How Communication Changed My Life

By volunteering for Tabitha and serving elderly residents at both the Cove and the Seagren houses changed my life for the better. I chose to volunteer with the elderly because they are a population that I do not have much experience working with. Having two elderly grandmothers, both turned 93 this year, I have some experience with this cohort but not a lot. Right off the bat I realized that communicating with each resident varied depending on their communication ability and I had to learn to adapt both how I communicated and how I listened to them communicating to me. A few of the residents were unable to communicate in the traditional manner such as speaking because they had suffered a stroke, had dementia, Parkinson’s, or they did not speak the English language which meant I needed to adapt my listening skills and learn how to be a more effective active listener and communicator to them. I soon learned to listen with my eyes instead of just using my ears by watching for non-verbal communication actions such as facial expressions, body language, finger pointing and eye …show more content…
This activity happened on my first volunteering day with Tabitha and I was nervous. Nervous because I did not know any of the staff or residents, nervous because I did not know or understand each person’s abilities nor the usual flow of how things worked so for a few minutes I just sort of hung back and didn’t engage in conversation with anyone. Then I remembered I was working on self-concept/self-esteem and servant leadership so I decided to just jump in head first and start talking with everyone at the table and also asked how I could be of service. Next thing I realized I things were going smoothly and everyone made me feel as if I was an old friend just popping in for a little visit. This experience made me feel welcome and helped me to improve my self-esteem and servant