This week, the ritual I want you to try with your family is a family game night. It is intended to enhance effective communication (DeFrain & Stinnett, 2008). Family game night is a great alternative to watching a movie together. You can make family game night a time for sharing your feelings, listening to each other, participating in family discussions, telling family stories and sharing jokes.
This week, invite your family members to a family game night. You can call or email or text! It may be difficult to find a good time that works for everyone, but do what you can. You also need to suggest a location. For example, you might invite your parents to your place or have the game night at your family’s house. Prepare to provide some snacks, food and drinks simple enough to have while shouting, talking, gesturing, holding cards or otherwise engaging in game play. If you live far away from you family members, don’t be discouraged. Having family game night in person may be hard but you can still use Skype or FaceTime to be together for a game. However you decide to approach the game night itself, the most important thing is to make it happen!
Family game night can focus on a single game all of you like or a few games all of you are willing to try. You can even make up your own games! In this post, I’m going to give you a new game to try that was specifically designed for emerging adults to play with their families in order to enhance effective communication. Specifically, it is intended to help family members learn how to listen to each other and give each other a chance to explain themselves.
In advance, prepare a set of 10-15 road signs for the family. Road signs might include any of the following: stop, yield, red light, yellow light, green light, flashing, one way, do not enter, exit, road closed, speed limit, intersection, u-turn, or road narrows. You can find some printable road signs here:
http://www.trafficsign.us/
Before you get started, make sure you and your family members have an understanding of what each road sign does.
Throughout the activity, encourage your family members to express their opinions and to have fun. If you haven’t already, tell them you want to a play a game that focuses on communication using road signs. You might even make family road trips the theme for your family game night. If you took long road trips as a kid, what snacks did you always have to have in the car? Are there photos you could print to help spark your memories of family road trips?
Once you’re ready to get started, ask your family members to imagine their communication in the family as a road way. The following script might be helpful for getting your family started:
“Road signs tell us how to behave on the road. Sometimes we have to completely stop. Sometimes we have to yield. Communication in a family has rules too. Some of these rules make communication more clear. Sometimes we know the rules, but we don’t always follow them. A green light for communication might mean we can talk unencumbered; a stop sign might mean we don’t want to talk at all. Today, we’re going to get a chance to talk about the communication we’ve observed within our family, the road signs we know are there but don’t always follow. I’ve printed several road signs for us to use. In this game, we will each choose the road sign that best characterizes how we communicate with each of our other family members.”
You and your family might want to think about these two questions before you begin to choose your road signs: 1) What signs do you think your family uses most often when communicating with each other? 2) Are the signs you use different for some family members than for others?
You can decide as a family who will go first. Remember, avoid using sarcasm and do not put each other down. Relax and have fun! You might try to guess the road signs a family member will choose before he or she reveals their choices. Make sure you give each other a chance to explain yourself and don’t forget to listen!
As emerging adults in contemporary society, it can be hard to find the time to pay attention and listen to your family members. This game gives you the chance to listen and pay attention to each other’s explanations without being distracted. These are important qualities of effective communication.
Whether you play the game I’ve described here or you play your own favorite games at your family game night, I hope you’ll share your experience here. Tell us who you invited to your family game night and why, where you played your games, what games you played, and how the night went. Which qualities of effective communication were present as you played? Of course, I would love to hear how the road sign game went if you played it! How well did it work for your family? Do you think you’ll play it again? Why or why not? Do you think you will you have another family game night again soon? Why or why not? I look forward to reading your opinions soon!
