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Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Blogpost 2 – First draft

Problem
Dear readers, how have you been?

Recently, my mother changed to a smart phone as she wants to catch up with the technology and times. The main thing that she wanted to do with the phone was to have more interaction with us, her children. Therefore, I introduced her to Facebook.

However, my mother and I had an argument over a Facebook post soon after teaching her how to use the application. She came across a post which shows a picture of a cat, but it has as many legs as a millipede has. She was so excited and she showed it to me proudly saying that if it was not for Facebook, she would not have such information and knowledge and thanked me profusely.

At that instance, I was lost for words. To laugh or to cry? In the next moment, my mouth took over my mind, harsh words came out without hesitation. "Why are you so naive? Are you sure you are my mother?" I exclaimed, bursting out in laughter. Within the split second, I felt pain on my cheeks. With my eardrums ringing, I read "so much for raising you" from her lips. Yes, I got slapped.

I did not feel that I have done anything wrong. The way that we communicate within the family is always very direct and all of us were very prone to teasing. I teased my mum like how I normally would, but I received a totally unexpected response from her. Was it because I unknowingly talked slightly harsher today? It was because I was too shocked at how my mother would even believe that a cat has as many legs as a centipede has. If it was a case of a cat having one or two extra legs, I would not have the same reaction. Or was it because my mum could not receive my message well with her own reasons?

Solution
Thank you so much for all of the comments. I like Alfin’s comment especially as he mentioned about having to pause and be grounded as one of the resolving conflict tips. It also reminded me that in our Chinese culture, manners and upbringing is of utmost importance.  I should not have let my mouth took over my mind. Thinking about how she took care of me, being my first teacher and being my mentor in my early life. I took a moment to calm down and thought about the 6 seconds model. I thought about what I have done that caused my mother to react this way. She must have been very disappointed when I slipped my mouth, implying that she is stupid. I realised that I was being very ungrateful towards her, and thus apologised to her.
My mother spent so much of her hard earn money to send me to school, to grow together with my classmates. And now that I have an education, I looked down on her for being "outdated". I should have had better EQ to be patient with her like how she was with me when I was a child that knew nothing.

Subsequently, my mum and I sat down together to talk about the gimmicks and danger that could be found online. I reminded her that not everything online, can be trusted and validation is necessary. She had to go through the process of thinking, deciphering and researching before believing an article. My mother then became grateful towards me for helping her open up to the social world. She eventually shared with me that she was also sorry for giving me a slap, letting anger took over her and it pained her heart. Then we gave each other a hug and said goodnight!


All in all, I feel that even though we will always tease each other and say things that the other person does not like to hear, we must always know when to stop. “We do it because we may not be aware of how our own behavior contributes to interpersonal problems.”(Bellafiore, 2017). Therefore, one should always be conscious of the limits. Taking my conflict as an example, it would be to know that I should not have made fun of her for giving me education. Through this step of identifying, we would be able to prevent unhappiness within the relationship with others.
References:
Bellafiore, D. (2016, April 16). Interpersonal Conflict and Effective Communication. Retrieved July 08, 2017, from http://www.drbalternatives.com/articles/cc2.html

(edited on 11/7/2017)

13 comments:

  1. Hi Eugene, thank you for sharing an learning experience that we all have to go through. It is a hard pharse of life to go through when we realise that our parents who brought us up may not be as knowledgable as us in certain areas. We will probably have to go through it as well when we become parents one day. I think we better be patient especially with the new trend with fake news when even we can be tricked by certain news articles. Hence, let us keep ourselves in mind and be gentle with new users of technology ;)

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    Replies
    1. Hi Zhen yang, thank you for taking time to read my post and leaving such a wonderful comment. I do agree with you and also foresee such scenarios with my children happening to me in the future.

      Delete
  2. Hello Eugene,

    As far as problems go, this feels somewhat minor. It's a dispute over a very simple miscommunication, yet it also feels like a symptom of a more underlying problem. Normal people don't exactly hit each other over a joke like this, even if it is uncalled for, so for this to have happened is very strange. Either your mother is overly serious or just has no sense of humor.

    As for resolving this problem, it can be done relatively easily, provided your mother is a reasonable person. The first step is to apologize. Even though she definitely was wrong to have overreacted and slapped you, you still hold a share of the blame for making such a rude and uncalled for joke. Also, it is unlikely that arguing with her over who was "in the right" is going to help the situation. By apologizing, it should be easy to defuse her anger in time, allowing you a chance to sit down and explain to her you did not mean any harm in your joke.

    Once that is done, the matter should resolve itself relatively quick. Considering how this is such a trivial matter, I wouldn't be surprised if she quickly forgets about it in a few days after you've apologized and explained.

    - Merville Sin

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    Replies
    1. Hi Merville, thank you for your comment. I find that it is very assuring and comforting too.

      Delete
  3. Hi Eugene,

    I think you could approach the problem by first apologizing to your mother. Let her know that you don't have that intention of mocking her and you felt bad about it. You can be more patient before blurting out those words as our parents are not up to date with technology and they definitely do not know what are fake news that people had shared in the internet. You can also warn her more on phishing sites, pop up advertisements and so on.

    I feel that your mother does not want to hurt you and had overreacted by doing so. She may also want to apologize for hurting you physically and wants to resolve the issue with you too. Sit down with her and have a good chat and remember to always be patient!

