Family Communication Types

Family Communication

• Communication is verbal and non-verbal behaviors in and between a family and its environment
• Healthy communication within the family takes time, but builds trust and strong connections
• An atmosphere of safety and security helps family members feel valued and loved

Types of Family Communication

• Consensual communication balances conformity and conversation, using all conflict styles from the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (collaborating, accommodating, avoiding, compromising, competing)
• High conversation and conformity levels exist
• Pluralistic communication has high conversation and low conformity levels
• Open dialog, conversation leads to collaboration and compromise
• Every family member is valued equally
• Protective communication (family shared social reality - FSSR) prioritizes an authority figure's beliefs, leading to high conformity and low conversation
• Family members conform to be accepted
• The primary conflict style is competing/dominating
• Laissez-faire families have low conversation and conformity, leading to emotional detachment and independent choices for children

Family Decision Making

• Family group decision-making involves family members deciding how to care for children and planning services
• Decision-making helps families work toward common goals
• Excluding members may lead to conflicting individual goals

Types of Family Decision Making

• Instrumental rationality focuses on the most economically efficient decision, ignoring morality
• Affective decisions relate to feelings, such as marriage, and involves family values, roles, and goals
• Social decisions relate to family values and roles
• Decisions about one parent staying home with preschool children can be made
• Focus placed on utilizing and gathering resources
• Environmental/economic decisions involve production, distribution, exchange, consumption, saving, and investment for private (individuals/organizations) and public (societal) goals
• Technical decisions are smaller decisions needed to carry out a main decision

Family Challenges

• Family conflict is the active opposition between family members and can be verbal, physical, sexual, financial, or psychological
• Addressing conflict can resolve problems and improve relationships
• Parents must keep conflict healthy
• Addressing conflict raises awareness and leads to positive change

Types of Family Conflicts

• Extramarital affairs are romantic or sexual relationships or passionate attachments outside marriage that can last through marriage, divorce, and remarriage
• Financial difficulties and economic hardship include job loss, loss of homes, cars, retirement accounts, savings, and health insurance
• Communication failures involve yelling, grudges, secrets, blaming, the silent treatment, threats, and labeling
• Parenting issues are difficulties parents face raising children like childcare, schooling, discipline, chores, routines, finances, and work-family balance

Family Resolutions

• Family dispute resolution is an out-of-court process to solve issues such as parenting, child support, and property issues
• Unresolved conflicts can cause arguments and resentment and that ongoing conflict is stressful and damaging

Types of Conflict Resolution

• Avoidance means not satisfying your or another's concerns, showing low assertiveness and cooperation
• It delays issues and avoids disagreements at all costs
• Communication within the family allows members to express needs and concerns and enables love and admiration
• Active listening leads to understanding, strengthens relationships, and solves problems
• Reflection helps children develop life skills and confidence by mirroring their own thoughts
• Acceptance provides a positive environment through togetherness, problem-solving, and understanding, and assistance when needed

Family Abuse

• Domestic/family violence is violence/abuse in a domestic setting like marriage/cohabitation, including intimate partner violence and violence against children, parents, or the elderly
• This encompasses physical, verbal, emotional, economic, religious, reproductive, or sexual abuse; can range from subtle coercion to murder
• Domestic violence is a societal and health problem with negative impacts
• Violence against children can be physical, sexual, or emotional, online or offline, with long-lasting impact on their lives, hindering learning, and reducing self-esteem, school attendance, and academic achievements

Types of Domestic Violence/Abuse

• Neglect is not meeting a child's basic needs
• Physical abuse involves violence like hitting, kicking, or choking
• Parents may find it hard to control their anger and children may develop injuries
• Harassment and Sexual abuse involves unwelcome behavior that is offensive, humiliating or intimidating
• It can be written, verbal or physical, and occur in person or online to anyone
• Verbal/emotional/psychological abuse uses words/behaviors to manipulate, including insults, humiliation, ridicule, the silent treatment, and threats
• Name-calling is unhealthy, whether obvious, disguised, or habitual
• Condescension is belittling to feel superior
• Criticism is harsh and persistent to chip away at self-esteem
• Degradation seeks to make somebody feeling bad, using humiliation and shame
• Manipulation attempts indirect control
• Blame leads you to believe that you bring verbal abuse on yourself
• Accusations, withholding/isolation, gaslighting, circular arguments, and threats are all types of emotional abuse

Neglect

• Neglect fails to meet basic physical, emotional, educational, and medical needs
• Physical neglect might look like inadequate food, clothing, shelter, supervision, and protection from potential harm
• Emotional neglect might look like a general lack of affection, love or other types of emotional support

Parental Abuse

• Parental abuse includes violence from children towards parents and is under-reported
• Child abuse (parental abuse of children) is maltreatment by an adult that is violent or threatening like neglect
• When the abuser is a child's parent or caregiver this is considered domestic violence

Republic Acts and Executive Orders for Violence in the Philippines

• RA 7610: Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act
• EO No. 209, S. 1987: Family Code of The Philippines
• RA 10368: Providing for reparation and recognition of victims of human rights violations during the Marcos regime
• RA 9710: Magna Carta of Women, comprehensive women's human rights law, eliminates discrimination against women
• RA 7192: Promoting the integration of women as full and equal partners of men
• RA 9262: Addresses violence against women and children (VAWC) by intimate partners