Get Schooled in Intergenerational Communication

13 1 8 0

Dude, I got schooled in intergenerational communication last week. Three times. LOL. Painful. Like you, dear readers, I’m a super busy and important person. I don’t really have time to learn so many new things in one week. #TooFunny

Lesson 1: Talking is passé.

“ I don’t have any free time to make calls but I can check my FB messenger frequently .”—busy niece in her 20s

Priding myself on being the coolest Aunt on the planet, I often get to communicate with the young people in my life in ways their parents cannot. I love that. When my sister texted, asking me to communicate with her daughter about a particular, and particularly important issue, naturally I put on my cape and sprang into Aunt-action mode. Sis hoped a “new messenger” might do the trick.

What might have been a 5-10 minute telephone conversation was instead 30+ minutes of typing. About half the time, I glared at the “typing, typing, typing” message, waiting for my niece’s next thoughts to emerge. The other half, I focused on making sure my messaging tone came across as hyper-supportive, loving. This necessitated hunting for just the right emoticons to include.

I tried to breathe. I wanted to scream-type, “come on, can’t we just talk?” Suspecting that wouldn’t help me reach my goal, I stared loathingly at my smartphone.

My niece is perfectly willing to communicate with me. She actually seems to value my counsel. But she’s not going to talk to me on the phone. Talking is passé because it’s too slow, much slower than Facebook messaging.

I’m going to need to budget a lot more time for communication. Maybe a speed typing course would help?

Lesson 2: Question marks are key.

“ I didn’t know I was supposed to write back because she didn’t ask a question .”–nephew, a high school senior

Ever hear this joke? What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Bilingual. A person who speaks three or more languages? Multilingual. What do you call a person who speaks one language? American.

Having lived on several continents where I was effectively illiterate, that joke always cracks me up. With that context for my highly developed linguistic abilities, I found out a few years ago from my brother that I wasn’t texting “right.” Communicating frequently with his two sons, I would get quick text responses from one and not hear back from the other. Not meaning to rat the “no response” nephew out, I did have to ask my bro, “Why doesn’t he answer my texts?”

My nephew didn’t mean to be disrespectful: if there wasn’t a question mark, he honestly didn’t know I expected a response.

After learning this, for awhile every text I sent included a question mark. It got a little weird: “Congrats on getting an A on your test?” “I’m sorry you broke up with your girlfriend?” “I love you?” “What do you want for Christmas?” At least the last text falls within my question mark comfort-zone.

Now, he always responds to my texts—no question mark needed—and I love our communication. However, a new issue arose last week. He’s written a play. He emailed it to me. To make sure he knew that I’d read it, (was super impressed and over-the-moon proud of him), I wrote him a few paragraphs back via email. No response.

According to my sis-in-law, my nephew had received my email, was pretty tickled that I read his play and said, “Aunt Jone wrote me a really long email.” Then, he showed her the email which was about three paragraphs.

Really two lessons here: use a question mark and keep email closer to tweet-length.

(P.S. Thank-you-for-the-email-Aunt-Jone-I-love-you text received.)

Lesson 3: Focus on now; be precise.

I adore talking with little kids. Aren’t they the most fun ever? So honest, so in awe, so incredibly hilarious! Well beyond LOL and #TooFunny, in my humble opinion.

My great-nephew started preschool last week. I think I may have been more excited about it than he was. I obsessively called to talk with him about “going to school” before he started.

Friday afternoon, I called to find out how his first week went. As you can tell from this picture of him, preschool is mighty exhausting.

Me: “What’s your teacher’s name? Your class is called ‘The Popsicles,’ do you like that name? What did you learn? What was the most fun?” A highly verbal (I’m sure he’s a genius) 4-year old, he repeatedly sighed, “I don’t know.”

How unusual, we usually gab away together ‘til someone wrestles the phone from him. A final communication attempt, “Overall, how was your week?” He says, “Terrible, terrible.” I say, “Oh sweetheart, what was terrible about it?” Nephew, “I can’t find my roly-poly.”

Ah. Preschool is already forgotten. Out in the yard, digging in the mud, he found a “roly poly” bug, those icky millipedes I personally stay away from. Despite making a box to put roly polys in, one escaped off into the grass. It was a terrible, sad moment indeed.

This lesson to focus communication on the moment, what’s happening right now, builds upon a previous lesson he imparted: use precise language. “Do you want to talk to Aunt Jone?” my Mom asks him. Great-nephew hollers, “ Why are you calling her Aunt, she’s not YOUR Aunt, she’s MINE .”

Hope these lessons help you excel at intergenerational communication, they sure schooled me.

#PeaceHugs, Jone

Images:  The awesome cartoon is from VijuGroup.com. Picture of phones drawn from DiversityMBAmagazine.com. Should come as no surprise, the photo of my great-nephew is from my niece’s Facebook page.