How To Become A Human Magnet

Baby and Toddler Body Language

For decades, experts have studies the importance of nonverbal communication in adults. The idea that the body has its own innate language has become so accepted in our society that magazines and newspapers regularly print articles on how to read and interpret those hidden signals we all sent out.

It is universally acknowledged that adults use body languages, both consciously and unconsciously. Studies have shown that up to 60 % of all human interaction is based not on speech but on the subtle movement, gestures, and responses of our bodies. This includes the tiniest reactions, such as the dilation of pupils or a slightly increased rate of breathing, to the more obvious signals like smiling, frowning, and establishing personal space.

Surprisingly, babies are experts on the use and understanding of body language, as they have no other means of communication. Until they learn to talk, children are completely dependent on body languages, and even after they have mastered speaking, their actions still play a massive role in their communication skills. They may not have the words to express themselves, but they always manage to get their points across. Whether summoning attentions through tears or smiles a baby can always make its wants and needs known.

For parents with new babies whether their first child or fourth – life would be much less frustrating if they could understand exactly what their infant is trying to express indeed, a child's cries can become a major source of concern. Although we try our best to comfort small children, sometimes there is just no knowing what a child is trying to tell us and we are left to fun through a checklist of possibilities: is she uncomfortable? Hungry? Tired? Scared? This is when understanding and interpreting your baby's body language can become extremely helpful.

From newborns to toddlers, children use a wide variety of gestures and actions to communicate with adults around them. Indeed, without them, caring for a child would be extremely difficult. As parents many of our responses are completely instinctive, though often correct.

Few mothers can stand still for long once they hear the distinctive cry of distress from their own child. Any parent would find it difficult not to smile back at a young baby when he or she smiles at you. From the moment it enters the world, everything a baby does helps to ensure he or she is looked after and protected by his or her parents. There are powerful biological, hormonal and physical imperatives all urging us on to cherish and care for the small, helpless child in front of us. It is our duty as parents and caregivers to provide a loving, nurturing home to give our children a sense of self-worth and confidence and also to show them the importance of understanding. We expect them to listen to what we say and to do this we show them how gratifying it is when they are listened to and understood.

By learning to interpret your child's body language, you will better understand their motivations and thought processes, and instil in them the idea that you empathise and understand them. Few things are more important to a child.

Studying your baby's body language will not only help you to better know your child, but will help you appreciate how your own actions can encourage or possibly hinder your child's development. For example, when feeding a child solid food for the first time, most people will unconsciously open and close their mouths, make “ num-num” noises and demonstrate the action of swallowing. All these simple gestures teach children more than just actions; they also teach the appropriate reactions.

Children who are taught to understand learn from and respond to the body language of others will become more confident and easy going adults. We learn our social skills from the examples set by others, usually our parents. With this in mind, you should remember to pay close attention to your own body language. Babies learn quickly, and unfortunately, they pick up both good and bad habits. If you can provide a good role model for your child by using positive body language, it will help your child to develop into self-assured and confident adult. A baby not only discovers how to use his or her own body language to interact with the people around him or her, but quickly learns to interpret the gestures of others.

As babies quickly grow into toddlers, they learn to combine their body language with their rudimentary language skills, and should they glean any negative habits from you, these will soon become apparent. Toddlers love to impersonate the behaviour of those closet to them; it is how they learn to be adults, and should any of your less admirable practices come back to haunt you, you have only yourself to blame.

Raising a child is a wonderful, exciting, testing, tiring and joyful pursuit. There are few times in your life that will cause you to laugh quite so often or enjoy life quite so much. By studying the nonverbal communications of your infant, you will not be able to read minds. However, it will give you a better understanding of how your child really feels, and what these actions mean. Anything that helps you to feel closer to and empathise with your child is well worth exploring.

Power Gesture

The attorney could also have used the gesture popularized in pop culture as talk to the hand. However, it is wise to start with small nonverbal management of another’s behaviour and increase as needed. Talk to the hand is definitive power gesture. In most Western cultures, it plainly states stop. Use it wisely and only when the situation truly calls for it.

Using a power gesture can ramp up emotions. Therefore, before you do so, consider the amount of influence and/or power you may need to gain compliance. If you choose to use power gestures, the slower the speed of the gesture and the greater the bend of the elbow, the less aggressive the gesture appears. To produce the talk-to-the-hand sign, move your arm closest to the heckler straight out from your shoulder, ending at a predetermined bend in the elbow. At the same time the arm is moving parallel to the ground, the wrist bends 90 degrees up exposing the open palm with fingertips extended. Hold that position only until the offender complies. The longer you hold it, the greater the chance of damaging not only your message but also your reputation. Consider the amount of power needed to stop the behaviour immediately, and if it’s worth the collateral damage.

