Interpersonal Communication in Relationship Essay

Raising a child is every parent’s challenge once their kids are born. In today’s setting where influence plays a major aspect of affecting a child’s behavior, it is not enough that parents only provide their material and financial needs. It is also important that at the soonest time possible, parents should have the initiative to commit themselves in raising their kids by giving them the time and attention they need so they could be guided and taken care of effectively. At the age of 26, the author gave birth to a healthy baby whom she named Sarah. Her experience of motherhood is a combination of stress and happiness that also included many unselfish sacrifices in order to give her the future that she deserve and for many years now, they both enjoy their companionship as they treat each other the best of friends more than of a mere daughter and mother relationship. As a mother, the author believes that communication is the secret weapon for any harmonious relationship. For 23 years, she was able to create an environment for Sarah where she feels comfort to be herself with her mother. It avoids pretension, promotes transparency and builds trust to the bond that they have. Through communication, the author was able to blend in to Sarah’s world making her know more about her daughter’s likes and dislikes, her insecurities, her fears and strengths, her grades, crushes and in general, Sarah as a person inside and out. This has helped her appreciate the things that her daughter enjoys and be the kind of friend that her daughter needs. Communication manifests itself in different form such as information, signs and gesture and messages. It is important that these messages, signals and signs that are interchanged between parties are consistent and delivered well so that trust can be built. Being a parent makes her cautious of the words she speaks because it will affect her child’s learning and behavior. The aim of this paper is to analyze the effectiveness of Interpersonal Communication in understanding the current relationship of the author with her daughter in able to create groundwork for the development for a long-term partnership. In this particular case, we will look at the role of communication in the development of trust and closeness between the parties and the inner reflection of the author’s behavior in her relationship with her sibling to become a better individual. ANALYSIS The words that people apply in discussion express information regarding who they are, their objectives, their spectators, and their circumstances. The words that people use can yield clues about the quality of their relationships. This opening discusses the job of language usage in relationships, look purposely on subject of analysis, the kinds of words that are necessary in relationships, data gathering, and clinical proposition. Language gives a range of meaning in relationships. It can be an idea of relationship standing, a tool of relationship preservation or adjustment, or the picture of important relationship characteristics such as sovereignty and interdependence. Some say that relationships are simply a game of language. The Interpersonal communication (IC) is a tool that defines the different ways that we can do to create a better communication with other people. It is important because of the functions it achieves. We use it to gather information, understand things better, to establish identity through knowing other people better and other personal needs. As we go on through the paper, we shall analyze the development of Sarah and her mother’s relationship through the Knapp’s Relationship Escalation and Deterioration Model. Looking at Sarah and the author’s connection, the bond that they have is strengthen and tested through the time that they have been together as a family. Their interpersonal communication created a big influence in their personal growth as a mother and daughter as they learn to share and discuss their ideas and thoughts in different aspects of life together. The Knapp’s Model of Escalation consider this as the Intensifying Stage where they learn to treat each other less formal and consider one another as best of friends. Being in a relationship makes people highly interdependent. There is a feeling of â€Å"oneness† that another person becomes a part of your â€Å"self†. We become attracted to people who has the same interest, attitudes, experience, backgrounds and personality as we have. Because of their genes, there is a possibility that Sarah might have inherited some of the physical, emotional and behavioral traits of her mother that keeps her attracted to her. This feeling of likeness and belongingness makes her relationship with the author warm and alive. Attraction is important in a relationship because it initiates a relationship which is considered as the Knapp’s Model of Escalation’s the Initiation Phase and without it, people will not be interested to know people better and start a relationship with them. A relationship is affected by attraction because it influence others to be like us, it validate our believes and characteristics, and draw conclusion about character based on supposed similarity. Sarah is fascinated to her mother as she considers her a role model because of her ways of doing her job as a mother and a friend. This kind of attraction makes her comfortable to do things together with the author thus opening more about herself to her more than she could ever do to other people. Self-disclosure is both the mindful and unaware means of exposing more about ourselves to others. This includes our personal thoughts, feelings, aspirations, goals, failures, success, fears, dreams and even our preferences, dislikes and favorites that most people do not share to avoid possible negative judgments from others. In able to know her daughter better, the author opened herself to Sarah and started to share her personality, her ideas, experiences and her past in able to create a friendly image that would make her daughter feel that she is not hard to reach as a parent and she is worthy of her trust and friendship. The decision to unmask includes a lot of thinking and planning as it might also give a different meaning to the people that they are talking with. The Knapp’s Model of Escalation sees it as the Experimentation phase where people who are new to each other asks information of each other in order to deliver the best way of showing their true identity if they wish to create a relationship. It includes discussions while watching television, doing household chores, sharing stories and more that would make us learn more