Name: Nayati Shamelin Moodliar, age 12.
Dutch-mixed Indian-Caucasian.
1.50m height.
Is wearing GREEN SHORTS, WHITE POLO SCHOOL SHIRT with SCHOOL EMBLEM.

Kidnapped on the way to school on the corner of Jalan Kiara 1 & Jalan Kiara @ 7.30am on 27th April, 2012 in Mont Kiara. The vehicle used was a black Proton Gen 2. The tag number is WNH 1356. (Police have however verified that this is a false number plate). There were two Indian male occupants in the car.

If you have news of the missing boy or any news relevant to the case, please call the school @ 03-20938604, the police @ 999, or 019-2333065 and 012-3656202.

Please go viral with this news and keep a look out and please pray for his safe return.

The official abduction page which brings the latest news on the case can be found at https://www.facebook.com/PleaseHelpUsToFindNayatiMoodliar

Thank you!

Although many adults are too busy to get involved in projects like this, because of work and family obligations, we need to understand that the well-being of other people around us and in the rest of the world are as important to us as our own well-being, because we are connected, and regardless of whether we think we can feel other people’s pain or not or whether we think we are affected by it or not, we are in one way or another.

And if we do our bit, regardless of how little our contribution, even if it’s just spreading the word through Facebook, buying the bracelet etc., it’s worthwhile and will make a difference and will shift for the better, and we owe that to our children!

And to really make an impact, I think all schools should make it as their charity project for this year and get all the students involved by writing letters and participating in whatever activities are possible etc, as this project goes way beyond anything else of recent times and will impact our children somehow or another now and in future.

I, for one, could not just stand by and do nothing and indirectly tell my children to ignore and forget about it, as that would kill their kind-hearted spirit and beliefs of being able to make a difference and bring justice to humanity.

Please watch this movie and think about how you can make a difference.

Link — KONY 2012 – Invisible Children

I believe in making informed decisions and see both sides of the coin, and many of times when action is taking towards something, there is also the other side, so I feel it’s my obligation to provide a link to a blog, which purpose it is to create some debate about IC, so you can make your own conclusion.

Critique of Invisible Children

Of course I do not support violence, and after reading the posts, I thought about whether this is in alignment with my own values and principles, but in the end of the day I am convinced IC is doing what they do from a good heart and intention and sometimes drastic measures are called for, and I think they are doing a great job in bringing awareness, which is the first step towards making a difference. And regardless of whether IC is right or wrong about their methods, for me it goes deeper than that, as I truly believe that no child anywhere in the world should live in fear, pain and suffering, and if we tolerate this, we already tolerate too much and if we turn a blind eye, this speaks louder than any wrong-doing IC could ever do, as they are just trying different ways to bring awareness and information to people, and it is a well-known truth that when people take action and tread new waters, they will always create some kind of reaction from other people, who see things differently and have other opinions.

I agree with the author of the article, as from my own experience I have established good relationships with my children’s teachers by approaching them from a place of respect, appreciation and an open mind in order to gain constructive feedback about my children’s progress, strengths and challenges without blaming, judging or scolding the teachers, even if the news weren’t always good, because in my mind blaming, judging and scolding will only lead to the teachers defending themselves, which will break down the communication between us, and that is counterproductive to my objective of helping my children progress and do well in school.

Because of this, I feel the teachers always have my children’s best interests at heart and they always support working together to help my children improve and progress according to the expectations. Many of times they even recommended additional value-added resources to my children and me to check out on the Internet at home, so my children can practice on their own to improve their skills and knowledge about the subjects they are studying in school, which will make them more independent, responsible and self-driven, which are essential skills they need to learn to be able to succeed at work in future.

In my opinion the teachers at Tenby International School are dedicated and committed to helping the students, and I think that if a child is not doing well in a subject, it is of course good practice for the teacher to inform the parents about it, but I also understand from reading the article that it can be a challenging task to tell the parents the “bad” news, and the teachers might refrain from telling the parents out of fear and worry about the parents’ response, if they from past experience have seen other parents get upset and starting to scold them instead of addressing the issue with their child(ren).

