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Welcome to the open adoption project. This is episode 111. We're the Nelsons. I'm Lanette.

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And I'm Shaun. And we're happy to be back in your podcast feed. It's been busy and sick

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and a lot of other things a couple weeks here. I believe it was the day after we last recorded.

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I had surgery on my nose. I didn't get a nose job. I mean, kind of. It doesn't look different

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on the outside, but had a deviated septum fixed and healed from that great. And then

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I got sick along with one of my kids and then we passed it along to the rest of the family.

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Yeah, kind of cycled through and yeah, things are just, we're in a busy season, but things

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are good. It's just been hard to stay on top of things with the podcast. Yep. But we promised

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in our last episode that we would talk about improving family communication patterns. And

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so we wanted to make sure to hop in to your feed and talk about that just a bit today

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before we have some other really fun episodes come out next week. We will be having a really

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exciting episode. I'm so excited about this one. I have been for so long. We'll be talking

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about establishing psychological safety with Dr. Jeff Thompson. He was one of both Shaun's

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and my professors in the MPA program that we were in. And he is so great. I feel like

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this topic is so relevant for adopted families and people connected to the adoption community.

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It's just fun to chat with him. He's very, I mean, he has so many great insights about

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just connection and relationships and communication. Yeah. There was just a really good conversation.

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So we're looking forward to sharing that with you. And then throughout the rest of the year,

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I think we've already have almost all of our episodes prerecorded. So hopefully we won't

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fall off with this one. Whoops. But yeah. Do you want to give a preview of some of the

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other conversations that we'll look at over the next couple of months? Yeah. So last November,

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we kind of went overboard with our national adoption month plans. We wanted to do something

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really special and we had a lot of episodes this year. We had to step back and make it

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a little more simple, but I'm excited. We're doing a kind of book club for national adoption

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month where we'll have episodes where we're talking with adoptees about different books

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that are connected to adoption, right? Like we'll be talking with adoptees about books

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like far from the tree, the girls who went away, the orphan train. And we're really looking

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forward to hearing from some of these people and learning about some of these books. So

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if you want to put any of those books on your library queue and start reading them now.

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Yeah. As I started editing, as I started editing some of those already, I love that we talk

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with adoptees about these topics that revolve around part of who they are. Yeah. And for

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us who weren't adopted and, you know, friends and family who might not understand that perspective

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as much, it's really insightful to hear their point of view. So I'm really looking forward

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to releasing a lot of those conversations. Yeah, I'm excited about that. And then our

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last episode of the year will be a trilogy, trilogy discussion is what we're calling it.

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It's where we speak with an adoptive mother, a biological mother and an adoptee all in

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one family, like family, right? And so that was a really fun one to record as well. And

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so that's how we'll round out our year. And then we have a few things planned for next

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year too. So yeah, we're excited today to talk about family communication patterns some

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more though. First, let's start off and maybe refresh a little for those who might not have

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caught the last episode. It would make more sense if you did catch it, but that's okay.

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We'll, we'll lay some ground. Yeah, help us just maybe Clifford's version. Okay. So family

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communication patterns, basically they help us understand how childhood family structures

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impact adulthood and life. So there's two different elements of family communication

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patterns. We're looking at two different orientations is what they're called conformity orientation

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and conversation orientation. And so how these impact communication within families. Okay.

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So conformity remind us what that is. Yeah. So conformity can range from low to high.

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And it's basically like, how much, I'll just give you a few examples. This will be quicker.

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So an example of a measure of the conformity orientation on the revised family communication

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patterns measure, it's from Richie and Fitzpatrick in 1990 is my parents usually have the last

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word in our family. Another example would be I'm expected to obey my parents rules when

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I'm at home. Yeah. Right. And yeah, it's basically the Bible like my parents are right. Or my

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parents are in charge. Yeah. And I know that I think we referred to this one before, but

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like you'll, you'll know better when you're older is sentiment. Yeah. So the high conformity

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is going to look at yet conforming with your parents. There's an expectation that you're

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going to conform in the family. And these patterns are generally laid by parents, right?

