicate? I think that's why I love this, like simple skill that can really help. Yeah, because I don't think a lot of people are just naturally great communicators.
Speaker 1Right, I agree with that and I think that that communication conversation we have to always remember there's two sides to that right. It's being able to communicate our feelings, our thoughts, our desires, as well as listening and so and empathizing.
Speaker 1Right, I also have to understand where you're coming exactly so, um, this, but kind of the second part we're going to talk more about, like the communicating our thoughts, our feelings, our, our, our side of it. Um, hence the I message yeah, not eyeball, but like the uh, the apple phone iages. That's funny, this is our communicating. And then we're gonna have another uh podcast, yep, about the more listening side of it. I think it's important to remember that communication is both of those. It's not just me, yeah, telling you everything. That's really good, yeah, so you gave us a great example yes, I love that.
Speaker 2I mean, that was a positive way of using iMessages. Typically, we don't teach it that way. We teach it, you know, if something's wrong or if we need to communicate how we feel about something. It's not and it's not just about our words, you know. It's really a lot about like, okay, how do I communicate this to you in a way that I'm not going to hurt you right, you know, expressly hurt you. But how do I communicate this to you in a way that I'm not going to hurt you you know, expressly hurt you but how do I communicate this to you in a way that gets my needs met? And I'm being fair to you.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, I think it's. I mean, if you haven't gotten this clearly, I'm just going to say this as clear as possible. So the I message is a way that you can express your feelings, your thoughts and your needs directly, without pointing fingers or assigning blame. So I think it's like I, this is how I feel, and and by communicating that, you're also taking responsibility for um, you're like your ownership. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like this is where I'm at. And then you're asking them to kind of like listen and meet you where that is. So you begin with I right what that's one I? You begin with I to articulate your emotions and thoughts, and then you describe what you want or what's bothering you without pointing the fingers. Yeah, I think that that can be one of the trickier parts of the skill well, here's a funny thing.
Speaker 2I actually we teach this in a lot of our strengthening families classes. I know you do as well, as a family coach. But one of the things I like best about this is helping people to actually understand it and to practice it, because sometimes when we're teaching the teens and this is helping people to actually understand it and to practice it because sometimes when we're teaching the teens and this is why this is so important, because parents, parenting, adults your goal, when we're thinking through all of these skills, your goal should be how can I use it, how can I teach it right?
Speaker 1yeah. I gotta do both and especially like we, we always kind of like, I feel like we jump a lot to like those teen years.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's true, but if you learn this and you have young kids and this is how you communicate their whole life, that's how you teach it right, and so the first way is like you've got to learn, you've got to understand and you've got to practice it and and it doesn't necessarily feel normal for a lot of people, I mean, like it does feel a little awkward and you kind of have to be okay with that right like sit in that like uncomfortableness of like these new words, this new way to talk, and then the more you do it, the more normal it feels and the more you can put in your own words yes, one of the things I get a lot this is one of my favorites is especially when we're with um kids who are not they have not practiced this, and so I'll say, okay, so I want you to say, start with I, I and then tell us how you feel, and so I'll give them a situation.
Speaker 2So, for example, we'll say something like maybe your sister borrowed your bicycle and then didn't put it back, left it like laid out on the ground in front of the house or whatever, and so can you give them an I message. And so what I'm really looking for is for them to say something like I feel frustrated when you borrow my bicycle and don't put it back where it belongs when you're done. And then the last part, of course is and I want, and so then I I'll say, okay, tell her what you want, well, and I want you to put it back when you've borrowed it. That's a full and complete I message. But what I'll get is kids that'll say things like this I feel like you're a jerk and I'm like, okay, well, it's like it's a practice. There's a little bit of subtlety here, but yeah.
Speaker 1Right. I think that that's we are addressing like an issue, right, and so it doesn't mean that the word you does not come out of your mouth.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1But you're starting from a place of again, not like ownership, and I think that that can be very empowering when you have this skill and so saying like I feel like you don't care about me when you don't take care of my things.
Speaker 2That's really good. Right Like yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1Let you use my bike, but then you just left it on the ground and now it's dirty or whatever, and so and I want you, like you said, to put it away. I think that that I don't know.
Speaker 2It's kind of like I like that better, even because then what you're saying is okay. So you gotta acknowledge, we have to acknowledge we're not glossing over the fact that you borrowed the bike and the bike was. You did borrow the bike, but we but I like the way that you've said that, because then you're not only saying there was an action that you took and it that action has caused me some pain or frustration or whatever that is, but then what you're saying is this is my perspective on that, and what I need to happen in the future is Think about this in terms of your relationship with your friends, your relationship at work, your relationship with your partner. I mean, these are all having a skill, and this is just one. You said simple, but really being able to use this skill can be a game changer.