We parents must understand that we need to expect something from our children, if we expect them to succeed in life. We can’t just leave it up to the teachers and blame them, if our children are not performing as well as expected. We should instead turn around and look at ourselves and our child(ren) to assess whether we expect enough from them, whether our children are reluctant to make an effort, whether they have the right attitude towards their school work and whether we are teaching our children the right values, to take responsibility for their own things and we should stop making excuses for them, when we know that in reality our children could do more and achieve more than they do.

This was indeed a lesson for me, when I meet with my daughter’s teachers at the parent teacher conferences yesterday, and while my daughter is doing well in most of her subjects, one teacher told us that our daughter has been up and down this term in her subject, and in the teacher’s opinion she has been underperforming in a couple of tests compared to what she is capable of doing. I was quick to make an excuse that my daughter had been so busy with sports this term with fixtures every weekend and on school days too that I felt we should cut her some slack, and the teacher’s response was that she was not aware of that, as my daughter never made any excuses, but promised to do better in future.

The lesson to take away from this is to be grateful that her teacher was honest and directly told us that our daughter could achieve better results if she made a little extra effort and that she actually had respect for my daughter for not making any excuses for not performing as well as she usual does in some of the tests, and because of this article I read today, I realised that we are not helping our children succeed in life by excusing their behaviour and their underperformance and in this situation my daughter did the right thing by not making any excuses and I was too quick to cut her some slack.

I truly appreciate my daughter’s teacher’s honesty and for expecting more from our daughter when she is capable of achieving better results and even though it was the hardest to hear, it was the most educational and progressive for me, as I am a true believer in the idea that we learn the most from constructive criticism, and although it’s nice to hear the good things, and kudos to all the teachers for being able to emphasise on the good qualities of the students, I encourage the teachers to not be afraid to be honest with us parents and the students, as in the end of the day, I would much rather know if my children are doing badly in school and not living up to expectations than not knowing.

Read the article What teachers really want to tell parents here

In celebration of awareness and progress,

Ghita

Sure, it’s a huge challenge for teachers to adopt new ways of teaching and there will be resistance and objections, because most people don’t want to change or don’t like change, and on top of this it’s really difficult to change our habits and the way we have done things for years, but it’s necessary in order to tap in to the brilliant minds of children to make room for new creative ideas and innovative thoughts to secure our future on planet Earth.

In one of Sir Ken Robinson’s videos, I can’t remember which one now, but I have included all the videos that I have watched this far below for your reference, he said that research has shown that some people think better on their feet, while moving around and people learn better in groups, while talking and sharing, and here we are in most school situations, where children are asked to sit still for hours on end, expected to work independently and be quiet throughout the lessons, all which goes directly against the nature of most people.

Why do we want to work against what has been proven to be a much more effective way of learning, just because that is how it has always been done?

What if the schools allowed the students, who can’t sit still for very long, to move around before an exercise in order for them to get the concepts in place in their heads first, so it only takes them minutes to complete the exercises, instead of struggling for a long time to complete it, and get in trouble for fiddling with their pen and for moving in their seat, because they can’t sit still and for being noisy?

What if the schools allowed the students to work in groups for even simple exercises or for what is considered individual class work and to talk about the work among themselves, if that actually improved their understanding of the concepts and made them work faster, or at least to complete the work within the given time-frame, while they are enjoying themselves at the same time?

What if the schools allowed the teachers to separate the students in to different groups based on the children’s primary and preferred learning styles i.e. visual, audio and kinesthetic learners, and if these children were taught the concepts based on their preferred learning style and if they sat together with other children with the same learning style and after the initial introduction of the concept and instruction helped each other to apply the concepts based on their preferred learning style and did the exercises together?

The benefits that could be achieved from implementing this are endless and it would really make a huge difference in the lives of our children and we would have so many more happy, thriving, creative, diligent, motivated and excited students in the schools and children at home.

I just love the way one of Sir Ken Robinson’s speeches is made in to a cartoon, which really enhances the message he is conveying. Do watch the video at the following link — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCbdS4hSa0s

Some of  Sir Ken Robinson’s videos are:

Changing Paradigms – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCbdS4hSa0s

Bring on the learning revolution! – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9LelXa3U_I&feature=relmfu

Do schools kill creativity? — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

Enjoy!