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Okay. Yeah. And then high conversation orientation, conversation orientation is just a totally

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different thing. Right? So I wouldn't think about these as connected as much as like two

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parts of a whole. Right? Okay. So conversation orientation is how open a conversation is

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within a family research is really clear in showing that more conversation means better

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adjustment, better relationships, higher life satisfaction. So a couple of examples from

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that scale from Richie and Fitzpatrick, my family members often talk about our feelings

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and emotions. Or my parents encouraged me to express my feelings. Yeah. So when we talked

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about this in the previous episode, we talked a lot more about like the communicative openness

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in a, in a, in adoptive home. Right? I feel like there's a lot of overlap there and I

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don't have anything to support that. But logically for me, it feels like there's a good amount

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of overlap because it's about communication within the home. And we've talked to a lot

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of adoptees that fall on that spectrum, right? Where some grew up in a home where they had

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one, maybe two conversations about the fact that a child was adopted. It was kind of a

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taboo subject. Yeah. And their whole, you know, adolescents were growing up and others

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where it was just very free flowing conversation. And so there's this spectrum. Yeah. Yeah.

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So there's four main categories that families will generally fall into, right? We've got

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protective families where there's low conversation and high conformity. And there's also laissez

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faire where there's low conversation and low conformity. Consensual, high conversation,

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high conformity and pluralistic, high conversation, low conformity. Right? And we talked in our

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last episode about how we know conversation is important. It's like we need to be seeking

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to have high conversation orientation hands down. It's a little more ambiguous knowing

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on conformity orientation with adoption. I think it's a bit of a tightrope, right? Because

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you want your child to feel like your family is like this inclusive place that they belong,

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but you also want them to feel like they belong however they are, right? They don't have to

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conform, but they're also like this cohesive part of both of their families, right? Their

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birth family and their adoptive family. Yeah. And you could see how some who are trying

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to foster a really good family culture, who create a lot of identity around their family

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may verge on being really high conformity in an effort to help that family culture feel

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one. Yeah. Yeah. But the flip side, right? I guess, I mean, right. It's a spectrum. If

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we're too far on the other side and we are too pluralistic, really low. Yeah. Like anything

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goes like be, and I don't want to say these like they're a bad thing, but like be who

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you want to be and do what you want to do. And you're your own unique individual person

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like somewhere in that they may adoptive children, at least in my opinion, may feel less connection.

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So yeah, so I feel like there's like a pendulum in the adoptive family. And probably changes

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throughout development. I imagine, yeah, there's probably different needs developmentally during

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early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, right? It probably evolved. What kind of conformity

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is healthy, which is challenging because these patterns are generally like a set thing. Yeah.

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And so yeah, something to be really aware of and attuned to. And yeah, I mean, how do

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we change a family communication pattern? I have been researching this and basically

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all I have found is like therapy, right? We continue to use by going to professionals

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and getting some help. But I feel like families do evolve and communication patterns within

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families do evolve. And so I think this is something very doable. It's just maybe a little

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bit more of an abstract conversation that we're going to be focusing on today. So last

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time we talked a lot about how families might not fall firmly into one category, right?

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Like I feel like our family is somewhere on the line between pluralistic and what is the

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other one? Consensual, right? I think we're somewhere between there. Like Shaun and I both

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took this quiz that I think we included in the show notes about where our family would

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fall. And I think for me, I was like, we were both high on conversation, but in conformity,

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I was like on the border of pluralistic, like right between being in pluralistic and consensual.

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So I was pluralistic and then Shaun was consensual just barely by one, right? And so I think

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a lot of families probably fall kind of in both camps, right? Like they can be and maybe

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different days and different circumstances can just bring out different aspects of family

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communication patterns for us. So last time, Shaun, I remember you were talking about how

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your family growing up, you thought we're probably lower on the conversation end of

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the spectrum. And then conformity, what do you think that depended on what shaped how

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conformity was in your family?

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Yeah. So, I mean, trying to remember really specific things, especially for me is challenging

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from my childhood, but I would say that we had a lot of conformity in our home. Like

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there were rules and unspoken rules that were expected to be met. And we didn't really talk

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about much. For example, I mean, so one, one example of something that was really high

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conformity was my sister and I had to get like perfect grades in school. And that was

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just, that was it. Later, I only later that I find out it was because of my dad's personal

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education and all experiences that we weren't aware of and that he wanted better for us

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than he had experienced. But we never talked about that like in the moment, right? But

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this was the law. You follow the law. And that's just what we do as a family. But there

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wasn't really the conversation about that.

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Interesting. I feel like my family was probably on the lower end of conversation as well.

