Welcome to the Open Adoption Project. This is episode 110. We're the Nelsons. I'm Shaun.
And I'm Lanette and we're excited to be here with another podcast episode. Yeah,
it has been a little bit of time. Yeah, yeah. We've had a couple of like promo episodes where
we talked about the substance exposure guide and we talked about that research for birth mothers.
Yeah. But it's been a while since we've done an episode with the two of us too. Yeah,
life's been a little busy. Yeah, I started at a PhD program and of course our kids have school
and work and that's pretty, but good. Lots of fun stuff. But today we're happy to be talking about
family communication patterns. This is something that Lanette has studied a little bit as she's
beginning her PhD and did some research over the summer. And we thought that because there are a
lot of really important takeaways and connections to communications and relationships and adoption,
that this would be a helpful episode for us to have. Yeah, honestly, as I've learned about family
communication patterns, it's been so helpful for me as an adoptive parent. And I just thought this
could be helpful for others as well. Yeah. When you say family communication patterns, what do you
mean? So family communication patterns are basically what help us understand how family
structures during childhood will impact adulthood. So family structures like the way that we parent
or so, no, it's more like the way that your family during childhood communicates about things, right?
Like the conversation around things, what your parents expect of you, like do they expect you
to obey them without question? Or is it more loose than that? It's yeah, what the communication
patterns in your family of origin were like? Cool. Yeah. So these family communication patterns began
to be studied back in the 1970s. I think it's really interesting. There were two researchers,
their names were McLeod and Chaffee, I think. And they developed this model for family communication
patterns when they were trying to describe families tendencies to develop predictable
and stable ways of communicating with each other. But they weren't really trying to look at family
communication. That wasn't their goal. They were actually mass media researchers. And they were
trying to explain how families create a shared social reality. Okay. So this came out of that
effort. And it's actually been really helpful for family studies. Good. So what's maybe the goal of,
you know, understanding these communication styles? Yeah. So the goal is really to explain
how families create and share social reality, right? So particularly how parents socialize
their children, how they help them process information. So I can see you're looking a
little glazed over Shaun, do I need to find a way to make this more? No, no, you're good.
Accessible. Okay. So ultimately, this family communication pattern theory,
I think is also super applicable to adoptive families. So we're going to talk about it a
little bit more here. There's two different elements of family communication patterns. I
think we mentioned this earlier, there's conformity orientation, and there's conversation
orientation. So conformity is kind of how, like, I'm thinking as a parent, like, if I
have like rules in my home, and how I'm expecting my children to follow those rules, or when if I
have like a path for my child, and do I let them, you know, waiver from that path? Yeah,
yeah, it's kind of like that. That's pretty close. So it can range from low to high, right? And so
if you have low conformity, that means you're not expecting your children to follow that path,
or like conform with your expectations. And if you have high conformity, then you do have these
expectations that your children will conform with what you're wanting for them. And alone,
is there one that's better than another? So conformity is kind of tricky, because there
are such big cultural differences, right? Like if you go to Eastern cultures, high conformity
is the norm in families, right? Like, you need to obey what your parents tell you without question,
and follow this path. And that's just a cultural expectation. And so it's hard to divide between
like what is best, because there's such big cultural differences. And I found mixed research
for Western cultures as well. Like, I'm not really sure which one's better. I think it's probably
best to be a little bit in the middle personally, but that is not a research. That's my opinion
from what I've read. I mean, I think of like both extremes, right? Where you have like,
almost boot camp like parenting style, or far on the opposite side is like super free range parenting,
where you just kind of like, let your kids do whatever you want. And I mean, like, myself,
like somewhere in the middle feels like maybe the comfortable or the right place to be.
Yeah, and I can't say that for sure again. But there's going to be more harmony in a home where
there's more conformity, right? And there's going to be more independence in a home.
