Communication Skills

During my service-learning experience I feel like my communication skills have changed because I’ve had to communicate with a range of people. There were many adults who were authority figures to the kids as well as myself where I had to figure out when the appropriate times were to be professional with them and then when it was okay to be more comfortable, as if they were my friends. I have had other jobs before but not where I would have to watch for kids standing around me all the time because kids should not listen to exactly what you’re saying all of the time. I have learned more about becoming comfortable with people when you first meet because there were many other volunteers who would come and go throughout the time that I volunteered. I found myself being able to start conversation a lot easier also. I think a lot of the reason why was because I became more comfortable with the location. Another reason for why I believe my communication skills have changed is because I haven’t had to much experience with young kids and when I volunteered at Head Start I got to spend a lot of time interacting with the kids. When you work with kids you need to have another voice and also be very patient. At first it was hard to understand this and figure out how to deal with it. There was also the situation of how to deal with the children who would goof around or not pay attention and cause trouble for the rest of the children. As an adult figure to them, you could not start yelling because then the kids would copy you and not understand what they’re doing wrong. Instead, you have to stay calm and figure out the problem and also try to solve the problem right there so it doesn’t happen again. My communication skills have been changed a lot because of all the different range of people that I volunteered with.
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