Juggling Conversations: Counting Your Lines of Communication!

‘Communication let me down’ was a song aptly written by The Drowners released in 2001. This blog will provide visuals showing the difficulties teachers and families face when communicating and the need for skilled interactions.

On Friday the 14th June I had the privilege of presenting at the National Education Summit in Victoria at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. The talk was on ADHD and how it presents through the eyes of the child, parent, teacher, and practitioner.

If you go to my website www.thinking education.org you can download the slide deck for reference.

The section of the lecture on communication is one I would like to highlight as it can be applied across many settings.

In a school setting, there are two lines of communication when in a classroom, between the teacher and the child, and back as shown in the diagram below.

When you bring in a parent, you increase the lines of communication, and therefore the complexity for clear communication. Inevitably the teacher is often the person whom the parent initially reaches out to for support for their child, as it is the teacher who their child spends most of the day with.

As shown in the diagram below, the two lines of communication are now six lines of communication which is quite manageable, when things are going well.

Let’s increase this again, enter a Paediatrician, in this case, but it could be any additional person who is there to advocate or provide a service in support of the child’s educational or health outcomes. Things at this point might start to get a little tricky as the lines of communication are increasing and harder to manage.

As previously mentioned, when communication flows well, all these are manageable, but what happens when things haven’t gone quite to plan and another parent or significant family member wishes to become involved and tries to help.

And so, it continues: for every person that is added to the discussion, it increases the lines of communication and, therefore, the possibility of miscommunication.

In the case of my talk about families with a child who has ADHD, a parent who has been a wonderful advocate for their child with ADHD typically have a network of stakeholders that will include people like this: a whopping 110 lines of communication!

No wonder lines of communication get muddled and people can get very confused with all of the advice. It may not be that people aren’t communicating well, it may just be that there are so many lines of communication that it is hard to keep up and get messaging right when relaying details.

So what do we do? Here are some handy hints to keep us on track:

·         Make sure everyone understands the purpose of the communication

·         Try to articulate the desired outcomes

·         Use plain language and avoid jargon

·         Be concise, friendly, caring and to the point

·         Select the most appropriate medium for the communication, email, phone etc.

·         Use this medium consistently to avoid confusion

·         Make notes on discussions and send a quick update to all

·         Clarify understanding and summarise key points

·         Follow up and check in

Lastly if you are a parent, teacher, or practitioner be kind to yourself – no one gets it right all the time especially when so many people are involved in helping.

Perhaps 'The Drowners' were onto something!