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Maybe closer to the middle, but probably lower. And then with conformity, I feel like it depended,

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right? If we were talking about religiosity and like church, then it was a high conformity

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family, right? There was not any room to disagree with my parents religiously. But other things

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like grade school, how we dressed, I don't feel like that mattered as much. And so there

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was more pluralistic family communication patterns there. And so I don't know if other

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families are like that where it might kind of vary depending on what we're talking about.

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Yeah. Interesting though. And so as I've been studying about how we can help our families

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become better connected, I keep coming back to what's called family systems theory. I

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learned about it in school a few months ago and it is really interesting. So basically

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family systems theory focuses on how families and family members interact with each other

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and their environment. And it's like a system, right? This was developed by Dr. Murray Bowen

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in the fifties. And it's the idea that families are these complex systems. Every member has

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a role and a purpose. And what one person does is going to impact the whole family,

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right? It's like a system. I think of lots of cogs.

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We can't all exist independently without influencing the other people that are living in the same

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home or in the same family. Yeah. And so following a lot of the principles of healthy family

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systems, I think can improve our family communication patterns. So a few of those would be being

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connected, right? Having communication, open communication. Talked about this a lot. Yeah.

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Always a good thing. Another one is support, right? Yeah. And that's in a lot of different

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ways, but showing love and showing care, helping each other and supporting each other is really

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important for connectedness. Yeah. Another one is security. Healthy families

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provide a sense of security and belonging. And so I feel like that helps us kind of put

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in perspective how conformity might look as well, right? We're trying to find that balance.

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Well, and I think about all three of those things, communication, support and security,

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how they all are intertwined as well, right? Like if I feel support, I feel secure. Yeah.

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I love that. Yeah. They all build on one another. So if we're striving for connectedness in

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our home, those principles are really important that we strive to have clear, open communication,

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that we support one and one another by loving and caring for each other and that we help

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our children help each other feel a sense of security and belonging.

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I love that. Yeah. Another important aspect of healthy family systems would be transparency.

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That would involve being respectful to each other and to others' boundaries, privacy,

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opinions. It involve expectations, families that are healthy, set clear and consistent

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expectations and rules. There's a mutual respect. And then additionally, there'd be a healthy

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kind of conflict management instead of like gaslighting or ignoring someone when you're

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mad at them and not speaking to them for however long, you address conflict in a healthy way.

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So transparency, we're respectful, we set clear expectations and we have good conflict

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management skills. Yeah, exactly. All right. And then additionally, we want to be flexible.

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So healthy family systems, there's got to be some grace and some forgiveness and also

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an element of playfulness. Families shouldn't just be these rigid systems like a work system,

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right? It's such an essential part of who people are. Families need to have some of

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that. Yeah, I think just kind of building on what you said for flexibility, right? The

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sense of grace or forgiveness in a home. I think for me, I mean, I'm pretty stubborn

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in some ways, but I think for me, one really important thing that I do and I feel like

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is a really important experience to have is when I've messed up, when I've got frustrated

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at one of our kids or when I yelled or something like that, that I take them and sit down with

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them and talk to them and to admit that, hey, the way I handled this is not the way that

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I want to be a dad. And I'm not hard. Yeah. And just helping them see too, like, Hey,

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you know what? This is the first time I've ever had to be a dad to an 11 year old boy,

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right? Or this is the first time I've had to be a dad to a 14 year old girl. And I'm

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learning how to be that type of dad. And I'm making mistakes as I go. But if you can forgive

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me and I'm going to forgive you for my mistakes, because I know this is the first time you've

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been an 11 year old boy or the first time you've been in a 14 year old girl, right?

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Or whatever it is in our, in our family, right? Those conversations are really important.

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Yeah, I love that because I feel like that is a shift generationally. I love this shift.

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Where as parents, it's not a taboo or like a sign of weakness to admit our imperfections

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and to try to be open with our kids about, Hey, I messed up. I hope you can forgive me.

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I'm going to try to do better. Yeah. I don't feel like I saw that growing up. I mean, not

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just with my parents, but like with anyone I knew. I'm sure there were some families,

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but yeah, it's just been a cultural shift. I love it so much. I think it helps build

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us healthy connections. Well, I'm going back to like when we were talking about conformity,

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right? One of the, one of the feelings or one of the statements that someone might say

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in a really high conformity environment is that, you know, my parents know everything.

