A Guide to Understanding Family Communication Styles
Communication is a fundamental skill, and yet it is also a downfall for many families. Understanding family communication styles sets the tone for...
Staying connected as a family is easier said than done. It takes effort and sometimes just knowing what to ask to stay up to speed on each others’ lives in and of itself is a major challenge. Through our time with families, we have found these family questions to ask can make a difference in building connection and trust over time especially as part of your family meeting.
Use these family questions to ask or build variations of your own from these to continue to foster connection and growth. You can use them in your family meetings or even save them as reminder prompts for when you need them.
This question is a helpful way to get input on where change might be needed. It’s easy to over-commit as a family and pausing to take inventory of what you are doing and where you need to pivot can be useful to gain multiple perspectives.
One of the most underrated opportunities for family connection is celebration. Bringing love, honor, and joy to your family members can have a significant impact, so make it a regular practice!
If you are in a rut, get some perspective about what might be missing to help your family stay focused. (Keep reading here for additional ideas on meeting topics!)
Questions that prompt reflection can be beneficial to help your family understand the purpose of events or actions, and it opens the door to keep talking about your mission, vision, or values.
While there might be a uniting vision for the family, hearing from individual perspectives on their unique hopes and challenges can be an important way to build understanding and unity. More intentionally seeking out the opportunities to encourage will help your family’s connection so use this type of question regularly.
When you need help narrowing in, or maybe to help get your family onboard with how to refine, use this question to prompt discussion. It’s not always just about deciding on the action but helping people see what impact or goal that action will tie to as well. Understanding the why makes a difference in your family connecting and growing.
While these questions are easy tools to save, keep the bigger purpose in mind as well. The goal is to deepen connections, and your family will feel the impact of that when you are authentic in that goal. Asking questions provides a way for everyone to feel understood and heard. As you become consistent in asking questions, it begins to build trust as well since the repeated behavior reinforces that this is something that matters.
Encourage your whole family to engage in these practices and even save their own favorite questions to ask. God designed families to be interdependent, not just independent, so we will be at our best when we are encouraging each other and inviting one another in to support and be present.
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If you want more resources to help your family keep building the right foundation, make sure to join “The Multi-Generational”, our free email resource to equip your family with our latest tools you can implement.
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