Where there's lower conformity. And I think there's good in both of those. So having some kind of
balance is probably in my opinion, what's best. Okay, so when we're talking about family
communication patterns, we're looking at conformity, but also conversation. So when it comes to
conversation, what are the maybe the opposites of the pendulum? Well, similar to what we just
talked about? Yeah, so conversation orientation is this other side of communication patterns,
right? And it's how often and how open conversations are in your home. About anything?
Yeah, like conversations in your home. Can you tell your parents anything? Can you tell your
parents, hey, I got really crazy today and stole a candy bar? I don't know. Like, can you tell them
this thing is like a safe thing? I can't think of a good example. But is that a safe thing to talk
about? Whatever? Or maybe your parents are of one political ideology. And as you develop an
adolescence, you begin thinking that you have different political beliefs in your parents.
Can you talk about that? Are your parents going to be okay with that? Or maybe you start questioning
the faith that your parents have? Is that a safe thing to talk to them about? Or are they going to
get defensive and angry? Okay. So I mean, I'm thinking about this in my own childhood. And
even with our own home, I think I had different conversation patterns with different parents.
Right? Like for me, I could pretty much tell my mom everything. And I wasn't afraid of how she
would react most of the time. But it was very much different with my dad. And I kind of think of
when we're thinking about conformity, I feel like my dad's perspective was like high conformity. He
literally was a Marine, right? And that lifestyle was very kind of regimented structure. Yeah. And
my mom was a little bit more, I don't know, laissez faire about it, like just kind of letting things
happen. Have you been looking ahead in my notes? That's a good descriptor. But yeah, that's
interesting. I don't think I've seen any research about parents having different communication
patterns within the same family. It's generally classified as like the home. And so that's an
interesting take. I'm not exactly sure what that would look like. But it's a really good conversation
starter. I'll have to look into that some more. I'll come back here and talk more about it if I
find something about that. Okay. But yeah, so conversation and conformity are these two
different orientations in family communication patterns. So I have this graphic in front of me
that kind of helps me see the range of different levels of conformity compared to the levels of
conversation. So like on the x axis, we have conformity, and it ranges from low conformity to
high conformity. And then on the y axis or across the bottom, we have conversation and from the left,
from low to high, right? Yeah, so there's four different communication patterns that families
usually fall into. And so if you're picturing the x and the y axis, you almost just have
quadrants, right? So one with high conformity, high conversation, high conformity, low conversation,
and then low conformity, low conversation, and low conformity, low or high. Yeah, yeah. So low
conversation, high conformity, that would be a protective family. So in a protective family,
we have like, following all the rules and no real room for question. And so we have a lot of
things that we can do to protect our child. And so what would that look like in an adoption, like
relationship in a home? I think that would be like, you are trying to protect your child from these
hard conversations, right? And so you don't talk about them. Right? Yeah. Like, you don't talk about
adoption at all. And you do what your adoptive parents tell you because they're trying to like,
an adoptive parent, if I'm in this protected class, so high conformity, low conversation,
I'm probably not bringing up like, how do you feel about your adoption or even maybe even talking
about it much at all? Yeah, probably not. So yeah, there's just, it's such an emphasis on obedience
and not an emphasis on dialogue. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So then we also have maybe on the lower
conversation and low conformity, kind of just this more lax. La se faire. Culture or pattern in the
home. Tell us a little bit about that and let's talk about how that might look in the adoption
situation. Yeah. So that would be really autonomous kids. There's not really any like expectation
that they're going to follow the parents paths, but there's also not an open dialogue. And children
in this pattern do struggle. They often have what's called the lost child role where they'll
struggle with self-regulation and feel like they don't matter. So in the adoption sphere, right? So
again, this is low conversation and kind of low conformity. What would that look like?