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My parents are not wrong. And so taking time to seek forgiveness, ask for some grace, be

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truthful and transparent and honest in, in the way that you're talking about how you're

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parenting, that improves your communication. That's going to help them in their security.

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They're going to feel more security. I think they'll feel a little bit more respect toward

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you as a parent as well. And it kind of sets the expectation for them to be open and talk

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about the mistakes that they make. And if we can come to this place where we're all

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open talking about things, it's going to help so, so much of our family. I love that. Yeah.

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So beyond family systems theory, we also have a list of a few other ways that we feel like

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we can improve family connections and family communication patterns. So it's first off

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active listening. Yeah. We'll be talking about that so much next week.

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We'll talk a lot about that in an next episode. So I wonder if we just...

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I can skip over that. But yeah, it's an important one though.

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Yeah. You'll, you'll hear us refer to level one and level two listening. That's your hook

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to listen to the next episode.

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All right. Also, we want to create family rituals. Bonding rituals can help strengthen

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family relationships. They also help with family resiliency and emotional health.

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Yeah. What would you say are some of our family rituals?

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For me, I think of like traditions, right? Like Halloween, we decorate sugar cookies.

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That's like something we do every Halloween at Roarans. We have my grandma. Christmas,

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our family always goes to the festival of lights. The kids love this opportunity. It's

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like a little drive through park with Christmas lights and decorations. And the kids love

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it because they can unbuckle and like stand up with their heads out the sun roof. And

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yeah, it's just like a nice sweet tradition. And then we'd always have milkshakes afterwards.

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Yeah. I think of birthdays in our home. This is actually the eve of a birthday at the sound

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of a recording. And we always decorate the house kind of similarly, like with streamers

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in our...

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But we always do after the kids are in bed, which is funny if they get older. I don't

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know if we need to do that, but it's a ritual and they love it. We've talked about stopping

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with our older kids and they're like, no, no, no.

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But yeah, the way the streamers and balloons and gifts are put out, it like matches every

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year and it just feels like, yeah, this is a, this is a ritual in our family.

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That's true. I love that one.

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What about any more like meaningful or deep rituals?

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I mean, by the next one I was thinking of might not be meaningful and deep, but we like

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traveling together. I do think we've made a lot of memories just like sitting in the

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car, driving on long road trips and talking after reading. We like to do audio books and

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talking about after a really sad audio book. I think last trip we read the Watson's go

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to Birmingham.

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Because we went to Birmingham.

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Yeah. We're so clever right now, but we talked about racism and we talked about some of these

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challenging aspects and had really good conversations with our kids about how racism has existed

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and how it persists and continues to exist, how we can combat that. So yeah, I feel like

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family rituals can be such a huge thing. And there's a lot of things we probably don't

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realize that our family rituals, right?

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I think I just thought of another one and this is very ritualistic and I think it stemmed

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from like bedtime routine, but for each of our kids, we like a different song that we

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sing to them at night when we're like tucking everybody in. And even our older kids like

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nine, 11 and 13, 14 or yeah, 13, 14. They still want us to sing their songs. So we're

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still not, they're still not too cool for that, but I imagine we'll get there, but at

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some point, but it's really sweet. Yeah. That's part of our family culture. And this next

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one I feel like is similar to a ritual eating meals together, right? Yeah. We hear this

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all the time. There are so many studies that show the eating meals together can help reinforce

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family communication. And so even if you can't do that every night, choose the nights when

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you can and just try to focus on being together without screens and electronics on the table.

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And asking questions that help them reflect on experiences they've had, whether it's that

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day, it's kind of funny right now, our youngest right now, every time I asked him, what did

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you learn at school? And he said, I don't know, but I had fun. It's okay. He's four.

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It's great. It was crazy. It was great. But, but we, we struck to eat dinner together

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every day.

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And that's probably going to change as our kids keep getting older. I feel like we're

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kind of in this naive state right now, right before our kids are like getting super busy

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with stuff and, but, but yeah, we are in this stage right now where we're able to do that

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on a regular basis. We have a lot of scheduled family time too, which is another thing we

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thought of for our list. Scheduled family time. On Friday nights we have family fun

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night and our plan has always been to let the kids start inviting friends over when

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they want to for that. But so far they haven't wanted to. It's been like a special family

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night. We try to have a dinner that's like more fun. I don't get to get to eat salmon

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or asparagus on Friday nights. So yeah, yeah. But yeah, we'll do games, movies, treats.

