Quotes About Communication

How we feel about our kids isn't as important as how they experience those feelings and how they regard the way we treat them.

Norman Kunc, who conducts workshops on inclusive education and non-coercive practices, points out that "what we call 'behavior problems' are often situations of legitimate conflict; we just get to call them behavior problems because we have more power" than children do. (You're not allowed to say that your spouse has a behavior problem.)

Just because a child's action may have a negative effect on you doesn't mean that was the child's intention.

Some parents withdraw their love by simply refusing to respond to a child—that is, by making a point of ignoring him. They may not say it out loud, but the message they're sending is pretty clear: "If you do things I don't like, I won't pay any attention to you. I'll pretend you're not even here. If you want me to acknowledge you again, you'd better obey me.

Our main question shouldn't be "How do I get my child to do what I say?" but "What does my child need - and how can I meet those needs?" In my experience, you can predict much of what happens in families just from knowing which of those questions is more important to the parents. You don't even have to know the answers they've found. The questions are what count.

My advice is to make a point of apologizing to your child about something at least twice a month. Why twice a month? I don't know. It sounds about right to me. (Almost all the specific advice in parenting books is similarly arbitrary. At least I admit it.)

Hombre pequeñito que jaula me das. Digo pequeñito porque no me entiendes, ni me entenderás. Tampoco te entiendo, pero mientras tanto ábreme la jaula que quiero escapar. Hombre pequeñito, te amé media hora, no me pidas más.

Entonces hablo para sentir que existo, porque si no hablara mi lengua se paralizaría, mi corazón dejaría de latir, toda yo me secaría deslumbrada.

Elegance of language may not be in the power of all of us; but simplicity and straight forwardness are. Write much as you would speak; speak as you think. If with your inferior, speak no coarser than usual; if with your superiors, no finer. Be what you say; and, within the rules of prudence, say what you are.

An economist is a man who states the obvious in terms of the incomprehensible.

Our whole way of living inhibits that necessary intimate contact with our fellow men, which is essential for the development of the science and art of knowing human nature. Since we do not find sufficient contact with our fellow men, we become their enemies. Our behavior towards them is often mistaken, and our judgments frequently false, simply because we do not adequately understand human nature.

If we speak plainly, without metaphors or symbols, we cannot escape common sense. Metaphors and symbols can be abused.

I'm going to be frank, Max..." "Of course. All cards on the table." But he gave me a poker smile.

Piping a simple song for thinking hearts, is all very well. But it will not do to say, or to suggest, or to allow it to be inferred, that doing this makes a man as great a poet.

Almost as essential to poetry, and equally as regards poetry of the loftiest and poetry of the lowliest kind, is lucidity, or clearness of expression. No poet of much account is ever obscure, unless the text happens to be corrupt.

But if poetry is now comparatively little read, no one can deny that it is much written about.

The word LISTEN contains the same letters as the word SILENT.

We'll talk without listening to each other that is the best way to get along.

Alas, everything that men say to one another is alike; the ideas they exchange are almost always the same, in their conversation. But inside all those isolated machines, what hidden recesses, what secret compartments! It is an entire world that each one carries within him, an unknown world that is born and dies in silence! What solitudes all these human bodies are!

A mulher que quer rejeitar responde apenas não. A mulher que explica quer que a convençam.

Dépêche-toi, soleil, si tu es curieux des nouvelles que cette nuit te dira demain

Political speeches are like steer horns. A point here, a point there, and a lot of bull in between.

It is more important to click with people than to click the shutter." - Alfred Eisenstaedt

Low trust is the greatest cost in life and in organizations, including families. Low trust creates hidden agendas, politics, interpersonal conflict, interdepartmental rivalries, win-lose thinking, defensive and protective communication.