Communication Self-Evaluation

            The biggest surprise from my self-evaluation and how others evaluated me was the fact that my husband scored me higher on communication anxiety.  My co-workers and I scored me as having mild communication anxiety while he scored me as being moderate.  At first I became upset with him because I thought he knew me so well.  Then I realized, it is because he knows me so well that he scored me moderately.  I tell him everything and how I am feeling.  I also ask him advice about situations.  It is through this open communication that he realizes that my anxiety is situational and several situations can cause me anxiety.  When I actually have the communication and conversations I am less anxious and that is what my co-workers see.  I also see that I scored myself based on the actual communication and not the anxiety leading up to some of the situations that causes me these stresses. 

            One insight that I had involves my verbal aggressiveness.  Although I scored moderate, I thought I would score higher.  Like most people I do have thoughts that stay in my head but it is hard for me to keep them there especially during conflict.  Through my scores, it shows that perhaps I do a better job hiding what I mentally think and feel.  Granted most of these mental thoughts are fleeting.  I admit in some situations I just want to look at someone and ask them what they were thinking.  Through these scores, I can work even harder to restrain my thoughts to where I do not even have some of them.  I do realize I am human but if I have too many of these thoughts, it will greatly affect how I communicate with others.  Another reason is if I can keep calm, I can find more gentle ways of talking to people and persuade their thoughts and views.  This is especially helpful in my advocacy work for children and their families.  I also need to work on my verbal aggressiveness when I talk to my providers so I can be a better coach with them.  I want to encourage change not make them do it. 

            Another insight is that I am too trusting of other people.  This has caused me problems in the past because I trusted others with information that they used against me.  I am becoming more aware of this and being guarded with what I tell people and which people I tell it to.  This affects my personal life because I keep the people I have confidence in close to me.  It affects how I interact with other people because I do not want to get hurt.  Professionally, this is good because as a professional, sometimes I need to keep my opinion to myself about situations.  I may disagree with what a co-worker or supervisor says but I should keep these opinions to myself.  If I share it with others, they may go to my supervisor, which could cause problems.  Early childhood professionals often build close relationships with the children and parents that they work with and want what is best for them.  Due to these relationships, sometimes we, as early childhood professionals share opinions that do not need to be shared with parents, such as opinions on the child’s teacher.  I have watched a co-worker do this and I get upset because she is not being professional and has caused problems with my work and the provider.  Keeping this in mind will help me stay and be seen as a professional.