Dear Abby and Politeness

On Sunday, "Dear Abby" had three letters all revolving around politeness, giving us three good but often abused rules:

1.      When bringing young children to another person’s home, watch them and make sure that they don’t damage anything.

2.      People need compliments not criticism; it’s impolite to criticize for no constructive purpose.

3.      When answering the door, for example, in receiving a package, hold your dog back—not everyone loves your dog, nor will your dog love everyone.

It's about communication, Abby

Well, Abby again fails to see the value in simple communication principles. Briefly, a father writes (April 4, 2010) that his two step sons (ages 14 and 15) find his and their mother's displays of affection--e.g., "a quick kiss after saying grace before meals, even in restaurants"--embarrassing and "weird." The step-father and the mother think these displays are appropriate and strengthen their relationship. Abby's advice? ". . . please consider refraining from the quick kisses when you're out in public"--an overly simple and totally unhelpful suggestion.
First, this is a textbook case of a win-lose strategy for dealing with conflict. Why not look for win-win strategies? Why should the parents give up something they value? Abby, this type of "resolution" is likely going to cause resentment which can easily spill over into other issues and to send the wrong messages to the children.
Second, Abby, your solution looks only at the surface message--the boys' dislike of the displays of affection--and fails to see that there is likely much more on the minds of the boys and perhaps of the parents as well. These need to be examined and talked about. Part of the problem, Abby, is that you're disregarding the simple principles that meanings are in people, not in words or even nonverbals such as kissing, and that each person's meaning is unique. Parents and children need to talk about the meanings they each see in this behavior. With that as a start, they can focus on a win-win solution.
This case, I think, would make an excellent exercise/discussion stimulus for the coverage of the basic principles of interpersonal communication (content and relationship messages, ambiguity), messages (meaning is in people, denotation and connotation), or conflict (win-win strategies, conflict management). Ask the students to answer the letter using their knowledge of communication. My guess is you'd get some great responses. It's also a great way to illustrate the practical value in what may at first seem "only academic."

Stopping Unwanted Behavior

A recent letter to Dear Abby is from a woman whose husband slaps her on the bottom which he refers to as a "love tap" and she as "degrading and frustrating." Although she has told him repeatedly to stop, he doesn't. What to do? The answer to "Dear Soar" was "It's one in which there is a serious communication problem. " Hardly a satisfactory answer. It might have been helpful to suggest to Soar that she needs to confront the pattern of behavior and not treat this behavior as isolated instances. The cooperative response--telling the husband her feelings, describing the behavior she objects to, and stating a cooperative response both can live with ("I get angry when you slap me; it hurts and I feel degraded. I want you to stop this behavior. When you want to touch me, kiss me; don't slap me.") is likely to be a lot more effective. In fairness to Abby, she does say: What else does he ignore when you speak up?--and, in a way, gets at the idea that this is a pattern. But, other approaches might also work. If the husband finds the wife's objection to the slapping rewarding (rather than the slapping itself), then the wife can probably break the pattern by simply ignoring it--according to conditioning theory, behavior which is ignored will be extinguished. Alternatively, she could make the slapping punishing in a wide variety of ways. Well, all this is just to say that it doesn't help to say a problem is a communication problem--that doesn't solve the problem; specific suggestions might.

Content and Relationship Communication

Take a look at this letter to Dear Abby. In my opinion she completely misses the point and in doing so provides a great illustration of the importance of communication concepts in understanding a complex interaction. In this letter, a wife complains that her husband makes all the decisions about gifts and about how expensive they should be. In this case, he decided on a $100 bond for a grandchild. So, the wife correctly asks, shouldn't she have had some say? Btw, both husband and wife work full time or so it seems. But, Abby primarily addresses the content message--yes, Abby agrees, the bond is the better choice. It wasn't about the bond, Abby! And she misses the point because she doesn't see the difference between content and relationship messages. The content message was about the bond and that's the message that Abby addresses. But, the more important message was a relationship one that commented on their relationship in a way the wife found objectionable--he was the boss and he would make the decisions unilaterally.
Another way of looking at this is through the lens of equity--from what appears in the letter, I'd assume that both husband and wife contribute equally to the costs (they both work full time) but that the husband is deriving more of the rewards (making important decisions) with the result that resentment and relationship dissatisfaction develop.
I think this letter provides a useful way of showing students the value of seemingly academic (and therefore useless) terms in understanding everyday issues.