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It's a fun night. I look forward to it too. Actually. Yeah. Another thing we thought about

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is to make sure that we allow one on one time. Daddy daughter dates, mom and mom, son dates,

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those type of things. Yeah. Yeah. Get someone on one time with each of our kids. And then

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also making sure that if there's a situation that arises or a problem or a challenge, instead

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of attacking each other, we address the problem, right? Yeah. I'm making sure that we always

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remember that this relationship, that our family relationships are more important than

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the most important. Well, it makes me think of the one on one time. So one of our, one

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of our sons right now is going to run a half marathon next week, which makes us amazing

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run our dad really happy. And we've been training together. And I mean, I've spent a lot, a

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lot of one on one time with him over the last many, many weeks, even months. And sometimes

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we go on a run and we have really meaningless conversation, but we're together. And sometimes

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we have really deep conversations. I guess it kind of depends on how fast we're running

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and how much we want to talk. But that has helped us work through a lot of problems too.

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And something about the, you know, going on a walk or running together with this forward

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motion, like mirroring progression in a relationship is generally for the kid.

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And I look at you. That's very poetic. I love it. All right. And yeah, just again, along

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with making sure that we're addressing situations and problems in a healthy way, seeking to

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be assertive, but not aggressive and confrontational. All right. So we created a little exercise

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that we thought would help families evaluate their communication patterns and work on improving

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them. Awesome. So there's three steps to this exercise. Okay. So first with your partner,

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you determine which family communication pattern you think you most align with in your family.

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And so as you do that, you want to talk about what the strengths and weaknesses are of where

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you are currently. So you're talking about like, are you a laissez faire family? Are

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you a pluralistic or a consensual or a protective family? All right. So evaluate that. So you

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put that together and then you want to discuss which combination of conversation and conformity

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your kids probably need, right? Like look at it more from what do you think would be

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appropriate for your child or your children thinking about their ages, their needs, and

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think, like, are we in a spot where we are meeting our kids needs with our current family

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communication pattern? Yeah. Okay. And then finally with your partner and if your kids,

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if they're old enough and it's an age appropriate thing for them, plan time for family interactions

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and take steps to find and strike the right balance of conversation and conformity in

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your home. Yeah. I think for me, this activity just helps us be more intentional about what

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we're doing. I think it's easy to get into kind of a rut or almost complacent. Like this

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is just how we've done things for so long that we're not really intentional about how

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we're doing things. And so just looking at this, the level of conformity, the level of

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communication in our home, taking a sit back and say, Hey, are we really where we want

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to be? And we're probably not going to be exactly where we want to be. So let's make

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a plan moving forward. And I think it's really important to make sure as part of that plan

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that we set periods of time where we come back to it and reflect on our progress or

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reflect on our change. Yeah. Without, yeah, not like a one time exercise, right? Like

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this is something that I think would be really healthy to repeat. Yeah. Like to add a level

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of accountability in that process of making a plan. Yeah. I love that. I mean, I don't

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want this to feel like, like a chore, right? Where it's like, Oh, my family is so messed

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up and I have so much to do because all of us have families where there's room for improvement.

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Absolutely. There's so many like beautiful family relationships. And just because you're

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not in a perfect family because you're a human, it doesn't mean it doesn't take away from

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that beauty. And so I feel like just remembering like, there are so many good things already,

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but just trying to enhance that in a child focused way where you're trying to think of

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how you can better meet your child's needs. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing

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a little bit about what you've been learning in your PhD program. It's been really fun

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for me because I know you have hours and hours of research that you're doing along with classes

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and it's not easy to communicate or share even day to day, like all the things that

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you're learning. Even as I talk about how important communication is, it's true. It's

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a double edged sword. It's really tricky. Well, you communicate about things that are

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really important with our family and those things. But yeah, we hope that this episode

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has helped you think about the way that your family structure is kind of functioning right

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now. Thinking about different ways that you can improve relationships and connection with

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others in your family and take some initiative to act in ways that could improve communication

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and overall just satisfaction in your family situation. Awesome. Yeah. Thanks so much for

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listening to this episode and for being here with us on the podcast. Thanks so much for

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listening to this episode of the Open Adoption Project.