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Strong Families:
Tips for Healthy and Effective
Communication
Benefits of Healthy and
Effective Communication
When we communicate in healthy ways, we
build relationships that promote appreciation,
admiration, trust, and respect. Developing
healthy patterns of effective communication is as
important in our interactions with family members
as it is at work and in the community. Here are
some examples of how healthy communication
supports healthy relationships:
• Meeting Each Other’s Needs: Healthy
communication meets the needs of others when
it is used to help them feel safe and secure; feel
respected and like they belong; develop positive
self-esteem; achieve goals; experience growth;
and develop healthy loving relationships.
Basically, we meet these needs when we
consistently communicate to others that they
are both loveable and capable.
• Developing Healthy Friendships: Developing
healthy friendships is the foundation for long-
lasting relationships. Creating and maintaining
healthy friendships includes establishing positive
communication and disclosure, expressing
realistic expectations, building trust and love,
and successfully nurturing relationships through
the inevitable ups and downs.
• Setting Realistic Expectations: Some of the
greatest sources of unhappiness in relationships
are associated with unrealistic, unexpressed,
and unfulfilled expectations. Communicating
expectations in healthy ways includes being
aware of our own and others’ expectations.
We must also be willing to negotiate a balance
between our realistic expectations and others’
realistic expectations.
• Building Trust: Developing trust includes
perceiving others as dependable, available,
responsive, able to negotiate conflict
successfully, and worthy of continuing our
relationship with them into the future.
• Developing Loving Relationships: Loving
relationships are developed by communicating
love through loving behaviors (such as hugs
and kisses, helping each other, kindness, saying
“I love you,” support), expressions of loyalty
and commitment, and experiencing positive
emotions.
Ultimately the bond of all
companionship, whether in marriage
or in friendship, is communication.
Oscar Wilde, Author
Healthy communication includes sending and
receiving information. Here are some tips for
sending and receiving verbal and non-verbal
messages.
Tips for Sending Messages
• Be Clear, Concise, and Straightforward:
Messages that are clear and to the point help
avoid confusion. In other words, “say what you
mean and mean what you say.” When others
cannot depend on us to tell them the truth, it
damages the trust in our relationships. When
dealing with difficult topics, it sometimes helps
to write words down first, before expressing
them, to determine the best things to say.
• Just the Right Amount of Information: Sharing
the right amount of information based on the
age and emotional state of listeners is important
so they can process the information without
being overwhelmed.
• Timing is Everything: Be sensitive about when
and when not to have certain conversations.
When you or the other person is sad, angry,
tired, or stressed may not be the best time to
discuss a sensitive subject.
Are you positive or negative? The
positive sending and receiving of verbal
and non-verbal messages with at least
a 5-to-1 positive-to-negative ratio is an
important factor in establishing and
maintaining healthy relationships.
John Gottman, Psychologist
Tips for Receiving Messages
• Listen Silently: Silent listening means not
interrupting and includes all non-verbal
messages sent by the receiver to the sender
through actions such as eye contact, facial
expressions, and head nodding.
• Listen Reflectively: Reflective listening includes
responses that let the sender know you are
listening, like paraphrasing or using what are
called bridge words, such as “Really?” or “And
what happened next?” and “Wow, it sounds like
that hurt?”
• Listen to Find Common Ground: Look for points
of agreement rather than disagreement to
achieve an overall win-win for the relationship.
As you think about the benefits of healthy
communication and the tips for achieving it, think
about your own communication patterns.
How do you:
• Send clear, concise, and straightforward
messages?
• Listen silently and reflectively?
• Communicate to others that they are both
valued and capable?
• Use communication to build trusting
relationships?
• Communicate your realistic expectations in
healthy ways?
• Look for points of agreement?
Healthy Communication Benefits
Everyone
When we witness healthy communication
patterns, we tend to learn how to treat others
in healthy ways. Strengthening our own skills
and modeling positive communication skills
teach our children the importance of healthy
communication and healthy relationships.
Learning healthy communication skills can lead to
character and relationship virtues such as greater
awareness, balance, resilience, resourcefulness,
positivity, kindness, appreciation, tolerance,
respectfulness, unselfishness, benevolence,
humility, compassion, and forgiveness.
SOURCE: Adapted from: Harris, V. (2014). Tips for service
providers: Healthy and effective communication. Fairfax,
VA: National Resource Center for Healthy Marriage and
Families (Product #070). Available at http://tinyurl.com/
communication-providers-p
Used our product? Please tell us how. Email: info@HealthyMarriageandFamilies.org. Reference Product #069.
www.HealthyMarriageandFamilies.org
This product was produced by ICF International with funding provided by the United States Department of Health and Human Services,
Administration for Children and Families, Grant: 90FH0002. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in
this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Department of Health and Human
Services, Administration for Children and Families.