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Building rapport with older people is akin to making friends with acquaintances. The communication process is not very different. What's different is the mindset of older people. Therefore, we need to know the mindset of older people before we are able to communicate with them successfully.

However, for those of us who are young, we will face challenges in understanding them (since we have not reached that level of maturity yet). Does that mean that the younger generation will not be able to understand or relate to older people? I will say no. It is still possible. However, efforts must be put in when getting to know older people better.

Having worked for several years in the social service sector, I will like to share some of my thoughts with you in this area. The suggestions below can also be adopted by mature readers of this article.

Throughout my interactions with older people, I have realised that they take to people who are very respectful towards them. While most of us are respectful towards older people, it will be advisable to show a higher degree of respect towards older people. For the younger generation, this may be attributed to the fact that most of the older people often hold the perception that they are more senior and hence have seen more things in life than the younger generation. Thus, they are deserving of being respected by the younger generation. It will be good to note that this does not imply arrogance in any way on the part of the older people but merely the fact that older people like to be acknowledged for their existence and contributions to society.

Now that we understand that the older people wants to be recognised, I will highlight another thing that we can do to establish rapport with them, alongside being respectful. That is, we should try to engage them in conversation. Most of the older people like to converse with people, especially with the younger generation where they have an intention to impart their knowledge and wisdom to them. And when we engage in conversation with the older people, we must listen intently and heed their advice if appropriate. It is important to note at this point that listening merely for the sake of listening will not win their respect and the chances of them liking us will be very slim. We cannot pretend that we are listening not only because it is disrespectful and rude, it is also due to the fact that older people are strong observers and they can detect any form of hypocrisy. Once they realise that we lack sincerity, there will be a psychological barriers in our subsequent effort to communicate with them. So, we must be sincere in our intentions.

Older people also take to individuals with a strong altruistic nature. This means offering assistance to them whenever possible. While most of us like helpful people, this is especially so for older people. I believe one of the reasons can be attributed to the fact that most of the older people's health and fitness are not as good as before. Hence, they felt a sense of gratitude when help is offered to them. Once again, we should be helping them willingly.

As can be observed in both the act of communicating with the older people through active listening and helping them earnestly, sincerity is the key factor in establishing, maintaining and increasing rapport with older people.

Therefore, if we want older people to like us, treat them with humility in all aspects of our communications with them.

Learn more about this author, Patrick Tay.
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