Collateral damage can come in several forms: the emotional upset of other group members or the destruction of your reputation or relationship within the group. Often when the leader resorts to power, others interpret it as just as offensive as the bad behaviour the leader was trying to fix. The other members of the group will have one of two responses, “Thank goodness, finally somebody did something!” or “Whoa, if the speaker did that to him, would she do it to me?”

Depending on the group’s culture, a speaker can actually spilt herself off from the group and encourage them to protect the heckler from the speaker’s aggressive gesture or action. The opposite can also be true. Another group might applaud the speaker for taking action to stop the annoying person. The attorney could have requested that the heckler leave. She may have even raised her status within the eyes of the rest of the group if she had made the request while breathing low. It’s vital to know the most likely response and meaning of your gestures with the given group and context before gestures that assign negatives, or that can be seen as power gestures.

Rapport Establishment

Rapport is the ability to hold someone's attention and create a sense of trust. It means implementing the feeling that you understand each other; that you have the other's best interests at heart and that you can be trusted to do whatever they've come to you for.

One way to establish rapport, something you've probably been doing anyway but without thinking about it, is behavioural matching. That means doing what the other person is doing – or something very similar. If the other person is sitting, you take a seat instead of standing. If the other is speaking with a soft voice, you modulate your own. It's what we do unconsciously, particularly in a new situations: following the other person's lead, a modified form of Simon Says, without being aware that we're doing it.

By becoming aware, which means making the choice to focus our conscious attention on matching another person, we can draw the other into a sense of rapport. You do something in order to create in him or her the feeling that you're kindred beings that you understand. Behavioural matching actually increases yourself understanding of the other person because you've aligned yourself with the other, literally put yourself in his or her position, and the increased understanding isn't pretence; it's real.

This is not the same as mimicking, however, which would almost have the opposite effect and break the rapport. Mimicking someone, copying the exact tonality or gait or repeating the words back verbatim is a way of teasing and making fun. Above all, it conveys disrespect. Instead, you want to create an environment of respect and understanding with the other person.

Specifically, you match posture, volume, and tempo. If the person you’re talking to is sitting, you won’t be standing because you don’t want to be placed at a higher level; it gives the impression that you’re speaking down, and that would not be the best way relating, to put it mildly. In business, with personal relationships, or even with new, still undefined contacts, you want to start out at eye level. If the other person speaks slowly, it makes sense (and increases rapport) for you to slow down your own speech; you’ll speak softer or louder, depending on the cues you’re getting. Matching is like dancing, following someone else’s lead.

Matching creates the experience of being on the same wavelength. I’m reflecting back what you’re doing so we can dance together; my movements suggest yours; we’re in tune and in step with each other, seeing eye to eye, aligned with each other.

When you’re mismatching the behaviour of the other, you’re out of sync, moving to a different drummer. You’re using a different tempo- or volume or posture- and it’s almost guaranteed to antagonise the other person so much that your communication has no real chance of getting through.

For example: You’re a Realtor, trying to convince someone to buy a house. They’re leaning forward and speaking slowly, and you're leaning back and speaking fast. No rapport. No sale. No way.

You, the Realtor, are a city person, used to a hurried pace and to the distance city folk migh like to put between themselves. Your clients are country people, used to slower ways, more time, intimacy. If you move your upper body forward, giving the impression that you’re really interested and that you have lots of time to hear them out, and speak in a slow, deliberative way, chances are good they’ll want to buy from you. If not this property, for sure the next.

Matsumoto explains Microexpressions

David Matsumoto, PhD is an expert in reading microexpressions. He can be seen here in an interview regarding the 7 universal human emotions. For more information regarding facial expressions and microexpressions, go to http://www.humintell.com.

Pamela Meyer: How to spot a liar (TED)

Super-physical Communication

All human share some communication traits, regardless of culture gender or language. We explore these later in depth, but for now let us get to know the essential concepts so the details of body movements relate to how individual gestures might fit into a meaningful, complete picture.

Illustrators are gestures used to punctuate a statement. Examples are finger pointing; head bobbing; batoning with the hand, arm, or head; and arm outstretched with the palm up, as if to suggest you are giving something.

Regulators are gestures used to control another person’s speech. Examples are putting a hand up like a stop sign; putting a finger to the lips to ask for silence; and moving the hand quickly in a circle as a way of saying: “Speed it up.”

Adaptors are gestures to release stress, to adjust the body as a way to increase the comfort level. Examples are hand-wringing, neck throbbing, and curling the toes. People often develop idiosyncratic adaptors; they also can look very different depending on whether a man or a woman is doing them.

Barriers are postures and gestures we use when we are uncomfortable. Examples include standing behind a table, turning sideways, and sometimes crossing arms while in conversation. Everyone has seen someone sitting smugly behind a desk a appearing confident and secure.

These concepts will help us speak a common language as we spotlight body movements and reactions from scalp to sole. We will explore more on these facts later.

Interesting book about gesture