Perseverance

SQUIRT! That’s what my four year old  son spent about 15 minutes trying to tell me recently. He has a slight speech impediment, but it was enough for me to not understand him well enough to know what he was trying to tell me. A world of emotions were flowing through me and through him: frustration, futility, exasperation — all due to the inability to communicate. Yet, through all those emotions neither of us gave up and ultimately, he was able to communicate with me. For a four year old, he certainly has an incredible amount of perseverance; I could certainly take a lesson from him.

Perseverance, the act of persisting or persevering; continuing or repeating behavior, is not a trait which small children are known to possess. Yet, although I could see the frustration in his face and futility in his body language, he continued to repeat what I interpreted as QU-UT (first u is long; second u is short). We were building robots and remote controls for the robots with LEGO bricks (my son also built a camera for his robot) when the communication breakdown occurred. As we were finishing building the remote controls, my son was explaining what his remote made his robot do. He told me his robot could “QU-UT” me (as I understood it).

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Not wanting to make a big deal about not understanding him, which could cause him to clam up and not want to repeat himself, I said, “Oh, your robot can QU-UT me. How does it do that?” He immediately corrected me when I mispronounced “squirt,” and proceeded to make a “squirting” noise, which I again misinterpreted to think he was trying to stress the “ess” sound, a sound he has trouble pronouncing. As you can already see, there was a breakdown on both sides — on his in the ability to correctly pronounce the word, and on mine in my ability to understand him and assuming what his intentions were in making the “ess” sound.

Assumption is a great barrier to communication. We all bring different backgrounds and experiences to communication, and we need to learn to leave that aside. My four year old son does not have my years of experience in communication, nor does he have a fully developed sense of background yet. He was focusing on the act of communicating to me what he wanted me to understand. I was more focused on trying to understand him than I was in trying to listen to him.

He continued to repeat himself, and I looked around to other things to try evoke the meaning of what he was saying. Among the extra LEGO pieces, there was an elephant. He grabbed the elephant and proceeded to explain that his robot could QU-UT like an elephant. I asked how they were the same and he said that an elephant could QU-UT water from its trunk. Epiphany! Squirt was what he had been trying to say all along! An elephant could squirt water from its trunk and his robot could also squirt me.

Our brief moment of physical and emotional tension was broken by an elephant. We both had a common knowledge of an elephant and that facilitated our communication. What a joyful moment for the both of us, when I finally understood what he was saying. His robot “squirted” me numerous times that afternoon — he made the “ess” sound, like a hose would make when water is coming out of it. We were able to put that lack of communication behind us and enjoy each other in a deeper way. Communication is very important among humans, but more important is understanding.