Chapter 4:
Communication Patterns and the Creation of Family Identity
Chapter Preview
• Family Communication Forms and Relational Cultures
• Family Communication Rules
• Family Secrets
Chapter Outline
I. Family Communication Forms and Relational Cultures
a. Relational Culture: A shared set of meanings, expectations, and rules for interaction
that contributes to creating a relatively unique communication system
i. Families interact and create their own worldviews, which reflect members’
b. Family meanings emerge through continuous interpretation of, and response to,
family members’ communication patterns
II. Family Rules: Relationship agreements that prescribe and limit family behavior over time
a. Highlight what behaviors are required, preferred, or prohibited in various contexts
b. Created and maintained through repetitive interactional patterns and create regularity
c. Reflect patterns that have become “oughts” or “shoulds”
d. Types of communication rules: shared understandings about what communication
means and what communication is appropriate
i. Constitutive rules define “what counts as what” and help family members
understand why they should not do or say something
ii. Regulative rules prescribe acceptable communication behavior; how, when,
where, and with whom to talk
e. Development of communication rules
i. Explicit rules are straightforward and negotiated or communicated directly
1. Negative feedback (maintenance)
2. Positive feedback (growth)
f. Importance of rules
i. Through rules we enact primary and secondary functions
1. Sets limits of cohesion/adaptability
2. Helps maintain images, boundaries, roles/positions
ii. Rules and family functions support the family’s self-definition
iii. Rules provide stability in interactions and serve to socialize younger members
or those who join the family
iv. Allow a family to carry on its functional day-to-day interactions smoothly
g. Meta-rules: rules for creating, negotiating, discussing, and changing rules
III. Family Secrets: Information that is purposely hidden or concealed by one or more members
a. Making, concealing, or revealing secrets all shape family identity and interaction
b. Family members often withhold secrets from one another if they perceive they will be
punished for raising concerns (chilling effect)
d. Types of family secrets
i. Sweet secrets: Kept for fun or surprise; time limited
ii. Essential secrets: talk about fears or uncertainty; promote necessary
e. Functions of secrets
i. Bonding: increase cohesiveness; shown through sharing of secrets
ii. Evaluation: help avoid negative judgment
f. Criteria for revealing secrets: intimate exchange, exposure, urgency, acceptance,
conversational appropriateness, relational security, important reason, permission,
family membership, never
g. Secrets and family patterns
i. Secrecy is associated with family change
IV. Family Communication Networks
a. A group of people within a family system that have established a pattern of
connecting through social interaction, including those related by: blood or adoption,
c. Families develop networks to manage members’ connections and other relational
tasks (e.g., conveying instructions, maintaining secrets, organizing activities,
regulating time, sharing resources, keeping others up to date)
d. Family networks range from high technological connection to high face-to-face
e. Rules may dictate the use of certain networks, whereas networks create certain rule
patterns
f. Face/Voice network interactions
i. Chain network: family members talk along a series of links
1. Vertical (power-driven hierarchy)
ii. Y network: key person channels messages from one person to others
1. Central figure can filter messages
2. Information can be distorted
iii. Wheel network: one family member at center channels messages to others
1. Central figure can filter and adapt messages positively or negatively
2. Central figure carries power and control; also feels pressure
3. Technology has reduced need for central figure
4. Information can be distorted
i. Technological innovations represent a shift in family interactions that is
occurring within a large network of social connections
1. Intentional connections
2. Assumed connections
3. Random connections
ii. Networked families use a wide range of mediated channels to develop, enact,
V. Narratives and Storytelling
a. Narratives are stories people share that help create family meanings
i. Stories provide a history or re-telling of what was experienced (e.g., ancestor
stories, memories of good or bad times, recounting everyday life experiences)
ii. Accounts provide explanations or reasons for persons’ behaviors or situations
(e.g., why a family member divorced, joined the military, or retired at 50)
iii. Master narrative: a story of extraordinary proportions, known to all members,
that serves to define what it means to be a family member
b. Some stories are too painful to voice; others are the centerpiece of family gatherings
c. Functions of stories
i. To remember
ii. To create belonging, identity, sense of history
iii. Teach expected behavior and values, socialize new members
d. Questions stories answer
i. Are parents really human? Stories in which parents struggle with issues of
growing up or making decisions; stories that remove a parent from pedestal
e. Performing family stories: Who tells stories and when/where are they told?
