Family Communication Strategies for Building Understanding During Conflict

How to build understanding during family conflict

Each family is a unique blend of personalities, experiences, and perspectives. It’s exactly as God designed and intended and it’s beautiful. However, the differences can also lead to challenges in communication, misunderstandings, and even conflict that can become difficult to resolve.

But, when you can lean into understanding and take the time to work through challenges, you can reflect the gospel in your home, deepen relationships, and grow in intimacy with your family. The keys in this video will offer ways to build understanding and ideas on how to best approach conflict and communication breakdowns so that they can become an opportunity for connection.

4 family communication tips for getting on the same page

Building understanding as a family is a skill that needs to be honed. To help you grow in this area, here are some quick takeaways from the teaching:

• Listen first: Scripture says to be slow to speak, and one way to gain understanding is by listening fully and attentively to the other person before responding.
• Keep the environment neutral: If you are navigating a conflict or need to have a difficult conversation, take it into a neutral setting where each person can feel comfortable sharing. This lowers pressure and you can focus on open communication, gaining understanding, and reaching resolve easier.
• Learn personality types: Consider the personality of the person you are communicating with. How they are wired, the way they prefer to communicate, and their way of processing information. You can use personality tests or different assessments to get a head start on understanding.
• Lead with empathy: To truly understand someone, you need to see where they are coming from, not just defending yourself. 

Building understanding ultimately leads to wisdom and the ability to build deep relationships. When your family chooses to lean in and listen to understand more, the more intimacy and safety is created. Even something as simple as discovering your conflict styles and how to support one another during conflict can make a huge difference! Consider taking an intentional weekend to focus solely on resetting communication and learning more about one another like with our Family Weekend Communication Reset.

And take heart. You’re on the right track to building trust and home that reflects the gospel. 

If you want to go deeper on understanding how to interact with different personality types so you can keep strengthening your relationships and growing in understanding, you can get an explanation of types here.