/Ghita

Can you imagine the explosion of great ideas and innovation that would come about as a result of a shift in the way we educated children and changed it to accommodate the millions of children, who don’t fit in with the conventional left brained education, but who would flourish, if we implemented conducive learning environments and learning styles in schools based on this knowledge presented in the video, and which would support and enhance children’s natural abilities to be creative and think out of the box?

It is indeed exciting what the future holds, if only more people were prepared to break free from conventional thinking and were willing to try new ways!

Check out the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

My focus has always been on positive and progressive content, but this past year has had its challenges and I deviated slightly from this focus, hence I didn’t feel I had much to write about on my blog.

Of course there have been great things happening at TIS such as Tenby’s Got Talent in July, where the teachers and students really put in a lot of efforts and hard work to make it a successful and exciting talent show and other positive things happening at the school, but it has also been a year of reflection and I think the school needed time to get clear on its goals and how to move forward. A survey for the parents was conducted and discussions regarding the Parents Association took place during a couple of coffee mornings earlier this year, all of which I attended.

As an employer I can certainly relate to how challenging it is to get everything right, and it’s impossible to make everybody happy, because we come from different backgrounds and have different expectations of the school, but I think the school has to stand its grounds and move on with the vision and mission that they set out to achieve, and I trust that they are genuine in these pursuits, and I can certainly accept challenging times, as long as there are some progress to be seen and as long as the school is transparent and communicate with the parents regularly, so we are kept in the loop of what is happening at the school and as long as the school is open for discussions with the parents and are willing to listen.

It is therefore very exciting for me to see the positive changes and new developments that are currently taking place and are under way in Tenby International School and I feel I have good reason to give the school my 100% support, because they are really trying their very best to reach out to the parent community and to improving the school and themselves to show they are walking their talk. Tenby International School held its first coffee morning of the new academic year 2011/2012 on Monday 26th September 2011, which I attended and thought went very well and I will write about it soon, but I can tell that the school is progressing and new exciting times are in store.

However, for the remaining of this post I want to spend some time talking about communication, trust and expectations. Having studied communication and psychology, I know that we humans see and perceive things differently, so we might not have the same experience and perception of the school, but we ourselves are responsible for the way we perceive and approach the school, the management and the teachers and the way we are treated in return.

Nothing good is accomplished by approaching others with anger, disrespect, resentment or blame, as most people will immediately become defensive and react, sometimes inappropriately, which is very normal, as they are placed in a situation that is very uncomfortable for them. What we need to do is to genuinely acknowledge others for their efforts first and foremost, and emphasize on the positive aspects of their work and on what is going well, before bringing up issues that are of concern to us, presented in a calm, non-attacking and non-threatening manner and with emphasis on trying to find a win win solution for the benefit of all involved, because then people are more likely to help us.

We must first understand others and put ourselves in their shoes, before others are willing to understand us. It always comes from ourselves first, we must take responsibility for the way we communicate with others, and if we feel people misunderstand or mistreat us, we need to be honest with ourselves and try to figure out where we go wrong in our communication with others and then try to do it differently next time and try to improve our style of communication – the way we approach and talk with other people – until we feel understood and respected by them.

Of course the school has a responsibility to serve its “customers” and to work at fulfilling parents’ expectations, exactly what our clients expect of us, but we still need to approach the school in a friendly manner and with the right attitude, otherwise we won’t be successful with our requests.

The school is doing the best they can, and just like we would forgive our spouse for having a bad day, we have to forgive other people too, as the school management and teachers are under constant pressure to perform and live up to the parents’ expectations, and sometimes the pressure gets too much to bear, and as parents we need to step back and trust their ability to provide a good education to our children.

It’s fine to raise questions when in doubt, and give the school an opportunity to address our concerns, however we could choose to be open to the option that our concerns might be based on fears and worries about the future – what if our children won’t get the necessary knowledge, skills and results to enable them to further their studies and become successful – which is a very valid concern, but if we choose not to accept the school’s explanation and choose not to trust their ability to educate our children, regardless of what the school does then, they will never be able to live up to our expectations, because our concerns are based on fear of the future and the unknown, which only we ourselves can do something about.

