Family Patterns in Communication Today, there are different types of families that lives together and they all have different rules and religions they abide by. Couples are living together and have children and they 're not married. Between 1970 and 2010, the percentage of households composed of married couples with biological children in the United States declined from 40 percent to just 20 percent (McCornack 323). The divorce rates have decreased. Genetics and heredity classify who we are and how we act. We have our mother’s and father’s genes, their genes are passed down to us so we have traits and characteristics like theirs. As we grow up, our parents teach us set of values, attitudes and beliefs. The reason why families communicate …show more content…
The family communication pattern theory has two important types of communications. Conversation orientation, the first is to describe their characteristics. Family members are encouraged to participate in conversations about any topic. Families that are high on conversation, orientation believe that open and constant communication is necessary for a good and satisfying family life. They interact often, freely and deliberately without controlling the time spent together and the topics they discuss. Having a low conversation, orientation are families that view interpersonal communication not as important and unnecessary, they don’t interact with each other and limit topic …show more content…
First, consensual families are high in both conversation and conformity. Consensual family 's communication is classified by high disclosure, attentive listening and caring for one another. Some parents are in total control of their children’s attitudes, behaviors and interactions. This type of family likes new ideas and the parents are more involved in their child’s life. If there is something they cannot do because of their belief they try to let the kid’s understand. When conflicts come up they agree to disagree, meaning they work things out. In consensual families they have a high disclosure and care about
A family is a group of people consisting of the parents and their children who live together and they are blood related. The family is always perceived as the basic social units whether they are living together in the same compound or at far distance but are closely related especially by blood. Therefore, the family unit has had a great influence on the growth and the character traits possessed by the children as they grow up and how they perceive the society they live in. the family also shapes the children to be able to relate well with other people that are not part of their family and with a good relationship it impacts to the peace achieved in country. This paper addresses the reasons as to why the family is considered the most important agent of socialization. It’s evident that families have changed over time and they have adopted different ways of living. This paper also tackles on the causes of the dramatic changes to the American family and what the changes are. Different people with different race, gender and preferences make the family unit and this makes the difference in marriages. This will also be discussed in this paper.
Traditional family in today’s society is rather a fantasy, a fairy tale without the happy ending. Everyone belongs to a family, but the ideology that the family is built around is the tell tale. Family structures have undeniably changed, moving away from the conventional family model. Nowadays more mothers work outside of the home, more fathers are asked to help with housework, and more women are choosing to have children solo. Today there are families that have a mom and a dad living in the same home, there are step-families, and families that have just a mother or just a father. Probably the most scrutinized could be families that consist of two moms or two dads. These are all examples of families and if all members are appropriately happy and healthy then these families are okay and should incontestably be accepted. So why is the fantasy of the traditional family model still so emphasized in our society? This expectation is degrading and misleading. Progressing with times one ought not be criticized or shunned for being true to their beliefs. It is those living falsely, living as society thinks they should that are the problem. Perhaps as a society, if there were more focus and concern for happiness and peace within ones family and fewer worries for the neighbor then there would be less dilemma.
What's important to note is that family, or even the concept of family itself, doesn't appear in any of those ideals. Holmes and Holmes (2002) observed that “The family reunions of yesterday are now rare, and when they occur they are often a source of stress.” (p. 19) That quote solidifies one reason why family interaction today is: “It’s just too stressful, so we avoid it. Where does marriage fit into our culture of individuals?
In addition to promoting communication between themselves and their kids are more prone to focus on promoting healthy communication between themselves and their children as well as encouraging communication between all of their family members. Families involved in churches have stre...
Society seems to have many different opinions when it comes to relationships and families and what is ideal. The ideal family may not exist anymore. We now have in our society families that are complete that do not necessarily contain the traditional material. The traditional family, as society would see it; usually consist of a married, mother and father and usually children. Moms are supposed to stay at home while dads work the forty-hour a week job. However, in our 2003 world, families exist in a lot of non-traditional ways. A lot of families now consist of single parent families, or same sex parents and their children, or even couples that are unmarried but live together. And even now, if a family contains what society sees as traditional as far as having a mom, dad, and kids, other aspects are not traditional anymore. Women now have more opportunity in the workplace than they have ever had, therefore, many moms are career moms and dads are sometimes staying at home. Years ago, these types of families were given labels for being dysfunctional or abnormal, however, this label is not holding up as well as it did years ago. There are many non-traditional families that are raising children in a loving, nurturing home with a substantial amount of quality love. Quality is the key in any relationship between anyone. Society is finding out that it is not the traditional image that makes a loving family, but the quality of a relationship that people give to each other is what really makes a family. In the essay "The Myth of the "Normal" Family", written by Lousie B. Silverstein and Carl F. Auerbach, they make references to the cultural idea of what a "normal" family should be and what i...