Speaker 1Yeah, I see, one of the things that, like, I really feel like is important, that I want to teach my kids, is empathy, and I feel like this is a really great way to share your feelings and and we want them to, we want whoever we're communicating to understand our feelings. And I feel like that is kind of the start of like, oh, like you feel this way and oh, I did something to make you feel that way, and like putting them in that situation like, oh, yeah, I could see, like I didn't think about that. I'm really sorry I didn't think about that. Like, if I don't take care of the things that, like you've trusted me with that, like it kind of means that, like you think it means that like I don't care about you but also I'm not going to give you the bike again.
Speaker 1Right, but like I didn't mean it that way, I feel like that's a huge communication thing. It's like you saying how something made you feel, and the other person, nine times out of 10, I feel like the miscommunication is like oh, that's not what I meant, yeah, yeah, and so when you open that and put it on, put, when you open that and put it on, put it out there, then they can say like oh, I didn't realize, that's how you would interpret my actions or my words or whatever the situation is right.
Effective Family Communication Using I-Messages
Speaker 1I've never intended for that I whatever their reason is. But then they're acknowledging your feelings and they know next time like your expectations well, it also helps us to problem solve.
Speaker 2Yeah, you know, this is the problem. How do we problem solve the problem? You know what's? What can we do to make it different, as opposed to, especially in families where and I know this is true, you know we say, and families where and then I'm like, yeah, my own family where, like, tensions can run really high. Even just recently, we had a week where we had so much transition and we literally kept having to look at each other and remind ourselves we are not in a normal week. Right, we have a lot of extra stress right now and we have to like let's right, let's release the valve on it and that's another use for iMessages.
Speaker 1I acknowledge that I'm stressed, yeah a lot and so I feel this way and I'm sorry if I'm taking it out on you because I am overwhelmed, like I, messages aren't just to address conflict that somebody else may be caused or triggered but we can also use it to communicate when we've messed up that's right.
Speaker 2That's really good. Yeah, that's a really great. So it's a good tool. A couple of kind of practical things.
Speaker 2If you've listened to us for any time at all, you know that we talk a lot about the fact that we don't want you know, timing is important we don't want to cause more problems. We don't use these tools. We try really hard not to use these tools as weapons against one another.
Speaker 2Look at this great tool I now have, and I'm a great communicator. You stink at communicating right, and so you really want to, like you know, wait until things are calm, pick the right time, and that, if you're doing this with that intention of like, find a private place to talk about it, um, then you're going to get a better outcome than if you stand in the living room in front of everybody and call out somebody else. So you really want to do that and you can initiate the conversation with the iMessage by, plan on it, prepare for it, maybe jot down a few ideas before you say it and then try it. And and the more you as a family, you are all aware that these are tools that we're all gonna use, the more likely you are to get people to be responsive.
Speaker 1Oh, okay, you're using an iMessage, which means to me that you have crafted some words to better our communication yeah and that makes things stronger I think, um, depending on like the family dynamics and what you've got going on there, there might be like issues that you're thinking of that we didn't communicate this well, or this is something that's like constantly, like the kids are bickering about something all the time, and so write down those scenarios and kind of make scripts for your children, or for you and a child, or even you and your partner, um, to practice things that maybe are just like.
Speaker 1You feel like that we're constantly arguing about the same thing. So maybe say like hey, um, normally I'm like nagging because the kids always leave the dishes in the sink. So you probably the kids always leave the dishes in the sink. So you probably say you always leave the dishes in the sink. Well, maybe, try. I feel overwhelmed when I get home from work and I see a pile of dishes in the sink. It would really help if you loaded them in the dishwasher when you were done.
Speaker 2Do you know, the most effective time I ever used an iMessage was when I had a supervisor and things had gotten so tense with this particular supervisor and I was just, I loved doing this work and I really loved to. But it was so tense with this supervisor and I thought, well, I can't continue to do this work. But then I thought, okay, but I haven't done everything that I know to do, so so let me try this. And I used an iMessage and I successfully sat down, jotted out a few things on the iMessage this particular supervisor. When I did that, they first of all, they were incredibly like I'm so sorry. I see now what you're saying. I'm so sorry that happened. And what it really did was that I used it. We used it as a catalyst to begin to open the door to other communication, so that I ended up staying, I didn't end up leaving, and it gave us kind of a platform to begin conversations, and I think that's really good in families as well.
Speaker 2So, good job, good job. Well, listen, friends, we hope this one really works out for you. This is a really good one. You know we say some of these skills are simple but powerful, and so stay tuned for our next episode. Go back, re-listen to some of those episodes where you're going to get a lot of these really great tips and, again, we enjoyed having you here. So, if you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a five-star review and share, share, share with others. Hey, share it with somebody who you think needs to understand how to do iMessages. We'd also love to hear your thoughts on today's topic. You can join our conversation on our Instagram page. You can leave a comment on our website.
Speaker 2Thank you so much, everyone and Anna, I feel happy when you schedule these with me, and I want to do more of them, so thank you for being here. Year Outro Music.