So to conclude this posting, I encourage parents to trust Tenby International School and allow them room and time to work on the exciting new endeavours, which I will write more about soon.

Take care and have a pleasant day!

To peace, positivity and progression,

Ghita

Normally Higher Education Institutions expect students to have acquired these skills during the foundation years in school, and if they haven’t, this is something students are expected to learn quickly, if they hope to achieve good educational results, hence it would be desirable, if these skills were taught in the schools’ forming years, because not only does it make learning more fun and interesting, it also instill valuable and useful skills in students from a young age, which are beneficial to them in their further studies and life-long learning, as it contributes to reaching higher levels of understanding and application.

During the forming years in school, the activities and expectations have to match the students’ level of comprehension and competences, but if taught properly and from an early age, it is surprising how fast children develop these skills and thereby contribute much more to their own learning experience and to the school community, which will foster a more vibrant and conducive learning environment, wherein the students play a bigger role in their own education and the activities they are involved in.

By shifting the role of students as the passive listeners and doers to the role of the students being more actively involved in organising and participating in the lessons and activities, more capable and knowledgeable students will come out of it as a result. Students who are able to achieve the desired educational objectives, will be able to contribute much more to society as a whole from home to the workplace and beyond.

There are several processes of learning that we need to go through to fully grasp the concepts we are being taught, and there are a number of different theories and models that explain the stages of learning. One of these is Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, which include the six stages of learning and these are:

• Knowledge: the recall of specific items

• Comprehension: can recall, but can do a little more (e.g. paraphrase, define, discuss to some extent)

• Application: all of the above, but can take information of an abstract nature and use it in concrete situations

• Analysis: can break down a communication into its constituent parts, revealing the relationships among them

• Synthesis: can pull together many disorganised elements or parts so as to form a whole

• Evaluation: make judgements about the value of materials or methods

From reading about these learning theories, I have thought a lot about what I would like my children to be able to do cognitively, when they finish their forming school years, and thus far I have listed the following.

In addition to learning the basics of reading, writing and doing mathematics and all the other subjects currently in the curriculum, I want them to learn:

- how and where to search for information to gain more knowledge
- to comprehend and understand in depth what this information and knowledge means in general and in relation to themselves, their family, friends and community
- to be able to apply what they have learnt in creative and solution orientated ways
- to be able to analyze information and be able to ask the right questions using critical thinking skills
- to be able to evaluate themselves, their work and their performance as objectively as possible to understand it and themselves better
- to be able to pinpoint areas, where they can improve

If these were standard learning objectives in schools, I believe the level of children’s education would improve tremendously, which would benefit everyone on so many levels. From early on, students would acquire many useful and valuable skills, which would enable them to contribute more in future within many different areas from research to creating new inventions over improved standard of service and products, communication, knowledge management, rich media and entertainment etc.

And moreover they will be able to take responsibility for themselves rather than depending on and blaming others for any failure they may face or lack of achievements, and will also improve their level of tolerance, because they learn how to evaluate themselves and see the connection between lack of efforts and lack of success and thereby understand that they are responsible for improving themselves to be able to achieve good results in their chosen fields.

I was brought up in Scandinavia, and no one that I know of took extra tuition after school, and still today 30+ years later, it’s not common that children take extra tuition, as the children are expected to get help with homework from their teachers and parents, if they face problems, but most children manage on their own, which should be encouraged, as this in itself develops essential study skills, which will help them on a long-term basis, as they become more independent, self driven and pro-active in their studies rather than taking a passive, reactive attitude to studying, which is evident among many students, who are not used to being in charge or responsible for doing their homework on their own. And Scandinavian children manage as well in their studies as everyone else without all this extra tuition, and manage to become successful in life and at work, where they contribute a lot to their workplace’s success by being pro-active, self driven and motivated, actively involved in giving input and ideas to improving products and services, are solution orientated and capable of solving tasks on their own, which are beneficial to the companies.

