As I've mentioned in previous posts, I teach an undergraduate interpersonal communication course at a midwestern university. And, in this course, we talk about love and relationships quite a bit. Each semester, I ask my students to finish the simile "Relationships are like..." After we discussed this year's responses, which were mostly filled with baked goods references, I decided to take this activity a bit further than I have in years past. Since the theme this semester happened to be baking, I asked my students to developed a list of ingredients for relationships. "If a healthy relationship was a delicious cake, what would be the ingredients?" They ran with it. Students yelled out their opinions, they discussed each option, and they all agreed on the following list:
- trust
- respect
- honesty
- communication
- consideration
- forgiveness
- laughter
- attraction
- effective conflict management
- commitment
Then, I had them all discuss and create a list of ingredients found in unhealthy relationships. Here's what they came up with:
- lying
- greed
- selfishness
- too much conflict
- pessimism
- pride
- stubbornness
- disrespect
- jealousy
- lack of trust
I thought they did a pretty good job. What do you think? If you were making relationship cookies, what would you include?
Click HERE to read all of my "wise love words" posts
2 comments:
This was a good one. I envy your students.
I agree with a lot of these ingredients, but I also think that intimacy should also be included in a healthy relationship. If you don't have intimacy, you have nothing.
-Megan
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