I mean, that'd be kind of sad. It's a sad role, right? It's when you don't talk about adoption,
but your adoptive parents wouldn't really care about like helping you adjust, right? Or like
if you're struggling with something, you're not going to talk about it and they're not really
going to have expectations. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. So this is probably like the least
favorable. It's kind of disconnected. It's very disconnected. And yeah, I feel sad that this is a
pattern at all. Okay. So maybe on the other side, now thinking about a little bit more increasing
the conversation, right? So we have high conversation and what about the high conversation,
but low conformity this, yeah. What does that look like? So it's a pluralistic family. And that's
where parents would have open and honest conversation. And families are characterized by like this
plurality of opinions. There's free flowing ideas. You can talk about things openly, honestly,
it's a very, I feel like it's a very like modern familial pattern, right? Okay. It's what a lot of
families have now, I think. So what would you say that I think that's good? What would you say,
thinking about adoption, maybe some of the pros and cons of that? Yeah. So of course, every adoptee
has different experiences. We've talked to lots of adoptees and I never want to like put them all
into one box, right? Everyone has such different experiences. But we have talked with some people
who are adopted who felt like they never belonged in either of their families. And that could be a
pitfall of being in a pluralistic family where the low conformity could present itself as a challenge
if you don't feel like this is how we do things in our family. Yeah. Okay. But there is high
conversation too. Which is healthy. That's healthy. I feel like, yeah, I'm not exactly sure.
Because research isn't sure, right? Which conformity is better? If it's better to have a high
conformity or low conformity family. Again, like we said, I think probably somewhere in the middle
is probably better. But that is something I'd be careful about making sure that your child knows
that you like love them with your all they belong with you. Make belong with their birth family too.
And it's like a dual citizenship and these two families, right? But, but making sure that
it's not so till that there's that alienation potential. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So let's now we're
still talking about high conversation now, which we're fans of. We want to be really open,
especially with our children and talking about, it goes back to some other conversations we've
had in the past about communicative openness, just making sure that our home is a safe place
for whatever feelings to be shared, whatever conversation needs to be had, to be shared.
Whatever conversation needs to be had, nothing has like a stigma to it or that they're worried
about approaching us to talk about anything. So yeah, I think that's great. So we're that we're
talking about that higher conversation. Now what about in the home where we have a little bit more
high conformity? So those families are called consensual in the family communication pattern
theory. So consensual families use both conversation and conformity to habitually achieve a shared
reality. Break that down for me. Okay. So you have open dialogue, you can share whatever, but you
also have these high expectations. You're going to have parents who are a little bit more like
authoritative, hopefully not authoritarian, but maybe maybe, but parents are going to be clear
that they expect children to follow a certain path, right? But they also want to hear what their
children are thinking and feeling. Okay. And so I feel like, again, there's benefits here and there
are potential drawbacks, right? If high conformity is taken to an extreme, I feel like that can be
just as unhealthy as a low conformity. And so, okay, yeah, just trying to walk that line of what
what's best here. Yeah. Okay. So I'm liking this. I think, I think that I'm kind of conceptually
getting this. I mean, as I'm thinking about this, we want to have a conversation high.
And when we're thinking about conformity, I personally am finding somewhere in the middle
where I want to kind of have a path for my child, but also give a little bit of autonomy.
So that it's good for children to have independence. I should grow as they,
but not so much that they feel less part of our family or less direction or less identity. Yeah.
Yeah. Good. Okay. So I know that we've kind of just been talking about this in theory a little bit
and maybe considering how it might look like adoption wise, but is there other examples?
