The 6 Aspects
The act of saying or showing that you will not take, do, or give something in order to honor your boundaries.
What is Refusal?
The person who initiates and transmits a message in the communication process.
Who is the Sender?
Unlike conflict management, this process does not necessarily require a disagreement or fight to take place first.
What is Negotiation?
Using an "I-statement" like "I feel overwhelmed when plans change at the last minute" is an example of this aspect.
What is Self-Expression?
An indicator that someone is truly listening to you in a conversation, rather than just hearing sound.
What is making eye contact, asking clarifying questions, or summarizing what was said?
An interpretive action where the receiver attempts to understand the intended meaning of a message.
What is Listening?
Interpersonal communication requires an exchange of information between...
What is two (or more) people?
Refusal skills focus heavily on helping students establish and maintain this.
What are Personal Limits or Boundaries?
Putting your phone away, maintaining eye contact, and nodding while a friend talks about their bad day.
What is Listening (or Active Listening)?
This term describes communication that happens through digital media like texting, social media, or email rather than face-to-face.
What is Digital (or Virtual) Communication?
The transmission of thoughts, feelings, needs, wants, or ideas through verbal or nonverbal communication.
What is Self-Expression?
The person who gets, decodes, and interprets the message in an exchange.
What is the Receiver?
Reframing a refusal from "I have to..." to this phrasing helps students build agency and self-efficacy.
What is "I want to..."?
Dividing up chore duties at home or poster project slides in class so everyone contributes fairly.
What is Collaboration?
Name two settings outside of school where interpersonal communication skills are regularly used.
What are home, work, community, or digital/online spaces?
Working effectively together with two or more people to complete a task or achieve a shared goal.
What is Collaboration?
Communication involves these two primary types of skills: transmitting ideas and taking them in.
What are Expressive and Receptive communication?
True negotiation cannot occur if one party uses this to force their outcome over the other.
What is undue power or influence (or leverage)?
A student agreeing to complete their homework before 7 PM in exchange for extra phone time before bed.
What is Negotiation?
This type of message helps express needs without placing blame on the listener.
What is an "I-statement"?
Working together to come to an agreement about something, though not necessarily resulting from a conflict.
What is Negotiation?
This step happens after the receiver gets the message but before they respond.
What is interpreting the message?
This key component of self-expression allows students to explicitly state what they need in order to keep boundaries intact.
What is asking for or expressing consent/needs?
Taking a brief cooling-off period during a heated argument about group work grades before talking through a solution.
What is Conflict Management?
This key component of self-expression occurs when students explicitly request or grant permission regarding personal limits, which is vital for maintaining boundaries in health-promoting relationships.
What is asking for or expressing consent?