Communication and Collaboration in Early Childhood

                                                       
Dear Colleagues,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for sharing your professional knowledge and personal experiences that contributed to the expansion my knowledge and perceptions of early childhood. Reading your discussions and blogs enhanced my knowledge in what it means to effectively communication and collaboration. This has been an extraordinary learning experience that will be significant my life throughout my personal and professional life.  As we venture off in different directions, I would love to stay in touch with you.  Please feel free to contact me at audreymoye1@yahoo.com

Thank you Dr. D. for your assignments feedback and discussion posts that prompted me to think deeper about the issue of communication and collaboration.

God Bless you all!

 

Meeting Adjourned!

This assignment reminded me when I was asked to head the project at our church while we were in the process of opening a license center. I was chosen because I was more familiar with state childcare regulations, health and safety regulations and other aspects of the division of childcare and the rating scale.  I think we moved through the stages quickly because the three of us knew each other well, attended the church and had the same agenda. We were all committed to the project and experienced an honest, positive, supportive working relationship (Abudi, 2009). Initially, we functioned at the clearest established standards through our strong commitment in making this happen for our church. The team quickly turned to a high-performing group because the project of getting our family life center in compliance was organized and executed fairly rapidly. It was hard leave the team because of a deeper connection formed by working closely on something we were passionate about, and I had no doubts of its success when I stepped away.  The closing ritual experienced was having dinner at a local restaurant to commemorate and celebrate our outcome.

When adjourning from the master’s degree program, I imagine a feeling of sadness at the prospect of not having future opportunities to learn and share different prospective from my colleagues that I have grown accustomed to; from some the entire cohort. At the same time, I imagine a sense of connection and empowerment through knowledge obtained from them that I will carry that has broadened my understanding of aspects of early childhood in improving my professional development. The adjourning process is essential for a team because it allows evaluation of goals and reflection on skills learned or those that might need enhancing for future projects.

Abudi, G. (2010). The five stages of team development: A case study. Retrieved from http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-five-stages-of-team-development-a-case-study.html

Resolving Conflict

Strategies that might have helped me manage or resolve the conflict with my husband concerning the sale of our daughter’s car more productively are:

1.       If I would have displayed empathetic emotions as oppose to anger and actively listened to his opinion in addressing the problem, which was the decision to sell car and the price when resolving conflict, not him personally.

2.       Instead of becoming offensive because of my misgivings with the sale itself and the price, I could have put forth more of an effort to offer a solution to reach a compromise; although we disagreed.

These strategies might be effective because it would have likely diminished my feelings of apprehension and there would be a supportive communication climate, which would allowed us a chance to empathetically explore the issues involved in the conflict (O’Hair & Wiemann, 2012). For example, we would have shared information and both of us would have been empowered in offering a solution to arrive at a compatible goal which was the price.

A broader range of solution to my disagreement is that we could have been more receptive to one another’s ideas and feelings about the decision to sale the car and what the price would be.  I could have stated my desires precisely and not so loudly to avoid misunderstanding which was the reason for the conflict that took a day to resolve because neither of us was willing to give up our position. 

Yes, the principles of nonviolent communication could have helped such as differentiating feeling from thinking to be able to identify and express internal feeling in a way that does not imply judgment, criticism, or blame (The Center for Nonviolent Communication, n. d.).