If a child is required to study all the time, it only proves that the child is capable of studying and is diligent and good at following orders, but the question is whether they are capable of applying the knowledge they have gained, once they have passed their exams, since they didn’t have much time to apply the knowledge, but only to memorize the information to achieve good grades, since written exams focus mainly on assessing whether the students are capable of remembering what they have been taught and memorized.

And when it is proven that young people can only concentrate for a short period of time before their minds wander off and/or are interrupted by external sources, why are parents pushing their children to concentrate on their studies hours on end, when it really is wasted efforts, since their brains won’t be able to register all the new information and knowledge anyway. Then they might as well do other activities, where they develop other important skills.

There is an interesting article that deals with this issue, which can be found at the following link >> Why teenagers can’t concentrate: too much grey matter

From various examples, experiences and studies conducted around the world, I think we would do our children and businesses a favour by turning things around, stop the race of giving our children extra tuition till late at night and stop focusing so much on expecting our children to get good grades, and instead encourage our children to be more responsible for their own learning, independent, self reliant, pro-active and solution orientated, as these are, in my opinion and experience, much better skills and qualities for our children to acquire to become successful in future.

There is also an interesting posting on the subject of success and grades at the following link >> Do Good Grades Predict Success

The interesting thing about this posting is that the author found that it was quite difficult to measure what success really is, as success means different things to different people, and my point with this posting is not to judge other parents’ intentions, but to debate whether it is necessary for children to get extra tuition in their forming years and whether it’s worth the efforts and money in the end of the day or whether there are other ways to instill the skills and qualities they need to manage well in future.

To me success is to make a comfortable living doing work that I enjoy and to get opportunities to keep improving myself to become a better person and more knowledgeable and proficient at work and enough challenges to keep my mind working actively on finding solutions, and content, happy and grateful with what I have accomplished in life, knowing that I did the best I could to achieve my goals, and a good health to enjoy the activities I like without pain and discomfort and I wish the same for my children. It’s a personal journey and only we ourselves can find the right path for us to make us happy and content with life, and I encourage parents to ask themselves what it is that drives them and what makes them happy, as sometimes people lose track of what they really want to do in life, because of external influences and expectations.

This can be a daunting task for any young person, because choosing subjects on the basis of strengths/ability and interests and future ambitions may not necessarily be the same. For instance how do you deal with the situation where a young person shows promise for the science subjects, or at the very least the prospect of doing well in the exams, but this young person has no intention of working with anything, which are based on science, and so to him it doesn’t make any sense, why he should choose the science subjects.

But if he doesn’t choose the science subjects, he has to choose other subjects to qualify for furthering his studies, and these other subjects may be of interest to him, but not necessarily enable him to do well in the exams, hence the dilemma. My question is; should students choose subjects based on their ability to score a good grade at the IGCSE exams or should they choose subjects based on their interests, which are in line with their future ambitions, even if they are unable to score high grades? To me personally, scoring high grades at exams are not as important as choosing and studying subjects, which are based on interests and which a student feels contributes towards a future goal, because scoring high grades at exams don’t necessarily mean a successful career, as there are so many other factors at play in life.

It is this dilemma of ability versus interest that is the reason for this posting, because it has come to my attention that many international schools in Malaysia, which includes my kids’ old school, deny students the right to do an examination of particular subjects, if it is estimated that he or she won’t score a high mark i.e. an “A” at the IGCSE exam, and the students have no other choice but to do the examination outside school, so that his or her mark won’t bring the school’s average scores down.

Apparently it is a well-known practice, which parents seem to accept, as they don’t seem to challenge the school about it or is interested in starting a public debate as to why the school has this practice, in spite of it being very discriminating. It is obvious why the school does it, because in the end of the day, the school wants to have a reputation as being a place where the students score high grades at the IGCSE examinations, because it’s a school’s selling point, which gives potential customers the impression that the school is doing a fantastic job of teaching the students at a high level.

As to the last statement, this, I know, is questionable, since many parents make sure that the students get high grades by paying external tutors to study with their children years before the final exams, hence if the students get high grades, it is not the school’s credit and they shouldn’t take credit for it. On the contrary if every student was allowed to take the IGCSE exams, it would paint a much clearer picture as to how good the school is and where the school should improve, which should be the school’s primary goal, since the parents are paying to get a better education for their children.

