PhD Mum

As part of my PhD education, I attended a training session on communicating research. During this session, the trainer quoted a well-known saying; that verbal communication is less than 10% of the entire communication process (the precise figure was 7%). The rest is “everything else”; body language...cadence…pitch. Communication is only 7% verbal/words Kids get this. Most toddlers don’t have a huge vocabulary but are able to understand easily the message that is being conveyed to them. In my house it is usually me stood with a hand on my hip, the other pointing at a shoe, eyebrows raised, high pitch. My kid gets it. They use the 93% available to them to figure it out. Toddlers: masters in communication. Whilst the accuracy of this 7% quote is up for debate, it still gets me thinking about communication via messages only. Particular in the world of Instagram, twitter, facebook, whatsapp…where a status/tweet/caption becomes scrutinised by all. It is part and parcel of part...

I always feel a sense of irony looking back at my ignorance of parenting before actually having to do it. The ignorance and arrogance of youth who think they know it all. I am sure 99% of people reading this with kids think this too, as we all sit on a sofa covered in baby snot and chocolate handprints. But in fairness, I had good reason to be cocky. I grew up in a large extended family (I have 30 cousins!), surrounded by babies. Before I was pregnant, loads of my friends had kids, my sister has kids, cousins had kids etc. You get the idea. I was relatively late at reproducing. And I thought I knew what to expect and that I was able to deal with any eventuality. Looking back at when my little bundle of joy arrived, the first few months are hard to recall due to a heavy mix of sleep deprivation and anxiety. But on reflection, the first two years of parenting were relatively straight forward: make sure the baby was physically looked after, remember to feed, change, &...