    -Alvin

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    Replies
    1. Hi Alvin, thank you for your comment. You enlightened me with a few good points.

      Delete
  4. Thank you, Eugene, for sharing this moment from your home life. It's clear from this episode that a minor misunderstanding can have negative repercussions. What is not so clear to me is the actual implication of some of the information that you have insinuated: If you got a slap in the face, how did you react (and did you not expect this?)? If you were slapped, was that intended to punish you for your apparently rude laughter or for the words you had uttered? Has your mother been prone to physically responding to your bad behavior in this manner?

    Overall, (and in light of our discussion in class today) I feel that a bit more detail could improve this telling.

    I also see a few language areas that need attention, but I can't seem to copy and paste any of your text so as to easily point out the issues. Allow me to suggest then that you look at some of the dialogue in the last paragraph. You need to punctuate the two questions you asked your mom as just that, two questions. There is also a problem with the sentence structure of the first sentence of the second paragraph.

    Let's work on this.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Brad, Thank you for your reply. Actually I had those questions you posed,in part 2 of the assignment which is the solution segment. I created a short and simple scenario which allows me to more leeway for part 2, as each assignment has to be less than 400 words. As an engineering student, we are always told not to use the best and most expensive solution but break new grounds with the limitations. So I feel that it should be the same here. Thank you once again for such promptly replies, I really appreciate it. Regarding the copy paste issue, I made some changes to the html coding to achieve that. Do look forward to the completion of this piece of work.(:

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  6. Hi Eugene,

    The situation that you experienced between your mother and yourself is actually common. From my opinion, I feel that the cause of this conflict is due to miscommunication between both parties- how your mother interprets your reply and the way you express your thoughts without thinking it through the consequences. In my prospective, if I am in her shoes, I would felt annoyed and frustrated from your response. Unfortunately, your reply towards the question is incorrect and highly not recommended.

    From the 10 Tips or Resolving Conflict, "Pause and be grounded"(Joyce Marter,2013) would be a better decision to make for your response by breathing in deeply to calm yourself before addressing the situation. Similarly, you can also "Become mindful of your nonverbal communication"(Joyce Marter,2013) by being aware of your body language and facial expression to ensure you are sending the correct message. Linking back to your episode, you shouldn't have burst into laughter while saying the
    harsh words as it will just hurt your mother's feeling. Instead, be wary of your behavior and it is recommended to think before you speak.

    To sum it of, I believe that further conflicts can be avoided depending on how you choose to react to it and also how the other party interprets your message.

    Regards Alfin Syarfan

    References
    Marter, J. (2013, December 28). 10 Tips for Resolving Conflict. Retrieved July 05, 2017, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joyce-marter-/conscious-relationships_b_4504510.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much for all the comments. I like Alfin's comment especially as he mentioned about having to pause and be grounded as one of the resolving conflict tips. It also reminded me that in our Chinese culture, manners and upbringing is of utmost importance. I should not have let my mouth took over my mind. Thinking about how she took care of me, being my first teacher and being my mentor in my early life. I took a moment to calm down and thought about the 6 seconds model. I thought about what I have done that caused my mother to react this way. She must have been very disappointed when I slipped my mouth, implying that she is stupid. I realised that I was being very ungrateful towards her, and thus apologised to her.

      My mother spent so much of her hard earn money to send me to school, to grow together with my classmates. And now that I have an education, I looked down on her for being "outdated". I should have had better emotional quotient to be patient with her like how she was with me when I was a child that knew nothing.

      Subsequently, my mum and I sat down together to talk about the gimmicks and danger that could be found online. I reminded her that not everything online, can be trusted and validation is necessary. She has to go through the process of thinking, deciphering and researching before believing an article. My mother then became grateful towards me for helping her open up to the social world. She eventually shared with me that she was also sorry for giving me a slap letting anger took over her and it pained her heart. then, we gave each other a hug and said goodnight!

      Delete
  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks, Eugene, for reflecting on the feedback you've received regarding this seemingly minor blow up between you and your mom. You do take heed of Alfin's reference to the idea submitted by Marter in her tips that one should "pause and be grounded" before reacting to something. Hopefully, you will be able to implement that advice in the future. You also mention the Chinese cultural norm for showing respect to one's elders. And you show how you had indeed worked things out with your mom.

    As for this 'solution' as a synthesis of detailed learning on conflict resolution, it's still a bit thin. I think that is so simply because the issue/problem itself is rather superficial: You reacted nastily in the moment to something apparently silly that your mom said or showed you, and your bad manners and insult resulted in her overreaction. This is not a very complex problem. What remains ambiguous in the telling is your motivation for acting so mouthy in the first place. Was it simply your mom showing you a Facebook post that you considered ridiculous?

    I suppose if you had explained that this reaction was a common behaviour of yours, one that had become a pattern, perhaps the story would take on deeper, more complex meaning. Or if you had focused on her 'slap' and, again, explained how she would routinely resort to hitting you, then such a problem could be dealt with in more depth. But instead, as you have explained things, they come across as a "one off," the exception rather than the rule, and thus, not so compelling.

    Let me know if you do not understand my point.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thank you so much for your comments. As I have mentioned in class, I have edited my blog post itself to make some improvement just as you suggested.

    ReplyDelete