Family Communication conflicts and importance

At the family level, communication is key in building strong interpersonal relationships among family members. Every individual’s social needs are initially satisfied at the family level before they move on to a wider communal level. As a result, efficient and effective communication at the family level is highly significant in preparing an individual for future social interactions. This essay will highlight the significance of communication at the family level. It will explore different aspects of communication at this level and highlight the effect these aspects have on the general family system. This system is made up of parents of the same gender and their children who are adopted in most cases. These are modern family structures that differ from each other and have significant consequences on the level and scope of communication.

In some cases, family set-ups include relatives to the basic family unit. These are extended families and form a different type of family unit. Communication behavior is recognized as a subset of one’s personality. Through their research, family communication was characterized into four different types. These include protective, pluralistic, consensual and laissez-faire (Chafee & McLeod, 1972). The difference between the different family communication patterns lies in their level of communication and conformity. Families that are identified in the consensual category often encourage their children to voice their thoughts and feelings. These families promote openness, however, the parents or adults often expect the children to follow through with their wishes and end up discounting the children’s opinions (Chafee & McLeod, 1972). This type of families allow children to speak up and make their decisions with little or no interference from the parents.

Parents in this family type may feel that they are raising independent children who are able to communicate clearly. On the contrary, children in these families do not feel involved in the family unit and communication between members is often minimal (Chafee & McLeod, 1972). Children from each of the four family types often adhere to the communication styles developed within the family level (Fitzpatrick, & Vangelisti, 1995). In a few cases, children branch out and take on other communication styles. Similar to the society, a family has various dynamics that influence family conflict. However, unlike the society, the family unit is often closer than other social units and as such, manages to deal with the conflicts that arise. Communication plays a key role in the development of family conflict and the resulting subsidence of the conflict (Galvin, Braithwaite, & Bylund, 2015).

As a result, the entire family conflict theory depends on the level at which the family can communicate. In any family unit, the roles of each and every member of the family are well designated. This is due to the fact that they do not allow their children to make personal decisions and expect them to conform to their parents’ decisions. Families with pluralistic communication patterns have less conflict as both the parents and children communicate towards a common goal. Consensual family communication pattern witness intermittent conflicts that are solved within a short time. This id due to the fact that the parents allow the children to take control of some aspects of their lives. The laissez-faire communication pattern does not raise conflict due to the complete autonomy parents extend to their children.

They may end up adopting these traits and applying them in their future social interactions. This dynamic becomes more complex in cases where the family unit is not basic. These aspects can be broken down into competence, non-competence, submissiveness and aggressiveness as identified by Richmond and McCroskey (1992). Competent individuals have high assertive and responsive skills. Non-competent individuals have low assertive and responsive skills. Four family types have been identified on the basis of conformity orientation and conversation orientation. Conversation orientation describes the ability of an individual to express themselves. Conformity orientation, on the other hand, describes the ability of an individual to conform to social norms during conversations. Conversation orientation has a direct influence on an individual’s communication apprehension, while conformity orientation is developed further under the socio-communicative styles.