I like looking at movies and pop culture to get examples because then we're not like throwing
anyone under the bus analyzing how they parent or how patterns look in their home because movies,
you know, are fictional. And so I like that. So I know for those of you who don't know one,
that is a big Harry Potter nerd. And I say that with a lot of respect. She loves the books,
maybe not the movies as much, but, but they're pretty common in our culture. So maybe is there
any, anything from Harry Potter that we could learn? Interesting. I've thought about this,
actually. So I feel like Harry is raised by his uncle and aunt, right? Petunia and Vernon. And
I feel like they're protective, which sounds weird. I would think that'd be like the laws
they fare because they're the worst, right? But I think that they're also protective because
they want Harry to act like a muggle. They want him to conform to their norms. They don't want
him to tap into any of his magical blood or whatever. I don't know. They want him to fit
with them, even though it's not in a loving way, right? It's okay. Talk to them. But yeah,
they want to like shelter him basically from himself. But their conversation is that they
didn't even tell him how his parents died. Yeah. They told him he died in a car and they get
dead in a car crash. And yeah, they don't have a conversation at all. They like Harry doesn't
know he's magical or anything until it looks. So yeah, I feel like he actually is raised in a
protective home, which sounds weird. And we've kind of established that maybe that's not the best
atmosphere for raising an adoptee. So if you find yourself being the uncle Vernon or
opportunity apparent, then it may be time to reconsider why we're doing the things the way
we're doing things we're doing. Yeah, absolutely. Any other examples of protective families? Hmm.
Okay, I think Mulan is an example. I'm thinking of the cartoon. I don't think I've seen the new one
all the way through. I've seen part of it. But I'm not sure exactly what the family communication
pattern looks like in that one. But in the 90s cartoon, it's definitely protective, right? Like
Mulan doesn't talk with her parents about what she plans to do. But they're trying to keep her
protected and keep her conforming with their culture and the norms and expectations of their
society. So I think that's protective. Okay. Frozen. That's one of our kids, our daughter's
favorite when she was little for sure. And I think that one's a classic protective parent example,
right? Because on it and Elsa's parents find out that Elsa has this gift and it's like a curse
in the beginning, right? Literally lock her up. Yeah, they like shut down. There's no conversation.
There's no human contact. Like they want to protect everybody so much that they go to these
extreme measures trying to literally protect. So I think they're a protective family too.
Okay. Any other examples? I mean, I think of like the Von Trapp family on the sound of music, right?
Literally have like whistled and they'd line up. Yeah. Yeah. Very high conformity. Yeah. Like very
regimented and not any dialogue before Maria comes to the family. So she does change it up.
So the early and of course I've heard also that that movie is not really true to the true story,
but in the movie she changes it up. So, okay. So we talked, that's a little bit about like the
protective. So that's low conversation and the high conformity. What about the high conformity
and the high conversation, consensual families. All right. I think that there's some Pixar movies
that fall into this category. I think like the movie brave. Oh yeah. Okay. So especially in the
beginning, it might shift a little and become a little more pluralistic in the end, but in brave
Merida, is that her name? Yeah. Merida is expected to conform, especially by her mother. This might
be a good example of what you were talking about with your parents having different levels and
different patterns, but her mother expects her to do what she needs to do just like she did when she
was young. Right. Yeah. But they have conversation and Merida feels safe saying like, I don't want
to do this. I'm not happy about this. Yeah. I can picture her throwing herself on her bed,
but still talking to her mom through the harder conversation. Yeah. And she feels safe doing that.
And so I think that's an example. And then another example I can think of is the Incredibles. I,
and we love the Incredibles. It's one of my favorite movies to watch with my kids,
but there's this family culture where they are superheroes, right? And so that is the culture of
the family. Everyone like adheres to this culture and the expectations there, although it is a little
chill with Jack Jack, right? Because at first he's not a superhero and they don't know he has powers
and it doesn't seem to matter, but they still like, they expect their kids to behave a certain way
and like follow this superhero code of wearing their mask and being secretive and whatever,
right? But they also have their open conversations. Uh, the parents have the final say,
but they can talk about things. Okay. So we've talked about protective.
