Understanding Family Communication Styles For Stronger Bonds

Communication is and always will be key. No matter if the relationship is with a friend, family member, co-worker, or significant other, communication is important, especially when it comes to building a stronger bond.

With more parties thrown into the mix, it can lead to more challenges. Each individual has their own wants, needs, desires, goals, thoughts, feelings, emotions, and more. Families can run into this problem depending on the number of members in their dynamic.

According to research, there are four different types of family communication patterns. These four patterns have different levels of two factors: conversation and conformity.

Let’s dive deeper into the different family communication styles for stronger bonds.

Consensual

A consensual type of communication involves open communication and conformity. With this family communication style, all members of a family are able to openly communicate their thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Parents are typically the ones that make any final decisions about important issues at hand.

In this type of family dynamic, parents usually spend a lot of time explaining the reasoning behind their decisions, beliefs, thoughts, actions, and more. Conflict is very much avoided as it can seem like a threat to the existing structure in place.

Pluralistic

Life lessons are a constant theme with the pluralistic communication style. In this dynamic, parents expect their children to interact and learn with people outside of just the family. In this type of style, conversations are valued over conformity. With this approach, each member of the family will have an input into coming together towards a final decision. Disagreements are welcomed and open conflict resolution is often encouraged in this type of dynamic. The children who grow up with this style are often confident, independent, and decision-makers.

Protective

Open conversation is not valued in the protective family communication style.

Parents in the protective style do not feel the need to share any of the reasoning behind their decisions.

A child with a protective style is expected to listen to and respect the decisions of their parents. Conflict is typically low with this style. Parents teach their children to follow the rules they set for them, and their children obey them. Parents will immediately shut down or dismiss any conflict that may arise.

Alternatively, children who grow up with the protective approach may not be as confident in their decision-making abilities.

Laissez-Faire

The Laissez-Faire communication style is the only style that does not value conversation and conformity. There is little to no communication amongst the members of the family. Each member of the family will pretty much do what they want. Communication and conflict are a rarity with this type of style because each member of the family will make decisions on their own.

Children in this type of family communication style will never learn the value of communication. They may even question their decision-making abilities in the future.

Family Communication

More people usually mean more complex communication. Communication is greater with more individuals, but there is also a greater chance for conflict to happen.

At the end of the day, no matter what type of family communication pattern your family falls under, it helps to make sure that you have a good line of communication that works best for everyone in your family, yourself included.

A good line of communication involves all members of the family feeling heard and understood.

If you are looking for ways to strengthen your family bond through better communication, set up a consultation with one of our therapists today.