Relationships

Relationships are important to me because they help to give my life meaning, warmth, joy and purpose.  Most of my experiences in life revolve around different relationships.  I have a positive relationship with God, my mother, Flo, Kristin and Apple.  My relationship with God is the most important relationship.  I am often strengthened and encouraged by this relationship. God already knows all my weaknesses and failings and still loves me so it is easy to go to Him and tell Him what I am going through. I maintain it through prayer  and through reading His word in the Bible. My relationship with my mother has strengthened over the years.  I trust her to give me good, sound advice and I respect and look up to her.  Factors that contributed to this were my mother was very open with me and she was also open to feedback from me. 

Flo is a very good friend who I met in college.  She is older than me so she passed on the knowledge she knew and helped to make my time in college more fun and comfortable.  She is like an older sister to me.  Factors that contributed to our relationship were that I would go to her room everyday so I got to know her quite well.  Secondly, she was very helpful and genuinely cared about me.  Lastly, we would bond over t.v. shows and talk about a lot of different things.

I have known Kristin for a little over a year but our friendship has grown, our relationship is an easy going one.  I feel like I can share anything with her and I will not be judged.  Factors that contributed to our relationship are: we work at the same place and live in the same apartment complex.  We also have similar personalities and shared interests.  Apple has been one of my best friends since high school.  We have kept in touch over the years and have even visited each other across states and countries.  Factors that contributed to our relationship are that we have a shared past and interests.  We know little things about each other that not many people know and we have seen each other grow and change.

Challenges to developing and maintaining a relationship include:

Distance, it gets increasingly difficult to stay in touch the further you are from each other.

Knowing each other’s limits. You have to know that sometimes you need to give the other person space just to be by themselves.

Since it is a relationship it cannot be all about you.  You need to consider the other persons feelings and stance on different matters.  If one person is always the “taker” in the relationship that can be draining on the other party.

Compromise. To make a relationship work you often have to meet the other person half-way and that usually involves compromise.

A special characteristic of the relationship with my mother is that we consult each other before we make any important decisions, in much the same manner as partners.  We also share similar views on many things and our personalities complement each other.

My experience with relationships will impact my work as an early childhood professional.  It will help me know what to do in order to establish trust with the parents.  It will help me to not only gather information from parents but also to give them meaningful feedback about their children, as relationships should be reciprocal.  It will help me to communicate well with parents, communication is key to any relationship.  It will help to remind me that just as I have friends who respond to the same thing in different ways this will happen with parents too.  I need to be flexible and may need to come up with different ways to communicate with different parents. Lastly, with most relationships you get out as much as you put in.