Improving Family Communication:
How Counseling Can Help

It is natural to want to build lasting, rewarding relationships with your family members. Through our relationships with others we can meet our social need for connection. Many will identify their family relationships as the most rewarding, however, this isn’t true for everyone. While family can mean love, it can also mean conflict and complicated emotions.

Having healthy family relationships can be a difficult task, especially when life presents its challenges to your family, such as the expectations of being a “perfect” parent, sibling rivalry, financial constraints, illnesses, and the loss of loved ones. These factors can become sources of anxiety, emotional apprehension and dissatisfaction, which can quickly escalate into bigger conflicts. If your family is struggling, you aren’t alone, family counseling can help.

The Value of Family Communication

Effective communication can be the key to creating a strong and nurturing home environment, both in good times and bad. Recognizing the importance of family communication, however, may not be enough, if someone is experiencing conflict, strain or hardship, a more conscious effort can be what is needed. Some family issues can cause members to withdraw or misunderstand each other, and there may be other challenges, such as substance use, which can make things worse.

Improved communication is more than just a way to resolve conflict; but it can be an efficient approach to strengthening relationships and improving understanding. An open and honest atmosphere in which it’s easier to express thoughts and feelings can lead to healthier relationships.

The Effect of Poor Communication in a Family

Every family is unique and has different ways of interacting with each other. While good communication can come in various forms, poor communication can manifest itself in a lot of harmful ways. This can include:

Abusive speech, screaming, foul language, or name calling
Blaming
Refusing to talk to each other or “the silent treatment”
Labeling a child as disobedient, instead of focusing on the undesired behavior
Keeping too many secrets
Sarcasm
Using passive-aggressive statements, threats or ultimatums

Research shows families that chronically use poor communication are identified as less likely being close to one another (Samek, D. & Rueter, M., 2011). These complications can be magnified when family members also experience the following symptoms:

Withdrawal
Depression
Irritability, angry outbursts and mood instability
Inaccurate perception of others words and actions (which can lead to anxiety or paranoia)
Unreasonable demands of others
Lack of concern for others
Misinterpretation of common social cues, such as facial expressions or gestures
Failure to meet obligations
Frequent lying or breaking promises

Ideally each family member will want to work on improving communication and resolving conflict. This can lead to quicker resolution, however, this isn’t always the case.

Emphasizing the Need to Talk

Poor communication can escalate individual stress into shared problems among family members. For example, other siblings may feel neglected, ignored, or jealous if parents devote special attention to one child. These negative feelings can manifest as behavioral trouble at school and outbursts at home. These feelings may also cause a sense of guilt for the parents. Breakdowns in communication are also a risk factor for divorce, marital separation, and behavioral problems in children.

The challenges you may be facing, can develop into a variety of emotional and behavioral challenges. Without an opportunity to openly express undesirable feelings, it can become difficult to properly identify the contributing factors that are hurting your loved ones. Family counseling can help provide an environment conducive for members to talk and listen to one another.

The importance of communication is not only about identifying sources of tension at home, but addressing each situation accordingly. Adults may be aware of a stressful situation, but may not be aware that some of their words and behaviors are negatively affecting others. Parents may communicate effectively with one another, but not with their children, which can lead to confrontations, angry outbursts, and inconsistencies.

Family counseling can be a healthy starting point for each member to fully share what they feel and experience. It can allow for the expression of unconscious messages shared through their behavior. While talk therapy is an effective way to reduce negative feelings and resolve conflict, counseling can also be beneficial in better understanding nonverbal exchanges, and developing self-awareness of how our actions may be sending different messages.

Facing Life’s Obstacles as a Family

Families that have gone through a trauma together can usually identify the source of their mutual distress. Although each member may be profoundly affected in different ways, the residual hurt can be resolved through family counseling. Family counseling offers many effective skills, including improved communication skills.

Family counseling may also be beneficial in helping everyone learn how to effectively communicate throughout the healing process. A counselor can help you develop the right skills to enable members to encourage each other on a collective journey to recovery. The constructive behaviors displayed within this healthier environment creates more harmony and can enable early intervention if warning signs become noticeable.

Learning to Communicate through Counseling

We may not be able to choose our family but we can have healthy, rewarding relationships with them. These relationships may be grounded in unconditional love, but some events can upset that. A household that fosters open expression of emotions and feelings, may be more capable of facing challenges while being there for each other through listening and sharing.

There may be times when your usual methods are not working, and the help of a family counselor may be necessary. Therapy can help you to develop additional skills allowing for stronger, more meaningful connections. Counseling can be both an important and rewarding decision.

If you feel that your family is having difficulty communicating with each other, and you want to create a more positive environment, call CCS. Carolina Counseling Services – Pittsboro, NC contracts with skilled, licensed counselors and therapists who can help your family to thrive. Call today to get started. Online counseling and in person sessions are available!