However in spite of this wrongful practice on the part of the schools, parents continue to accept that only by pushing their kids to get high grades will they be able to take the IGCSE examinations at the school. I do know that a student can take the IGCSE exams outside the school by contacting the British Council, but in my opinion it is a discrimination towards the individual student to be denied the opportunity to sit for exams for all his or her IGCSE subjects in school based on the assumption that they can not score an A and therefore the school removes this threat in order to secure a high average score.

I wonder whether this practice violates human rights to equal opportunity and treatment or whether private institutions are allowed to do whatever they want, because there are no enforcing authorities for the private international schools, which demand equal opportunity for all students regardless of their ability to score a high mark or not.

Shouldn’t it be the school’s responsibility to ensure that students, who are not doing as well as the schools would like, get the extra attention needed to improve his or her chances at getting good grades at the final exams for the benefit of themselves and the school? Why should the school run away from that responsibility, when the parents are paying? Are the schools doing the parents justice, when they are taking our money but not delivering their part of the deal? Shouldn’t parents expect or even demand more from the schools, which gladly take our money for years, but let our children down in the 11th hour through discrimination?

I would like to raise this debate among parents of children attending international schools in Malaysia, and any comments received will be posted, but not necessarily commented by me, and I encourage other parents to setup their own blogs to discuss these issues to let the international schools know that they must take their educational responsibility seriously and give every student an equal opportunity to reach their full potential.

–> Well, I really wish you can represent me. I’ve told the principal I’ve been verbally abused. I have evidence of it. But she doesn’t wish to do anything. The teacher called me pathetic, hopeless, unsuccessful and said I deserved to be yelled at. I got suspended for sticking up for myself. Procedures don’t really count. The only rule that counts is the one that doesn’t exist; the student is always wrong. It’s very depressing. I’ve lost all faith in society now. My father agrees with them. He doesn’t know about the verbal abuse. I don’t think he’ll care. What’s funny, is that a student would get hammered for saying those things to a teacher; because the teachers don’t come here to be abused. Likwise for me, but…no. Oh well, at least a parent here cares enough to write about it. Makes me feel a bit better, because you confirmed to me it is wrong, thank you.

————————-

I wrote back to her and I hope my response was useful to her in some way. You can read my reply here.

I am of the opinion that verbal abuse should be dealt with seriously, because it can be very hurtful to the abused and cause a lot of harm, even if it was meant as a joke. In fact, lots of children and probably also adults, use the excuse “it was just a joke” to cover up what they said, which is even worse, because on top of the hurtful remark, the abuser hurts the person one more time by saying she/he is too sensitive and can’t take a joke. A simple rule is, if no one or the abused doesn’t laugh, it’s not a joke. A much better way would be to apologise.

I urge parents and teachers to teach children to think before they speak and to ask themselves before they speak “if I say this, how would the other person react” or “if someone said this to me, how would I feel” and if a voice inside them tells them that it’s probably not a good idea to say it, then they shouldn’t say it.

I also urge parents and teachers to teach children to apologise immediately, if they say something that has hurt someone, because empathy, which would automatically stop them from saying hurtful things to others, takes time to learn, especially if children have not been taught from home to be considerate of other people’s feelings and to be careful not to hurt others, and it will take time to learn how to control outbursts and start thinking before speaking and to manage anger effectively, but it is worth the efforts.

I recently bought a book that teachers children to stand up for themselves and their friends in an assertive way that don’t keep the fighting going but teaches how to speak up in a respectful way, while still feeling empowered by being able to say something back to the bully/abuser, so it can stop.

From my own experience as the verbally abused/bullied child in school, I learned that the passive or submissive approach by ignoring and waiting it out don’t work, and can actually make it worse. Unfortunately I never learned to stand up for myself during my school days, but tried to ignore it and the bullying continued. It was heartbreaking, and I cried many times and dreaded going to school every day, because I didn’t know how to handle it. I told my parents, but they just told me to ignore it, which didn’t work. Had they known what parents know today, they would have addressed the issue with the school directly to stop it or even better they would have taught me how to stand up for myself, but of course at that time, even parents found it hard to address such issues with the school and didn’t have the knowledge and techniques that we have today to deal with verbal abuse and bullying effectively.

