Firstly, I would like to thank all the commented on my blog post previously. =)
I have never believed in generation gap. I feel that communicating with someone of a different generation is not a big problem as long as you are willing to listen and understand what they are trying to say. However, many may not feel this way. They may feel that the elderly are narrow-minded and conservative. They may nag and scold, and expect their children to always give in to their demands, no matter how unreasonable they may be.
In my point of view, I would certainly agree to this saying of “Give and take, forgive and forget”. No family is free from relationship problems, elderly parents and their adult children should still make an effort to settle their differences and try to accommodate each other’s needs.
Effective communication with older people requires us to first understand them. These elderly ultimately grew up in a very different social-economic and political environment from us. Having brought up in a different era with different values and traditions, they may not be able to fully understand the way we do and perceive things.
Also, the change in social roles, such as retirement, may affect the elderly psychologically. They may feel that they are incompetent, unproductive and thus, having a low self esteem. Such losses in the elderly may lead to social withdrawal and thus affecting the elderly person’s ability to communicate.
There are a few tips that could allow us to improve our communication with the elderly.
1) Speak slowly, clearly and loudly.
For example, if the elderly is suffering from a hearing loss, be patient and speak more clearly. Be patient when listening to them.
2) Respect the elderly person’s background, knowledge and values.
As the life experience of the elderly may vary from us, it is important to let them express their thoughts and feelings, even if you disagree.
3) Listening
Good communication depends on good listening, so be conscious of whether you are really listening to what older patients are telling you.
There is no definite right or wrong when communicating. Communication is not an exact science. One will need to work out the right strategy when communication with the elderly. The communication process in general is complex and can be further complicated by age.
Dear Kristin,
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you that communicating with someone of a different generation is not a big problem as long as we are willing to be patient to listen to them. Sometimes I feel that communication problems or the disagreement in ideas do not necessarily apply to only elderly; such disagreements in ideas can actually occur among friends or cousins that are roughly your age or slightly older than you. Hence, I believe age gap is not the biggest obstacle in communicating.
I do feel irritated when my granny starts to nag and be overly concerned about me. However, when you come to think about it, she is actually just worried about me and means well. After so many years of living with my granny, I grown and changed my opinion towards communicating with her. This is because I have put myself in her shoes and realised that she actually meant well as she really dotes me with all she can.
I have changed my opinion toward communicating with elderly because I feel that my granny is already 86 years old and I know she won’t live for too long. Hence, I do not want to upset her by being impatient and argue with her although some of her “nags” were quite irritating and unreasonable. Like what Kristin mentioned above, communication is about “Give and take, forgive and forget”. It is only when we give and take, be patient in listening to the elderly and willingness to spend time talking to them, we will realised that they do possess useful experiences and give advices that we may need in the near future.
Hence, the next time when you guys communicate with your grandparents, do put yourselves in their shoes and I bet you guys will have a great time being with them.
Cheers,
Li Yun
Hi Kristin!
ReplyDeleteWhile serving my internship at Guardian, I had to counsel some elderly patients. It was always fulfilling once I got the message across and taught them the purpose of their medication regime. Communicating with the elderly is indeed a challenge.
Sometimes, I feel that it is us who are close-minded rather than the elderly. The elderly have been through many more years of life compared to us and sometimes we are just unwilling to heed their advice when they are right most of the time.
In my experiences with communicating with the elderly, I not only face the problem of having to overcome my personal fear of insulting them unintentionally but also the problem of language. I'm not very proficient in Chinese and hence face many problems when it comes to patient counseling.
Therefore, in view of bridging the generation gap, I would like to add on to your list of recommendations. We could learn dialects and improve on our Mother Tongue to make exchange with the elderly a lot easier.
Love,
Ariana
Hi Kristin!
ReplyDeleteI do agree that communicating with someone of a different generation is not a big problem as long as you are willing to listen and understand what they are trying to say.
However, I feel that a generation gap is a two-way problem, where the young feel that the elderly are not up with times, while the elderly feel that the young are too brash and rash in actions. As many people say, one hand couldn't clap on it's own.
I have a grandmother; there is no language barrier with her, as she can understand and speak with us just fine. She communicate her ideals and express her concerns too. In fact, she is a wonderful granny to me and my cousins.
Except for the fact that she doesn't listen to us. It's like a one-way communication, where we tried to listen to her to understand her thinking, but she doesn't do so for us. As such, she never got rid of her stereotyping among me and my cousins. Fortunately, my cousins were understanding enough, so it's not much of a problem.
I don't know if mine is a generation gap, but I do believe that putting in effort to communicate is needed to make that relationship work. If not, then there will always be presence of the generation gap.
Yours,
Munting :)
Dear Kristin,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tips on how to communicate effectively with the elderly! This would come in handy when I am counseling patients in the future. :)
I have to agree with you that many a time, miscommunication occurs with the elderly and that this could be due to the generation gap that exists.
I think that the elderly have much to offer us due to the wisdom gained from vast experiences during their walk here on earth, and this wisdom can be passed down to us through communicating with them. I think it is much easier for us, in an Asian society to communicate with our grandparents as we are taught since young to respect our elders and listen to what they have to say.
I have to agree with Munting and Ariana that if effort is taken to understand them and that the language barrier can be overcome, we can find out so much more about life from them.
In addition, we could spend more time with the elderly. This is to increase our understand of them to better communicate with them, knowing more about their culture and their expectations of us.
All the best for your presentation next week! :)
Cheers,
Min Huey
Dear Kristin,
ReplyDeleteI think that your post is very relevant in today’s ageing population especially in Singapore. Thanks for sharing your tips for communicating with the elderly and I believe these will help to improve my communication with my grandparents too.
I agree with you that effective communication with older people requires us to first understand them. Apart from that, I also feel that it is also important to drop our general negative perceptions on the elderly, if any, so as to improve the communication with them.
As dialects are usually used in their generation, we might not be able to comprehend and communicate with elderly who knows dialects only. Perhaps on our part, we can learn the language so that there is no communication barrier between us. In fact, during one of my visit to a Chinese old folk’s home where almost all the elderly speaks only either Chinese or dialects, we taught simple dialects to our non-Chinese friends so that they can communicate with the elderly too. This could be seen as an effort by our part to communicate with them and I believe that this should form the basis of nurturing a good relationship.
See you around in class!
Cheers,
Wei Tian
hey~!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting on my blog!!
I do agree with many of your ideas such as learning of dialects to communicate effectively with the elderly. This would help remove the communication barrier too.
Kristin