Dialogue should be safe conversation. Whatever is said and done when your family is together must not make people feel bad, disappointed, threatened, stupid or wrong.
Don’t let your family be an unsafe and no-fun kind of family.
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A negative experience in the family is destructive. It breeds low self-esteem, destroys confidence, encourages performance anxiety that lowers school and college grades, causes distrust, results in avoidance of family events once the kids are grown and out of the house, and a bunch of other bad things. Don’t let your family be an unsafe and no-fun kind of family.
Since it is designed merely to find out information, dialogue is valuable in helping family members understand and appreciate one another. Dialogue is just asking simple questions.
To find out information.
Not to correct.
Not to change the other person.
Just good-natured, open-ended questions that have no right answers.
When people share their thoughts and ideas, they take a risk. When the other person accepts their thoughts and ideas by listening and not arguing, trust begins to build. Accepting what another person thinks does not mean that you agree, but only that you accept that he or she has the right to think his or her own way.
Telling another person your feelings is more intimate and personal than relating thoughts and ideas. Therefore, sharing feelings is even more risky. Trust has to be established — trust that the other person will not reject those feelings by saying they are silly or unfounded or untrue. People’s feelings are the most personal part of them and are often deeply rooted in their values and past experiences.
Many of us had parents who talked to us only when giving orders or correcting us. So we learned to give orders and criticize, but not how to simply spend time in safe conversations that help us understand one another.
Too many of us cannot remember conversations with our parents that were safe or that were not telling us what to do or telling us what we did wrong. Our parents did not help us to think because they never asked us any questions. Our parents did not help us feel smart because they never asked our opinions on anything when we were children. Our parents did not give us a feeling that it was safe to be ourselves, because for their approval we had to be just like them.
You don’t want to be that kind of a parent!
People hate to be criticized or argued with regard to things they say about themselves. When people reveal their own feelings or thoughts, they do not want to be corrected or criticized.
They want to express their memories as they remember them, not as you might remember them. They want to tell their favorite things and have you understand why those things are their favorites. They don’t want you to say anything or communicate by body language that anything is wrong with what they consider their favorite or why it is their favorite.
After all, it is their favorite; others can have a different one. They want to express their wishes and dreams as they exist right now, while they are talking. If it is different than something they said previously, they won’t be upset if you ask if a change has occurred or if they forgot that other wish they’d expressed. But, they sure don’t want to hear criticism.
Freedom to speak personally on a wide range of topics without fear of criticism is just plain fun. Make sure that this enjoyable sort of dialogue is a hallmark of your family life.
