When Arizona caseworker Heather Shew-Plummer met Steven and Roger Ham, she knew they would be ideal adoptive parents.³ They were “patient, loving, fun and ceaseless advocates for kids.” Shew-Plummer helped the Hams adopt a young Hispanic boy, Michael. But Michael worried about his four younger siblings, who were still in foster care. “These kids obviously loved one another,” Steven says. “I knew they had to be together, and I was going to make that happen.” Eventually, the couple adopted all of Michael’s siblings and worked to reassure the children about the family’s stability by telling them, “This [family] is forever.” Seeing their success, caseworkers began placing children of all ethnicities, ages, and abilities with the Hams. They now have 14.

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Critical to their family success is the positive atmosphere Steven and Roger create. “They are really supportive of anything I do,” says their daughter Vanessa, and their constant encouragement traverses many varied activities: basketball, karate, ROTC, and cheerleading. The Hams also emphasize open, honest communication. Some of their kids are old enough to remember their troubled previous lives, and the Hams discuss their pasts forthrightly, helping the children to grieve and move forward. “Children should be able to come to you about anything,” Steven says. But more than anything else, the Ham family focuses on love. “A loving home is a loving home,” Roger says. “Our kids have two parents who love them; not all of their friends do.”

The story of the Ham family reminds us of a simple truth: we create our families through how we communicate. Although you’re only one member of your family, the interpersonal choices you make—and what you say and do as a result—ripple outward. To help boost your family’s closeness and happiness, use your interpersonal communication skills to maintain your family relationships, and work carefully to balance ongoing family tensions.

MAINTENANCE STRATEGIES FOR FAMILIES

Many people take their family relationships for granted. Instead of communicating in ways designed to maintain these relationships, people assume that “your family is always there for you” (Vogl-Bauer, 2003). But all family relationships need constant maintenance to be sustained. As illustrated by Steven and Roger Ham, three of the most important strategies for maintaining family relationships are positivity, assurances, and self-disclosure (Vogl-Bauer, 2003).

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Positivity The most powerful maintenance tactic for families is positivity (Stafford, 2010). In family settings, this means communicating with your family members in an upbeat and hopeful fashion. To implement positivity in your family encounters, start doing favors for other family members without being asked, and unexpectedly gift them in little ways that show you care. Invest energy into making each encounter with family members enjoyable. Avoid complaining about family problems that have no solutions; ridiculing family members; whining or sulking when you don’t get your way; and demanding that caregivers, siblings, or other kin give you favored treatment.

Assurances The second way you can bolster your family relationships is by offering regular assurances of how much your family means to you. Let other family members know that you consider your relationship with each of them unique and valuable, and that you are committed to maintaining these bonds well into the future (“I love you,” “I will always be here for you,” “I miss you,” or “I can’t wait to be home again so I can spend time with you”). Avoid devaluing family relationships in front of others (“They’re just my family”) and commenting on how other families are superior to yours (“I’d give anything to have other parents”).

Self-Disclosure Self-disclosure in family relationships means sharing your private thoughts and feelings with family members and allowing them to do the same without fear of betrayal. You do this by treating other family members in ways that are consistent, trustworthy, and ethical. Ways to practice self-disclosure include making time in your schedule to talk with parents, siblings, or children about how they are doing; encouraging them to share their feelings and concerns with you; and offering your perspective in a cooperative, respectful way. It also means avoiding communication practices that undermine disclosure, such as betraying confidences, refusing to make time for family conversation, reacting defensively when family members share their feelings with you, disparaging family members’ viewpoints, and hiding things from your family.

TECHNOLOGY AND FAMILY MAINTENANCE

My parents live two thousand miles away from me, in an isolated valley in southern Oregon. But we “talk” several times each week by e-mail—exchanging cartoons, photos, and articles of interest. My son Kyle, a student at the University of Chicago, Skypes with my wife and me every Sunday. And my other two sons, Colin and Conor, are constantly exchanging photos, movie clips, reddit and subreddit links, and music suggestions with me online—even though they both live in East Lansing, Michigan, and I teach at the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

Although some lament that technology has replaced face-to-face interaction and reduced family intimacy (“Families are always on the computer and never talk anymore”), families typically use online and face-to-face communication in a complementary, rather than substitutive, fashion. Families who communicate frequently via e-mail, text, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and IM also communicate frequently face-to-face or on the phone. They typically choose synchronous modes of communication (face-to-face, phone) for personal or urgent matters, and asynchronous modes (e-mail, text, Facebook) for less important issues (Tillema, Dijst, & Schwanen, 2010). What’s more, technology, especially the use of cell phones, allows families to connect, share, and coordinate their lives to a degree never before possible, resulting in boosted intimacy and satisfaction (Kennedy, Smith, Wells, & Wellman, 2008). Similarly, families whose members are geographically separated but who use online communication to stay in touch report higher satisfaction, stronger intimacy, more social support, and reduced awareness of the physical separation, compared to families who don’t (McGlynn, 2007).

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Despite being comparatively “old school,” e-mail is the dominant electronic way families communicate. Interpersonal scholar Amy Janan Johnson and her colleagues found that more than half of college students reported interacting with family members via e-mail in the preceding week and that the primary purpose of these e-mails was relationship maintenance (Johnson, Haigh, Becker, Craig, & Wigley, 2008). Students used e-mail to maintain positivity (“Have a great day!”), provide assurances (“I love you and miss you!”), and self-disclose (“I’m feeling a bit scared about my stats exam tomorrow”).

Of course, the biggest advantage of online communication is that, unlike face-to-face and phone, it lets you get in touch with family members at any time (Oravec, 2000). For example, my folks and I live in different time zones, making it difficult to find times we can talk. But we still share day-to-day events and interests via e-mail and text messages. Rarely a day goes by when I don’t receive a message from my mom detailing their dog Teddy’s latest feat of canine intelligence, or from my dad about his progress on his MG “project car.” Such messages make us feel close, even though we’re thousands of miles apart.