That's more of the Harry Potter stuff, right? Well, with, yeah, uncle, very much. Then we have
consensual. And I like the Incredibles. Yeah. That's the one that stuck out to you. That's
stick with me. Okay. So then we have, which one do you want to talk about next? Let's talk about
pluralistic. We'll save this. So high, high conversation and low conformity. Yeah. What
examples in movies? So I think a lot of more modern movies kind of aim for this, right? Like,
uh, Paddington, I think it's a good example because like Mr. Brown and Mrs. Brown, they have
definite open dialogue with their kids, but they're also pretty chill and lenient, right? Like their
kids don't have to check any boxes or I don't know. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that might shift
a little bit, but I feel like they're a pluralist pluralistic family. Um, I haven't seen this movie
in ages, but I'm also thinking of Alexander and the terrible, no good, very bad day, right? That
was a great book. And I vaguely remember the movie. I feel like that family would also fit into that
category, but I'm a little rusty. No, I think, I think I've watched it with the kids. Yeah. It's
been a while. Yeah. Um, Beezus and Ramona, I feel like that one's another one. Like there's this
conversation in the movie where the family's talking about how Ramona has poor grades and then
she gets mad and says she wants to say a bad word and her parents aren't like stopping her and they're
not like throwing a fit about her grades, right? And then she wants to say her bad word and guts
and they all just laugh and it's like a funny scene, right? But I think that they're a pluralistic
family where they are low conformity, but the conversation is totally there. Everybody's okay
sharing whatever they need to share. Okay. And then our last category, you call it the sad category,
the laissez faire one where we have low conversation, low conformity or low structure. Yeah.
I feel like this one, even though it's a very unhealthy pattern, I feel like it's portrayed
in media a lot. I can think of quite a few. So maybe a lot of the eighties movies would fall
into this category, right? Like ET, there's a family that's not super connected, seeming very
hands off parenting. Like there's an alien living in their house and I feel like nobody knows,
but eighties, laissez faire, yeah. But like no one knows that there's an alien in the house for like
days, right? It's weird. No one talks about it. Or like the goonies, the parents are all like in
their own world and don't notice that their kids are on this weird pirate hunt and they never seem
to find out, right? Did they find out in the end? Okay. Yeah. But yeah, I feel like eighties movies
fall into laissez faire often. The movie Matilda, I like Matilda. That was one of my favorite books
when I was a kid. The adoption storyline and Matilda is terrible, but it's a funny movie.
Uh, and her parents in that story get mad at Matilda because she reads and she wants to learn
and go to school and she doesn't want to watch TV with them, right? Yeah. And so that is,
I guess maybe that's high conformity. Yeah. I'm second guessing. Sit down and watch this TV show.
You must watch TV. You cannot read. Yeah. So that's maybe a good example. Maybe she's not laissez
faire. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there are probably aspects of that family because they don't care
too, but they do care enough that they don't want her reading. Yeah. I mean, they're like leaving
her at home and she's like walking to the library, but then, but then they are getting sent to jail
or something or the cops are coming and Matilda asks them to sign some adoption papers for her
to go and they just sign it. Like, yeah, it's not a big thing. So I'm not sure what they are. They're
a weird family. Uh, and then the most adoption pertinent example I can think of for laissez faire.
I don't know how many people will have seen this, but there's a Disney channel show that was found
a few years ago called Jessie. Oh yeah. And we watched that for a little bit. Uh, the parents are
tragically disengaged from their children. I don't even remember what they, are they even in an episode?
They're in episodes, but not very many. And Jessie is like the nanny and then the butler. They're
like the parental figures and they're not good parental figures at all, but this is an adoptive
family, right? The oldest child is a biological child. And then there's three adopted children
after, and one of them is like a recent adoptee from a different country. And the oldest child
is always like trying to please her parents. I think she has that lost child role. I think it's
a textbook example of laissez faire parenting. And I think it's really sad because they're also
adopted parents, but yeah, and they call it out in the pilot episode, the nanny like talks to the
parents about how they need to be more present, which is ironic because then there's tons of
episodes and they're not in any of them. Okay. But yeah, so I think those examples help me
conceptualize where these patterns, like what they look like in different family circles.