about the person that we want to be with. Patience and dedication creates perfect opportunity to know people better. The moment that they both feel comfortable with each other is the time that they will consider themselves as partners. The Knapp’s Model of Escalation defines this stage of relationship as the Integrating phase where people formalize their bond. This is the point where people create a world that they both enjoy while doing things together. Since that Sarah considers her mother as her best friend, she now sees the significance of her mother more than before because she was able to know her better. This had given the author the opportunity to have more control in monitoring her child’s growth since that she is now closer to her. The last stage of the Knapp’s Model of Escalation is the Bonding phase where people in the relationship establish a commitment to keep the relationship last a long time. Once engaged in a relationship, people tend to look after each other, supervise each others activities, discuss problems and face the challenge of life together. This is the phase of relationship where Sarah and her mother is currently into. This can be considered as the victory of every relationship where the goal of every people in the partnership in creating a bond is accomplished. It is important that they continue to maintain their relationship for as long as they feel that they both want to preserve their connection. As a mother and daughter, a good bond to one another makes Sarah grow in a family where she can consider herself safe and secured. The years that they have been together and the experiences that they both encountered good or bad are all considered as the building blocks of their family’s relationship. Whatever they think of each other is based on the judgment on their performance as a partner during the relationship period. It is true that there is no perfect relationship and even mothers and daughters have fights and conflicts of their own. The Interpersonal Communication measure conflicts in relationship through the Knapp’s Model of Deterioration. As relationship widen and get older, partners or friends see their differences to one another in the process, because of this, they tend to realize the other sides of each other that they do not really know about during their first stages of their relationship. This is the Differencing phase of the Knapp’s Model of Deterioration that is the initial sign of there is something wrong in the relationship that should be taken care of. Sarah and the author’s relationship is not all happiness. It is just normal that they will encounter conflicts regarding issues in politics, work ethic, gender role expectations, school problems and maybe even doing the dishes at home. Fortunately, since Sarah and her mother shares the same family, the author and Sarah still find ways of mending things together since they have free-communication to each other. When a problem is not resolved, communication begins to fade making the people concern not interested on solving the conflict anymore. This Circumscribing phase is a stage in relationships that occurs when a serious conflict is really at hand. Unfortunately, problems can crash a relationship no matter how old or great it is. Sarah and the author were able to get through this stage when dealing teenage problems. Teenagers are aggressive and do things that they are not really aware about and mothers sometimes get into they way that makes them monster in their sights. Families have these problems and more and if communication is not an option, most of them would not have solved their problem like they did years ago. When the people in the group or in a relationship accept that a problem can’t be solved, then the Stagnating phase immerges. This is the stage where individuals avoid discussions about the relationship because they think that it is only the matter of time that the relationship is going to end. Others will start to notice that there is something wrong in the relationship and will try to help but as long as the people concerned in the conflict do not participate, there will be no reconciliation. Relationships in conflict needs some space to think about the problem, sometimes they need to be separated and live independently to see the value of their friendship or relationship and decide whether they want to resolve it or not. This is the Avoidance phase of the Knapp’s Model of Deterioration where the pair begins to physically separate themselves to avoid the opportunities for any discussion. This will make them think on themselves and about the situation without other people’s way. When decided to live on, away from the relationship, the last and final stage of the Knapp’s Model of Deterioration takes place. The Terminating phase can occur positively and negatively depending on the way of their parting. Fortunately, Sarah and the author haven’t been in this stage that they would decide to live on separate ways. It is true that some relationships are not meant to last. However, in a positive side, some closed relationship creates new opportunities for the better and also in some cases, there are relationships that are just meant to dissolve into nothing and be left forgotten. Conflict is a part of most every interpersonal relationship. Managing conflict, then, is important if the relationship is to be long-lasting and rewarding. The management of conflict is necessary for saving any relationship that hangs from falling apart. CONCLUSION Communication manifests itself in different form such as information, signs and gesture and messages. It is important that these messages, signals and signs that are interchanged between parties are consistent and delivered well so that trust can be built. In families, communication is very essential for keeping their relationship running hassle free. Trust plays a serious part in developing a relationship with children. To create this bond, parents should have a thin line between them and their children so they will fee security in investing their feelings with them. This process includes listening to their problems, giving advice, sharing their secrets, being like a friend and others that will make a child at ease in Children learn from what they see, hear and feel and it is very important that parents as their core foundation of their behavior would influence them greatly through giving their time and dedication to be with their child by establishing a relationship with them. BIBLIOGRAPHY Definition of Interpersonal Communication (1999) Accessed last April 17, 2009. Source: http://www. abacon. com/commstudies/interpersonal/indefinition. html