Communicate to strengthen the family tiesA family that talks to each other stays together. Sounds easy?
But how often does your family sit down together in the week to spend time with each other? How about breakfasts and dinners? Are you all able to match your meal times or are you catching each other by the end of the coats in the fast paced world that has us spinning us on our heels constantly?
As the family members run in and out of the house, like in a hotel, engulfed in their daily routines they slowly start drifting away from each other.
Somewhere pushed to the depths of the heart are old connections and affections with the family. Ideal conversations during childhood, encouragements received during tough times, sibling squabbles in adolescence and many a wonderful memories tug at the heart keeping the family from disintegrating altogether.
On the contrary, improper communication and bottled feelings singe the heart in such circumstances and lead to the tumbling of the family ecosystem.
Understanding how to build effective communication within the family is important as it helps build a stronger, inseparable family.
Here are some effective practices:
Communicate Frequently:With the limited time that you have with your family, make communication a common and frequent activity. While traveling in the car, during meal times, replace TV time with talking, talk to your young ones at bedtime. Keep designated time for informal family meetings and encourage conversations among the family members. Keep the cell phones and laptops in the other room when the whole family is sitting together.
Communicate Clearly and Directly:Develop an environment where the family members feel okay to communicate clearly and directly. Allow them to express their thoughts and feelings without having to mask and filter them. This is important in a parent-child relationship and sibling-sibling relationship. It also helps build confidence, family intimacy and bonding among the family members. On the other hand, veiled, indirect or vague communication is ineffective and harmful as it increases confusion and communication gaps.
Active Listening:Open and free communication flows only when it is received well and the other person's perspective is acknowledged and respected. Active listening is the cornerstone of effective communication. Whether listening to your partner or child, it is necessary to pay attention to not just the words but tell-tale signs in the tone of communication and non-verbal messages too. Nodding of the head, or words of acknowledgment like, "I understand" make the other person feel that what they are saying is valued and received. Asking questions and requesting clarifications for the parts of the message you do not understand is a very important part of active listening.
Trust and Honesty:Only when the family members feel that they can trust each other, can they communicate honestly. Trust is the key for strong familial relationships. Trust is propagated through openness and honesty.
Understanding the Individual:The way each individual of the family feels and communicates is different. The way you communicate with the different family members should vary accordingly. Especially in case of young children, as their maturity levels are different than the young adults and adults in the family.
The unspoken messages:Not everything might be said in words. Learning to read non-verbal communication such as expressions and body language are very important in understanding the entire message being conveyed to you or the parts being held back.
Stay Positive:Many complications and problems between family members can be avoided or solved by effective communication. When dealing with undesired or negative situations, it is important that the words and tonality of the communication is positive. Avoid engaging in negative communication like criticism, defensiveness or contempt. Such negative communication patterns discourage communication.Communication is essential to successful family functioning. Taking inventory of how well the family is doing and readjusting course and practices will help improve the family environment and build a happy family that shares openly and honestly with each other.