Okay. So I'm thinking about a lot of other like mainstream movies. So some of these are
adoption movies, right? So like Despicable Me, our kids love that movie. I think it's because
of the minions and they're ridiculous, but where would, where would grew and his parenting fall in
these? Okay. I haven't seen all the new stuff because I just don't dig it, but grew starts
off as a terrible foster dad, right? He has some growth. He becomes a better foster parent.
He becomes more protective, more warm. Yeah. I think that he starts off as Laze faire and he
might stay Laze faire, but in a warmer way. Okay. I don't know. What do you think? Yeah.
He had a terrible parent though, like his interactions with his mother. Did you know
his mother is Julie Andrews? That's her voice. No, I didn't know that either. But yeah. And so
yeah, he has a challenging backstory with his own family communication, but I think they're probably
Laze faire. Okay. What about, this is another movie that's kind of cringy for me, but Stuart
Little. Stuart Little is one of those movies that I think is really cringy for adoptive parents,
but so many kids and adoptees seem to really resonate with it. I think that might be because
as adults, we might be taking it too literally, like at face value and maybe kids are feeling,
yeah, yeah. Right. Which is just weird, but I feel like kids might be watching it a little bit,
I don't know, like more metaphorically and understanding and resonating with it more.
I don't know, but our kids really enjoy that movie, but Stuart is this mouse who's literally
adopted by a wealthy family that has a cat. It's weird, right? Like why would he have a cat?
It's weird, right? Like why would you adopt a mouse when you have a cat? Anyway. Okay. I feel like
the conversation in that family is a little more open. And of course that's how older child
adoptions tend to be anyway, by necessity. So it's maybe hard to gauge what the conversation
orientation is, but we'll say it's a little higher. And then their conformity might be a little more
abstract. Like it seems like they're trying to accept him as one of them, like as a human
in the family, but he's not a human. So it kind of skews it too, right? Because he plays soccer
with humans and it's a bad idea. So it's kind of unhealthy conformity, but they might be a
consensual family. Yeah. Okay. I don't know. All right. Uh, other adoption movies, um,
meet the Robinsons, meet the Robinsons. So as much as I think that's a sweet story,
I think it's a little cringy and family communication patterns because Louis is ultimately
adopted by a family that changes his name, like before they even know that they're going to adopt
him, right? They're just like, ah, your name doesn't fit you. Here's a different name.
And they seem drawn to him because he's similar to them. I don't know. And like the kind of
takeaway of the movie is like, he's going to move on and not think about and talk about his birth
family. And so I would say that one's probably protective, like high conformity, low conversation.
Yeah. I don't know. I mean, maybe the conversation is high on the things that they have like in
common, but maybe adoption conversation. Yeah. So that's protective. So that's protective. Yeah.
Yeah. Um, this is more pertinent right now because our daughter is in this musical and
middle school right now, but elf. Oh, elf. So I think,
elf's conversation about adoption is kind of sad too, because buddy conforms and acts like an elf
and doesn't have any conversation at the North pole with Papa elf, right? Like he is an adult
when he learns that he's not technically an elf, that he was adopted and then he begins to search.
So I would say that one's protective, right? Yeah, for sure. Kind of shut up in this world that
is different than the one. Yeah. Yeah. And like, there's no dialogue about it. Like we don't talk
about this, but you're this giant elf who's not, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, what about this is us? Like
the TV, the TV show, you know, I feel like we do so many episodes about this as us, but we would need
to watch more of it. We've seen the first couple of seasons, but I think that one changes over time,
right? Because Rebecca, so best in childhood, I guess is what we should be focusing on. Rebecca
keeps these secrets from Randall, right? Like she has contact and a relationship with his birthdad.
