The concept of listening to support others is basically relationship listening. In order to establish connections and make relationships grow you must listen. According to Wood (20111), being mindful, being careful of expressing judgements, being understanding and expressing support are essential to being a good relationship listener, (p.162) So let's break down the the four points. Being mindful is critical to being an effective listener. In a relationship setting we need to look for "what lies between and behind the content in order to understand what another person is feeling," (Wood 2011, p. 162). When you are listening to support others you have to be quick not to make judgements. The person is who is expressing his or her feelings to you instills a lot of trust in you and support. This leads me to my next point about being understanding of the person perspective. If there is anything that you don't agree with the person don't tune them out being understanding and look from the situation from their point of view. It's really important to see the problem from the other person's perspective. Additionally, if you don't agree with them provide them a solution to the problem. Lastly to be an effective relationship listener you must express support. The person telling their feelings and secrets from you wants your support. To be a great friend you must supportive. Nonetheless, the basics of relationship listening are important because they provide guide to how support our friends because with relationship listening how would we building a strong friendship and support.
-Sir Keithington
I really liked the way that you laid out this post. It made it really easy to read and understand. I enjoyed reading this section in the textbook also. I agree with you that understanding the other person’s perspective is important because it can enable you to see a situation from their point of view. I have practiced paraphrasing before in one of my other communication studies courses. I think it really helps me to demonstrate to the person I am listening to, that I understand what they are saying. Also, I find that using minimal encouragers helps to encourage the other person to share more. I have found that learning paraphrasing and minimal encouragers has helped me to communicate and be a better listener overall.
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