It is because of my own experience as a victim of bullying that I take this issue very seriously as it happens every single day in all schools around the world and inflicts a lot of pain to the involved children. In teaching my own children to stand up for themselves and learn to speak up assertively, they can stop and prevent the fighting/bullying from continuing and gain the respect they deserve as individuals, which is the objective. My hope is that all parents would teach their children assertive communication, because it’s useful in all areas of life, as verbal abuse doesn’t only happen in schools, but in workplaces between colleagues, bosses and subordinates and in homes between husbands and wives and families. I believe that if more people learned to speak assertively and accepted other people’s feelings, boundaries and point of view, even opinions that are different from their own and learned to agree to disagree, there would be more peace and harmony in our relationships with other people, improve our well-being and mental state, and it may even prevent divorce and fighting among people.

Such great possibilities exist in learning how to communicate assertively. So what does it mean to communicate assertively?

There are several definitions such as:

1. Assertive communication is the straightforward and open expression of your needs, desires, thoughts and feelings. Assertive communication involves advocating for your own needs while still considering and respecting the needs of others.

2. As a communication style and strategy, assertiveness is distinguished from aggression and passivity. How people deal with personal boundaries, their own and those of other people, helps to distinguish between these three concepts. Passive communicators do not defend their own personal boundaries and thus allow aggressive people to abuse or manipulate them. Passive communicators are also typically not likely to risk trying to influence anyone else. Aggressive people do not respect the personal boundaries of others and thus are liable to harm others while trying to influence them. A person communicates assertively by overcoming fear to speak his or her mind or trying to influence others, but doing so in a way that respects the personal boundaries of others. Assertive people are also willing to defend themselves against aggressive incursions.

3. Assertive communication is the ability to express positive and negative ideas and feelings in an open, honest and direct way. It recognises our rights whilst still respecting the rights of others. It allows us to take responsibility for ourselves and our actions without judging or blaming other people. And it allows us to constructively confront and find a mutually satisfying solution where conflict exists.

4. Assertiveness is a form of communication in which needs or wishes are stated clearly with respect for oneself and the other person in the interaction. Assertive communication is distinguished from passive communication (in which needs or wishes go unstated) and aggressive communication (in which needs or wishes are stated in a hostile or demanding manner).

There are many advantages of assertive communication, most notably these:

• It helps us feel good about ourselves and others
• It leads to the development of mutual respect with others
• It increases our self-esteem
• It helps us achieve our goals
• It minimises hurting and alienating other people
• It reduces anxiety
• It protects us from being taken advantage of by others
• It enables us to make decisions and free choices in life
• It enables us to express, both verbally and non-verbally, a wide range of feelings and thoughts, both positive and negative

From the help of the book I bought and talking with my daughter about responses and ways of communicating assertively, I am teaching her slowly how to stand up for herself and her friends. And she is slowly beginning to use it and the other day she managed to stop a friend from saying something that would have hurt another friend. What she did was, upon realising what her friend was about to say, she walked over to her and firmly said ”Don’t say it (name), she is going to be hurt if you do”. And that’s it, she not only helped her friend understand that what she was about to say was wrong and could hurt someone else, but she also prevented the other friend from being hurt and she quickly thought of something harmless to divert the attention from the situation. My daughter felt good about herself for being brave enough to speak up and prevent a hurtful situation, as she knows how much it would have hurt, as she has empathy enough to be able to put herself in her friend’s shoes and feel what she would have felt if she had heard it.

While it’s good to teach children the techniques of assertive communication, parents also have a responsibility to teach their children to treat other people nicely and what’s right and what’s wrong to say and do. Parents can’t just leave that up to children to figure out, as values and manners need to be talked about and passed down the generations to ensure that children behave properly and treat others with kindness, respect and consideration.

I will continue to write about assertive communication another day and will also give tips about what to say in different situations.