How to Improve Communication Within Your Family

Why Family Communication Is Difficult

Because family members are the people closest to us, communication can paradoxically become harder. Expectations that "they should understand without being told," roles that have become fixed over years of shared life, and memories of past conflicts all get in the way of honest dialogue.

Virginia Satir, one of the founders of family therapy, classified family communication patterns into four types: placating (over-accommodating the other person), blaming (criticizing the other person), super-reasonable (eliminating emotion), and irrelevant (deflecting the topic). Noticing these patterns is the first step toward improvement.

Practical Methods for Improving Communication

Create Regular Family Time

In the middle of a busy daily routine, opportunities for the whole family to gather and talk are surprisingly rare. Once a week, at a shared meal or during time together in the living room, deliberately create a space for dialogue.

What matters is the interval rather than the length. A short stretch of time that continues every day works better than one long discussion a month. As long as what you talk about stays at the level of "what happened today," the barrier to opening your mouth stays low. When the gaps between conversations grow, on the other hand, simply talking after a long silence puts everyone on guard, and the mood becomes "if we are setting time aside for this, it had better be something serious."

What is essential here is removing external stimuli such as the television and smartphones. There is research showing that the mere presence of devices lowers both the quality and the quantity of conversation.

Be Conscious of How You Listen

When you listen to a family member, it is tempting to offer "advice" or "solutions." In most cases, though, what the other person wants is not a solution but understanding and empathy.

With children and adolescents in particular, taking in the emotion first is the key. Empathetic words such as "that must have been hard" or "it is natural to feel that way" build the foundation of trust.

Communicate with I-Messages

Instead of "you never tidy up" (a you-message), say "when the room is messy, I feel unsettled" (an I-message). Making "I" the subject lets you convey your own feelings without attacking the other person.

An I-message is built from three elements: a description of the fact, your own emotion, and the reason for it. It comes out like this: "(fact) when you did not come home at the time we had agreed on, (emotion) I got worried, (reason) because there was no message from you."

Put Family Rules in Writing

Unspoken rules are a breeding ground for misunderstanding. For matters such as the division of housework, curfews, and smartphone usage time, it works well for the family to talk them over, decide on the rules, and put them in writing in a form everyone has agreed to.

Reviewing the rules regularly matters too. What is called for is a willingness to adjust them flexibly as children grow and as changes in family circumstances arise.

Dealing with Generational Gaps

It is only natural, for example, that the parents' generation and the children's generation differ in their values and in their communication styles. For digital natives, communication over social media carries the same importance as talking face to face.

Accepting generational differences as "differences" rather than "mistakes" is the precondition for constructive dialogue. A willingness to understand each other's worlds is the key to closing the gap.

The Limits of Improving Communication

When problems within a family are serious (abuse, addiction, severe mental illness and the like), solving them within the family alone is difficult. Do not hesitate to seek family counseling or to consult a specialist organization.

Not every family relationship can be improved, either. There are cases in which keeping your distance is the best option available. Putting your own physical and mental health first is by no means selfish.

Using the Dinner Table for Communication

Mealtimes carry a special meaning in family communication. The relationship between how often a family sits down at the table together and how children develop is a subject that has drawn interest for a long time, and reports that children in households with plenty of conversation at the table have richer vocabularies and tend to do better academically have appeared again and again. One feature of the dinner table is that it needs no "signal to start talking," and this is thought to be what shows up as a difference in how much a family talks.

The trick to getting conversation going at the table is to ask a specific question such as "what was the most interesting thing today?" rather than a vague one such as "how was your day?" A question that is easy to answer creates a natural opening for dialogue. On weekends, communication through a shared activity, such as the whole family cooking together, is effective too.

Key Takeaways

• Practical methods for improving communication
• Take generational differences as "differences" rather than "mistakes"
• Know that improvement has limits and that consulting a specialist organization is an option
• Create regular family time

Summary - Start with Small Changes

Improving communication in a family is not achieved overnight. Start with keeping smartphones off the table at dinner tonight, and with listening to what your family says all the way through.