Family Communication Overview Essay

Introduction

Family communication has become a matter of scholarly attention. That happens because there has been recognition of its significant impact on subsequent individuals’ lives outcomes. Family communication is the most important source of socialization, which can be either effective and supportive or unfavorable. The lack of effective communication in a family can cause mental disorders, problems in socialization outside family settings, and other issues (Braithwaite et al., 2017). However, there is a number of methods contributing to the improvement of family communication. This presentation aims to discuss the impact of family relations on the process of children’s and parents’ socialization and methods of improving family communication.

Body

I. Family communication shapes each member’s development significantly (Braithwaite et al., 2017). For this reason, family communication calls for both scholarly attention and family members themselves.

Generally, scholars define family communication as a set of verbal, emotional, and functional interactions in everyday life:

• Often inseparable in real life.
• Family members are involved continuously at multiple levels.

There are two main functions of a family as an institute: economic and psychological:

• The psychological function includes the constant exchange of various information, ideas, feelings, and interests.
• Continuous exposure to this exchange leads to the mutual influence of family members on each other in the process of communication and beyond.

The family is a system of such exchanges, and throughout time, the patterns of communication become stabilized and extrapolated onto other spheres (Theiss, 2018).

• That is why family communication is an essential source of socialization.
• Skills gained throughout the family interaction determine the subsequent life course of family members.
• Scholars particularly focus on children’s family socialization since they mostly learn from a family (Braithwaite et al., 2017).

Transition

Now that you understand what family communication is and why it important, let us examine how different patterns of family communication can affect an individual’s life outcomes and the ways they can be enhanced.

Family communication can be either effective and supportive or unfavorable and destructive.

The lack of effective communication in family relations negatively affects all family members.

• The definition of communication presupposes the creation, sharing, and regulation of meaning in a transactional process (Braitwaite et al., 2017). These meanings can be harmful and dangerous to family members.
• Common forms of ineffective communication are threats, disrespect, condemnation, notation, disregard, violation of personal boundaries, and others. These are the patterns of harmful socialization, which impact life outcomes of an individual.

A conscientious communication implies considerable efforts from all the members of a family:

• Many methods contribute to enhancing the effectiveness and positive impact of family relations on subsequent life outcomes (Miller-Day, 2017).

1. Family psychotherapy is the best solution for families that exhibit harmful and unfavorable patterns of communication.
2. Creating family traditions
3. Discussing the rules and roles of family members
4. Mutual respect

• Children deserve particular attention since they inherit the example of their parents’ behavior patterns (Bernhold, 2020).

1. Children as a tabula rasa.
2. When educating children, parents are advised to avoid pressure. To exclude ineffective patterns, parents should instead show an example of what they want to see in their children.
3. The formation of an example requires a conscious and accurate consideration. Not all the examples desired by parents can be considered as effective communication patterns.

Conclusion

Summary statement: Individual achievements and failures in social and mental wellbeing can often have roots in family socialization. This process of socialization is conducted through everyday family communication. At first glance, everyday communication does not have a significant impact on our lives. However, there could be a no bigger mistake since studies show that family communication is one of the most essential causal factors in one’s wellbeing.

Concluding remarks: Effective communication involves the creation and sharing of both positive meanings and effective patterns of interpersonal communications. The meanings, ideas, interests, which circulate in a family every day can easily be extrapolated beyond family communication onto all spheres of life. That is true for patterns of communication as well; if one experiences harmful and ineffective communication in a family, they are likely to inherit them and exhibit throughout life. Luckily, there are methods of family communication improvement. To implement them successfully, we need to raise awareness among both laypeople and professionals. While the latter shows the increasing recognition of the importance of effective family relations and methods of improvement, the former seems to be a tougher nut to crack, not least because the improvement requires considerable effort. The task here is to provide favorable conditions for families to enhance their communication patterns. One way to achieve that (yet not exhaustive one) is to raise awareness through social advertising.

Visuals

(Make sure this section has a minimum of five images you will use in your PowerPoint, with an explanation below each image.)

References

Bernhold, Q. S. (2020). Patterns of age-related communication in families: A three-generation study. Language & Communication, 72, 79-92.

Braithwaite, D. O., Suter, E. A., & Floyd, K. (Eds.). (2017). Engaging theories in family communication: Multiple perspectives. Routledge.

Miller-Day, M. (2017). Family communication. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication.

Theiss, J. A. (2018). Family communication and resilience. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 46(1), 10-13.