This paper will examine sociological theories and how they relate to the social institution of the family. We typically view society as a group of people, but in sociology, society is not a group of people but a social organization. People are molded by society to fit within the accepted societal bounds. Society must be understood using “the meanings that people put on their values and beliefs” (Bartle, 2010). Within sociology there are three major perspectives. These are the Functionalist, Conflict and Interactionist Perspectives. Each perspective views society in different manners, with each being correct and relevant since social institutions are too complex to be defined by any one theory. Each perspective will be used to explain the perspectives’ relevance to the family.
Family members’ ability to effectively express their emotions, insights, and ideas to each other reflects how well members relate to each other, and how well the family functions as a whole. According to Kirst-Ashman & Hull (2012) assessing communication patterns within a family is crucial to the planned change process that must occur in order to assist families reconcile their problems in the best possible way (p.331). There are various facets of communication in addition to verbal and nonverbal communication. There are at least five different paths of communication, referred to as avenues of communication, which include: consonance, condemnation, submission, intellectualization, and indifference (p. 331-332). An assessment of the various facets of communication used by a family is useful in indicating where change is
Since the beginning of time there have been parents, caregivers, or people who have taken care of children or those who play an important role in the upbringing of children from birth to adulthood. According to Webster’s online dictionary parenting can best be described as the act of taking care of a child or someone with a mother, father or someone other than a mother or father in that particular role. Parenting styles, however are those practices that have been “typically categorized as the parents’ interactions with their children”, as introduced by Basset, Snyder, Rogers and Collins (2013). These interactions tend to be focused on a response of a child to help promote and support physical, emotion, social and intellectual development,
Families in the Americas have dramatically changed over the past 60 years. As the years go by, they continue to become more diverse. The functionality and structural beliefs of a family have great effect to this diversity, becoming dependent of the cultures that are made up of this function.
Analyzing psychology as a science, mapped out the theoretically plausible developmental changes in parent-child communication. Developmental psychology is the study of how and why an individual change over time. As a parent and child develop individually, many skills and behaviors increase and decrease. In this case, their communication seems to have a downfall as
"A family is a small social group of people related by ancestry or affection, who share common values and goals, who may live together in the same dwelling, and who may participate in the bearing and raising of children. They have a physical or emotional connection with each other that is ongoing" (Vissing, 2011) and is the foundation of all societies. They can be formed by a grouping of father-mother-children or even more complicated combination of relatives. In the primary stage of family life in the United States, everyone from every generation lived together in one house. Subsequently, the idea of traditional family evolved and a married couple with children is at present, often called the traditional family. There are many types of families; however, this paper will focus on the traditional family. It will describe how the functionalist perspective, conflict perspective, and the interactionism theory apply to the sociological institution known as a family. It will explain some of the similarities and differences between the sociological theories in regards to families and how they affect the family members.
Given how much time my family spent together growing up, you would think that we would have learned to talk to each other somewhere along the way. And although some families that have learned to talk, listen and respond to each other, my family still demonstrates it Laissez-Faire communication style. My family was always quite dysfunctional when it came to communications, or at least it seemed that way every time my mother remarried. After my mother’s first marriage, I was termed an only child after the passing of my little ...
The family is a societal institution which initiates the positive and negative process of social interactions between people. Over the last few decades what constitutes the family has changed all over the world. Family in today’s environment is diverse in nature and may go beyond the scope of parents and children. Families can consist of variations in relationships such as close relatives, stepparents, half siblings and extended non-biological family members. Normally, immediate family members live in the same house, nearby, until the child reaches a specified age and maturity to go into the world and start their own family. Most often members of the families have intimate and personal relationships with each other. Within the family there is a continuation of social interactions between members that can influence and shape peoples responses and reactions to their larger societies.
The family communication pattern consists of two primary dimensions. They are family’s conversation orientation and the other being family’s conformity orientation. Conversation orientation refers to the degree to which family communication patterns are characterized by an open and unrestrained exchange of ideas. In contrast, conformity orientation refers to the degree to which family interactions are characterized by an emphasis on homogeneity of attitudes, values, and beliefs (Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2002). All the families fall either in high or low combinations of these two orientations. Depending upon what the family falls, there are four types of patterns. They are- consensual, pluralistic, protective and
There are so many different types of family relationships. Whatever form a family takes; it is an important part of everyone’s life. My family has played an important role in my life. Good family relationships serve as a foundation to interactions with others. Supportive families will help children to thrive. The quality of the family relationship is more important than the size of the family. Making the relationships priority, communication, and providing support for one another is key to developing relationships. Family relationships are what make up our world today; they shape the ways that we see things and the ways that we do things.