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6 Steps to Better Family Communication

Family ties comprise an integrated relational structure, based on a number of pillars (the family members). Therefore, lack or absence of communication among them signifies and entails a devastating defect that weakens this structure and makes it increasingly susceptible to unending troubles and disorders, victimizing, in the first place, children, by affecting their future psychological health, as well as their behavior towards others. It is for this reason that every mother should immunize her family against such troubles, and make all the family members live at ease and comfort, so that they would become more involved in the family activities by sharing interests and concerns and driving – hand in hand - at the well-being of the whole family. Following are 6 steps to help you attain this objective:

Create opportunities for conversation and dialogue: While your children are gathering for an evening movie, for example, you can start a conversation by asking them about the best thing that happened during their day, and how they made use of it, or the worst thing, and how they handled it. Such a conversation opens new vistas for a fruitful communication, and gives them the opportunity to transparently speak their minds out.
Maintain family meals: when family members meet for at least once a day around the dining table, their family ties become stronger. Besides, this entrenches the value of precision and punctuality. It also enhances their feeling of family warmth.
Recreational trips: by assigning one day of each week or month for family trips. This could be at a park, a museum, a scientific center, a gallery or a restaurant.
The 80/20 rule: this rules means that you have to be a good 'listener'; to listen 4 times as you talk. This is a golden rule, especially in case of negative news, as it enables you control yourself, with the effect that you can keep away from offensive insults and nervous remarks. It gives you a good opportunity to inhale deeply and think properly before taking any action.
Use technology: the internet has become one of the key components of today's society. So, try to make optimal use of it in developing and strengthening family communication. You can, for example, create an E-mail for the family, so that all the family members can send to it useful material, news or personal experience. These messages, thereafter, can be gathered in the form of a weekly or monthly magazine, to be distributed to the family members.
Maintain the religious rites and social traditions: like the regular visits to relatives and keeping in contact with them (especially in Ramadan and feasts). This further reinforces the family connectedness and entrenches the respect of such occasions (and such values) in all the family members, especially children.