i. Connected couples tell stories as if they are co-owned, dialogue overlaps,
iv. Families who attend to and confirm each other’s perspectives during joint
storytelling report the highest family cohesion, adaptability, satisfaction, and
overall family functioning
v. Family narrative styles
vi. Gender/Role
1. Women more active in telling stories
2. Moms more likely to initiate
3. Moms tell more affiliation stories; dads tell more achievement stories
f. Storytelling occurs in context: holidays, bedtime, in response to trigger, dinner table,
long car trips, events
g. Complexities of family storytelling
VI. Discussion Questions
a. What is the culture of your family? What has been passed down? How do you know
what the values, norms, rituals are?
d. Describe a turning point or major event in a real or fictional family’s development
that challenged members to reconsider their family rules. How were those rules
maintained or changed due to the turning point circumstance?
e. Identify a family secret that existed in a real or fictional family. What type of secret
VII. Case Study Questions
a. In “Mother’s Day Complexities,” Emily had not adjusted to the stepfamily after her
mother’s death, yet her brother fit into the new family system more smoothly. How
might you explain this difference? Why is it difficult for new members to integrate
into families? What might help Emily (or other members) adjust to the stepfamily?
b. Interactions with our peers affirm and challenge our sense of self. What
communication patterns served as the foundation of Josh’s identity? How do you
think this influenced his family, or how did his family influence his identity?
Activities
Think Pair Share: Working together supports the active engagement of students in the learning
experience. Using these prompts, or discussion questions above, can help punctuate the lecture
presentation of concepts. Students should first reflect individually, then pair up to discuss their
ideas with a peer, then share outwardly with the class.
• Changing Family Rules: Using personal or media examples, generate two lists: a) One
containing circumstances that may cause families to change or adapt their rules, and b)
One identifying reasons why or describing how families resist change. Share your lists
with your partner, and discuss how/why you came up with your lists. Do you agree with
each other’s lists? Why or why not? Prepare to share your discussion with the class.
Rule Brainstorm and Analysis: At the beginning of the discussion on rules, have students
quickly brainstorm as many family rules as possible. Have a student volunteer (or two) write
them on the board. Encourage them to generate a long list. Then, categorize each rule as either
regulative or constitutive. Ask them to account for:
• Regulative rules: What could or could not be talked about? How were certain issues
Family Narrative: Family stories go beyond entertaining and reminiscing; they serve key
functions in the family’s development. Stories teach about values, reinforce identity, discipline,
inspire, or create new levels of relationships among members. Stories do not just reflect the past
but also serve to shape the present and form the future; they are constructed by tellers and
listeners, each rendition carrying new meaning. This assignment asks students to identify a
particular family story that has been repeated with regularity and to create your interpretation of
the meaning of that story and its place in the family. The analsysis should include the following:
• A written version of the story, or section of the story if it is very long.
In your analysis, link your narrative event to assigned readings on narrative and meaning.
Approximately 2-3 pages should be devoted to analysis.
Secrets and Boundaries: Ask students to discuss with a partner the role of secrets in families.
Address the following questions:
Storytelling and Meaning: Have students get into small groups. Have two or three volunteers
share a family story that is retold frequently in their families. Encourage them to tell the story as
it is normally told. Such stories often are introduced by “Remember the time when…” Stories
Stories and Genealogies: Ask your students to create a “storyteller’s genealogy” for future
generations. Rives Collins writes about creating a genealogy for his daughter: “Personally, I
never much cared for ‘so and so begat so and so who begat so and so,’ ad infinitum. But my
feelings changed when my daughter was born, turning my world upside-down. I wrote a
storyteller’s genealogy for her—a piece that I can say at her bedside now that she is small, and
will use to teach her about her family when she grows older.” The format is simple. Each phrase
begins with “You are…” The tone is poetic rather than factual; each phrase has a story behind it.
Share the excerpt from Collins, R. (1993). Storytelling: Water from another time. The
Drama/Theatre Teacher, 5, 8
You are the great, great granddaughter of a woman who relished the language of
Shakespeare, and who stood up to those who would censor the bawdy parts.
And you are the great granddaughter of an officer in the United States Cavalry, who
would ride standing up on two galloping horses at once. And you are the great
granddaughter of an orphan, who stood 4 feet 11 inches and raised 10 children.
Ask students to discuss the importance of writing a “storyteller’s genealogy.” Are there alternate,
or more modern, ways of sharing these phrases or stories with future generations?
Relational Culture Exercise
Ask students to identify a relationship in which they feel they have a relational culture. Lead the
class in a discussion about what helped them to distinguish the relationships in which they have a
relational culture and in which they do not. Using these criteria, jointly brainstorm fictional
characters in movies or on TV that seem to have relational cultures. What do all of these
relationships have in common? Why are they so important?
How Wired Are You?
Have students keep a weekly log of how many times they communicate with family members in