My kids’ school back in Colorado had this mantra that before you talk, you should THINK – a helpful acronym to check that what you are about to say is
- True
- Helpful
- Informative
- Necessary
- Kind
My daughter recently made me a new sign to hang on our wall near our dining room table so that we can all try to remember this while we are talking at dinner. It is not easy, and I certainly don’t always make the cut – in particular, I tend to be too sarcastic. Sarcasm violates pretty much all 5 of these traits, so it is particularly bad. So I am working on that. I think that for kids, the necessary one is particularly tricky. Kids tend to interrupt a lot (at least mine do) to tell you something that is totally off topic, because they are not so good at remembering to say things at the appropriate time.
One advantage of working at Automattic is that so much of our communication is done via text. When writing, you get the opportunity to THINK a bit more before you hit the send button. This usually results in much better communication overall.