Seniors: Do You Lack Communication Skills or Is Your Family Truly Dysfunctional?

 

Baby Boomers coined the words dysfunctional to describe any and all family situations that grow out of miscommunication or perhaps lack of communication at all.  I grew up in a generation where we didn’t talk to our parents and as a result of that we never grew to know each other as people.  Each generation seems to compound this situation until it is a wonder that we talk at all.  Grandparents shake their heads and cry that the younger generation never talks to them.  It may seem that way when we see the grandkids plugged into assorted electronic gadgets and seemingly in a world of their own but the fault lies in both directions.  Grandparents who haunt their mail boxes waiting for that thank you note or card that never comes, are just as guilty of lack of communication as the grandkids are.

 

Letter writing is one of the most important communication tools available.  Letters can be a lovely gift and with the additional time afforded by retirement, parents should think about writing and receiving letters from their children and grandchildren.  If you are using your age as an excuse not to communicate it is your loss.  If your hands are arthritic and it is difficult to write, now would be a good turn to learn how to type or get a touch screen computer.  Do not dismiss the electronic generation out of hand.  The kids might seem like they are in a different world but they are still trying to learn ways to communicate, and they would love to share them with you.  A phone call is nice, but often unsatisfactory.  The written word can be shared and reread a hundred times over…writing and communicating is a gift, and people have been trying to perfect it since the beginning of time.

The USA Weekend (November 27-29) had a small write up by Melanie D.G. Kaplan about one way to implement communication skills if grandmas have no computer.  There is a service that sends family news and digital pictures from an e-mail account to someone’s’ snail mailbox for a small month fee.  The children can write and e-mail and attach photos and hit send.  The Sunnygram (sunnygram.com) collects the e-mails addressed to her and mails them out weekly (large font option).  To me that sounds a lot better than sitting and waiting for those snail communications that never come.