How to improve your communication with your family
The subject of your communication with your family as part of how you relate to them is one of the most important aspects that influences all of your relationships. In the next article, we will look specifically at ways to improve the quality of communication with your family of origin, as well as with your own family.
Family of Origin
Your mother, father and siblings form your family of origin. The relationship structures you currently have in your life will be heavily influenced by how you learn to relate in your family of origin. Communication is just one part of that relationship.
your own family
Your husband or wife, partner, your children and grandchildren form your own family. It is here that you bring your beliefs and programming about family, relationships and communication, which you picked up in your family of origin. They play their own version of relating to each other, which may be an adaptation or a rebellious opposite version of their family of origin.
Communication is not only in words.
Communication is the way we interact with each other. It’s important to remember that communication happens on many levels, from non-verbal body language to the verbal part with the words you are using and the tonality with which you pronounce them. More than half of communication occurs without words. Just remember all those messages you received from your mother and father that were conveyed only with looks, shrugs, arm movements, or even kicks. Which of those do you currently use in your own family?
Awareness brings choice
The first step in improving your communication is awareness of all the positive and negative programming you learned during your upbringing. The second step is, now that you are an adult with conscious choice, to rethink your programming and start making your own decisions.
Become a clear ‘me’ in the ‘we’
As an adult, you have the right to have an adult-to-adult relationship with your mom and dad, which means you can have opposing opinions or values. Knowing that in yourself doesn’t necessarily mean you have to discuss every situation you disagree with. Some are best left aside, while others should be openly clarified, especially if in the past you may have undermined your own needs for the sake of parental approval. Communications such as: ‘No mom, I really don’t want you to smoke in my house and in front of the children’ mean that you are more clear about who you are, in your own identity and with your own values, instead of just being a daughter or a son that you need to follow the ideas of your parents.
In your own family you will now realize, as an adult, what it means to relate and communicate with your partner, children, etc. Suddenly, you may come to better understand the challenges your parents had with you, your siblings, and each other.
Remember that upgrading the relationships within your family of origin, which means bringing more honesty, clarity and truth in communication and becoming a clear ‘I’ (self identity) in the ‘we’, will allow you to relate better in your own family, as well as with friends, colleagues and associates.