Building Relationships By Communicating Supportively
Read the Campus Life Problem: Communicating Supportively exercise found in the “FILES” tab on Canvas. Read chapter 4 in the text titled Building Relationships by Communicating Supportively and complete the following journal. Your journal should be one double spaced page in length.
Share the following:
What are the obstacles to supportive communication in this situation?
How could have supportive communication been used to achieve a better understanding?
Have you had experiences with supportive communication? Were the experiences positive or negative?
Campus Life Problem: Communicating Supportively
Situation. Jill entered the University as a pre-med major a year ago. Because her father and grandfather
had both been doctors, it was presumed that Jill would “follow in their footsteps.” While in her introductory
pre-med courses, Jill was bored and uninterested. During lectures, she read current political commentaries
instead of taking lecture notes. During the evenings, she became quite active in student political
organizations. As a result, Jill avoided completing her pre-med assignments. Today, Jill is on the verge of
being expelled for not meeting the university’s pre-med academic requirements. Jill’s realization that her
poor performance is a result of her dislike of the study of medicine has forced her to explain to her parents
that she wants to study political science.
Mom: “Jill, we haven’t seen your report card from last semester.”
Jill: “As long as you brought that up, I’ve been waiting to talk to you about that.”
Dad: “About what?” (Jill shows her report card to Mom and Dad.)
Mom: “I can’t believe you did this to us!”
Jill: “To you? If you hadn’t put so much pressure on me to become a doctor, this never would
have happened.”
Dad: “We never pressured you. You never said you wanted to study anything else.”
Jill: “I want to study political science.”
Mom: “Political science? You will never make any money doing that. We only want you to make a
good living. We only want the best for you.”
Jill: “If you only want the best for me, why don’t you try to understand me?”
Dad: “We do understand what’s best for you. That’s why we want you to be a doctor.”
Mom: “Why didn’t you talk to us before? This is the first time we’ve heard of this.”
Jill: “Every time I tried to tell you I was afraid of your reaction. Now I see that I was right.”
Dad: “Well, fine, you seem to know all about life. You don’t appreciate that your parents are
willing to give up certain luxuries to finance your education.”
Mom: “We’ve made so many sacrifices and all we ask is that you give us respect in return.”
Jill: “I do respect you. But I have to lead my life, not yours!”
