Guideline #7: Practice Affirming Family Communication

When parents and family members communicate in kind ways to each other, everyone experience the benefits of family membership—fairness, support, recognition, belonging, affection, good ideas, and encouragement.

My name is Lane Lasater, a retired clinical psychologist. In gratitude for the life I have been given, I am sharing everything I learned during my career and personal life on my website http://www.LaneLasater.com and on my YouTube Channel Life Roadmaps from a Retired Psychologist  https://www.youtube.com/@lane205

Each post contains my written material, an AI generated graphic, a 15-17 minute audio summary, and a 5-7 minute video summarizing the material.

Here are positive communication guidelines:

• Use “I” statements rather than “you” statements, for example, “I felt hurt that you didn’t talk to me when we were out” instead of “you didn’t talk to me all evening!”
• Acknowledge positive things the other person says or does.
• Look directly at your partner when you’re talking.
• Be direct but compassionate in expressing your feelings and thoughts.
• Let the other person be responsible for themselves—don’t speak for them.
• When you say something positive, be specific about what you mean. Specifics carry a lot more weight than generalities.
• Ask for exactly what you want. Don’t make your partner guess what you need.

Begin teaching family communication guidelines to your children as soon as they can understand these concepts. Once you start regular family meetings, I suggest the first family meeting is a good place to carry out the family communication exercise below.

Family Communication Exercise

In this exercise, you practice affirming family communication skills. You carefully and actively listen to each family member, reflect back what you heard him or her say, and tell them positive things you learned or were reminded of about them during the exercise. Here are the instructions.

1. Family members sit down together in a circle.
2. One at a time, each family member speaks for one minute about an interest he/she has, explaining this interest and telling a little about what they like about it. (For example, a Mom tells her family she’s interested in houseplants because she enjoys learning how plants grow in different environments, which plants like sun and which like shade, how much water they need, and their cycles of growth and flowering plants. Having plants around gives her a sense of calm and peace and reminds her of natural beauty. In the spring she enjoys starting flowering plants indoors, then when warm weather comes, she moves them to a window box or to the garden and enjoys them all summer.)
3. Right after each family member finishes talking about his or her interest, each other member of the family gives them positive feedback about the interest they shared. Also, tell the person something good it shows about them. (For example, when family members respond to this Mom’s interest, they tell her they notice the effort she makes to make their apartment pleasant and attractive. They say her interest in plants reflects her gentleness and the way she nurtures and supports everyone. They recognize taking care of plants requires a lot of work.)
4. The family member who spoke then thanks each other family member for listening carefully to them and understanding them. (The Mom thanks others in the family. She says it means a lot when they notice and appreciate her efforts to make their home attractive. She says she appreciates the care they take with her plants.)
5. Each family member completes Steps 2-4 described above.

I suggest introducing Family Communication Guidelines and Resolving Conflict Fairly information (at an age-appropriate level) coming up as you lay the groundwork for family problem solving as needed.