Family Interaction In the Home

We had a really good discussion this week about the different types of interactions and how they affect families within the home. The one that I thought was most interesting, and found to be the most true, was the symbolic interaction.

Symbolic interaction is the most easily misunderstand type of interaction. It involves the objects, words, gestures, and actions that we use when we are interacting with other people. The reason it is so easily misunderstood is because everyone interrupts things very differently. Or they see it differently. For example: Say that my sister's room is just super messy and she's gone all of the time working. She comes home really tired and goes straight to bed. She doesn't have any free time and is always stressed. Sometimes she's not able to find anything in her room. So I decide to help her one day when I have some free time on my hands. While she is away, I clean up her room for her. It takes me awhile but I finally get it done and I wait excitedly for her to get home. When she does get home, she goes to  her room and gets upset. She's upset because she feels like someone cleaning her room shows that she's incapable and unable to do anything on her own. She may also feel that someone did it jsut because it wasn't the way that they liked it and she feels that it was an invasion of her space. Though that is not why I did it or how I meant it, that may be the way she might take it.

So it's very important that we have an understanding of each other and the way that each individual communicates. Many times, it's because of this understanding that can cause a lot of contention in the home. As a family interacts with each other more and continues to create a stronger bond, contention and misunderstanding will decrease. This will also help create more love and charity within the home. Family interaction is the most important interaction that anyone will have. The interaction that we have within our homes, is the same kind of interaction that we take with us when we interact with people outside our homes. It was a really interesting concept that I never really thought of before. It also helped explain so much of what has happened in my family.