I was reminded today of the differing tones I use when speaking to people, a bit like the tonal changes in colours.
We are all individual after all and able to adjust tone up or down dependent on our audience.
For my children, my tones differ.
T lives and breathes football, he always has done. He doesn’t respond to a quiet, soft tone, he completely ignores it, he’s more of a “come on then, let’s do this” sort of young man. Needs motivating in an enthusiastic, team-player way.
Any other way he’ll ignore or answer with sarcasm. The joys of an autism and hormones combo, eh?
For D, it’s a softly-softly get right down to her level with a gentle tone, anything else scares her. She’d bolt if she heard a loud shout whilst we were out and could she cope in the team environment that T plays in, with the banter that goes with it? She could not.
For D, as she’s travelled through her SN school, this is why she’s been more successful in some classes than others. There’s always more boys than girls in her classes of a maximum of ten and some teachers had adopted the “come on, let’s do this!” way of motivating the pupils because the majority of pupils would react better to that way. A tricky one at times and although there is a 2 pupils to 1 staff member ratio, at times I remember back to when D had her 1:1 in mainstream who was absolutely brilliant at motivating her and then I remember how D would get so anxious she couldn’t even walk into the classroom some mornings and feel grateful she’s where she’s had a chance to flourish at her own pace.
Adaption to the individual is what we need, treating the child or adult as the individual they are, not assuming en masse, it gets better results for me that way anyway.
Have you noticed differing tones work best with different people? Would love to know examples x
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