From The Daily Dialogue
From The Daily Dialogue
Broadcast of 9/11/98
Subject: [DailyDialogue #252] Auto Games
"I have an idea for a game, would you like to hear it?"
-- Eddy, suggesting an communication intervention when family communication becomes one-sided
Traveling for several hours in a car can be tiresome for everyone, especially if the patterns of communication and activity aren't very satisfying. I've witnessed an amazing transformation in our family communication patterns when Eddy has organized games that require communicating, listening and mirroring.
The most recent example involved a deck of cards, which Eddy had obtained from a John Gottman seminar. Each card has a personal question on it. The game is simply to take turns drawing a card and answering the question on that card. Eddy added a requirement that the previous person in the circle mirror the next person's answer. Rather than being tedious, the mirroring requirement added the challenge of focusing attention in order to avoid missing any of the details that were spoken.
Experiment: Make up a family dialogue game for those tedious long trips when people tend to become bored or boring.
Affirmation: Adding structure to our interaction often increases the depth and our enjoyment of that interaction.
The Daily Dialogue is published each day of 1998 by e-mail. Copyright 1998, Eddy Brame and Marty Crouch, All rights reserved.