And he doesn't, he has no clue. Yeah. Which is so sad, but they do address it later. Um, there's
like racial tensions that take 40 years for Randall to bring up with his siblings. Uh, Jack has some
conversations with his kids. That seems like more of an open dialogue, but I don't know. And then
Randall like overhears Rebecca talking about her mother's racist behaviors, but they don't seem to
have direct conversation, right? So there's like the drama of overhearing things. I think that their
culture would be more of the protective culture, but I think that should also illustrate how complex
and fluid those patterns are. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, those are obviously a lot of them
fictitious, but I think can kind of paint the, the, I guess it just gives imagery to some of these
concepts. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and family communication patterns can be so complex, they evolve and
change. And I feel like a family might have a pluralistic style of communication, but I think
have a pluralistic style when it comes to some things, but then maybe they're more strict and
conformity and other things, right? Like maybe they have one style when they're talking about
school and grades and work, right? And then other areas, they have a different style, like with
religion or politics. I don't know. I feel like it can be different. And then like you brought up,
it could be different with parents too. If the parents aren't on the same page with how they're
like how they're parenting and communicating with their children, that it could be different
on that level too. So it's just complicated. So some takeaways as we're thinking about
these communication patterns, again, kind of going back to this communicative openness within the home,
we want to have high conversation. Always. That is like super grounded in research,
which beneficial, important, high conversation, check your ego at the door. Sometimes make sure
that you can talk about anything with your children and help them feel safe and talking
about anything. Yeah. Okay. And then conformity is kind of, kind of a mixed bag here. Right? Like,
yeah, I'll let you know if I find more information on that, but if it's super high conformity, like I
can see some negative things there and super low conformity also, right? So kind of somewhere,
somewhere in the middle. Yeah. I imagine that's probably the place to be, but who knows? And maybe
different families have different needs. Like there is some research that shows that
different children based on their genetics have different parenting needs, right? Like styles.
Yeah. Like different styles of parenting will resonate better with different children based on
what their genes are. Like it's determined by your genes. And so when you adopt, it's probably more
likely that you're going to have maybe some friction on that because you don't share genes
with either of your parents. Yeah. So it just adds some complexity and more reasons for us to be
researching, educating ourselves, and continually trying to workshop and fine tune how we're
parenting, how we're communicating. Awesome. Yeah. Okay. So that was a really good introduction to
this. I feel like I understand a lot more about what you've been saying a little bit lately.
I've been talking to you about it. It made more sense now. Yeah. Like movies help. Yeah.
That really helps me a lot. At least for me. Yeah. And just kind of seeing the different,
yeah, different relationships and environments that all of those kind of characters in those
different movies or shows play helped kind of paint this picture. But my takeaway today is I
want to make sure that I'm increasing conversation that my kids always feel super, you know, confident
in talking to me and you about whatever they need to. And then really, I'm kind of just going to
think more deeply about what type of structures exist. Where am I like really type A? Because I
know I am like check the box. Like this is the way that things need to be. But I know that there's
there's aspects of life where I probably should be a little bit more lax on conformity. And so
yeah, I'm just going to my I guess my takeaway here is I need to be thinking about that. And how
is the way that I'm parenting influencing my adopted child? I love that. Well, and I feel like
adoptees again, I don't want to put them in a box, but we want to make sure our children feel
comfortable and confident being themselves. And that will likely be different from how we are.
Right. Yeah. So we want them to feel comfortable and confident being different from us.
While also knowing that they belong. Right. Gotcha. So it's a fine balance.
So I know in our next episode, we're going to continue talking about this. What can maybe give
us the preview? What will the conversation be there? Yeah. So I'm hoping we can talk about how
we can improve our family communication patterns in our homes, how we can improve our conversation
and how we can help make our homes a more safe space and enhance our communication patterns.
Awesome. Okay. So thank you so much for listening to this episode. That's been helpful for me.
Hopefully this is kind of opening your minds to different ways that we are, you know, cultures in
our homes or if you're don't, don't yet have children, maybe how you want to kind of prepare
your future home with children and what type of structures you want to create. Awesome. Yeah.
Thanks so much for being here and we'll be back soon.