This document summarizes the communication patterns and experiences of the author's family. It describes the family starting as a two-parent biological family that later divorced. It discusses how the family has overcome obstacles and works to maintain close connections despite sometimes needing to recalibrate behaviors. Family rituals like holidays are described as bonding experiences for an otherwise non-problematic family. The author feels a duty to succeed due to the accomplishments of their mother, father, and sister. Overall the family views 'home' as the people they care about rather than a physical place.

1. Family Communication Collage Joseph Fessenden CMS 332 April 10, 2011

2. What are we? I come from a family that started off as a two-parent biological family. My parents were married for 22 years before they got a divorce. A single parent family consists of one parent and one or more children (Galvin, 2008) p.7

3. How we work… “Cohesion is defined as the emotional bonding that family members experience with each other and include concepts of emotional bonding, boundaries, coalitions, time, space, friends, decision-making, interests and recreation.” (Galvin, 2008) My family has had to over come a lot of obstacles along the way, but in the end these obstacles have made us stronger as a whole. We all work hard and because of that we love to party. We cherish all of the time we have together because we all know how precious life is. I would classify our family as connected.

4. Calibration Our family isn’t perfect and because of that we sometimes need to make changes in how we deal with things. “Calibration implies checking and if necessary, correcting the range of acceptable behaviors”. (Galvin, 2008) p.62 Our family likes to give one another a lot of crap; I feel like this is how we deal with things and make changes. This method works well sometimes but it can also go the other way. With a lot of criticism in the mix problems rise up. We are pretty good at working things out but like all families we do have our tough times.

5. Family Meaning “The interaction of your family members creates an overall experience of family life that cannot be re-created by any other family. This uniqueness reflects the family meanings developed through patterned interactions.” (Galvin, 2008) p. 81 Our families uniqueness is what makes me so fond of what we have. We are an old school family that really doesn’t have many problems. We love getting together and hanging out. Some families are not able to do this because of differences in their world views. My mother who is the girl with short hair in the back of the photo is the rock of this family. Her brothers and sister in the photo all live near Portland and have a great relationship with one another due to their tremendous pride in family.

6. Family Ceremonials and Celebrations “Family ceremonials may include weddings, graduations, and funerals as these are major rights of passage events celebrated in U.S. culture”. (Galvin, 2008) pg.121 Our family always gets together around the holidays and takes a lot of pride in these times. We love to cook good food and drink…sometimes too much. These rituals are what bind us together as a family because for a lot of us it is the strongest thing in our lives. Horseshoes…can’t beat it…

7. Providing Nurturing and Support Through advice, directives, and answers to questions, children learn what parents and society expect of them. (Galvin, 2008) p. 159 My parents, uncles, aunts, and grandparents have always been a huge part of my life. Their thoughts that they have shared with me have helped me grow and mature as a person. I love and respect all of them even though sometimes they do share too much information with me.

8. Roles in our Family My mother, father and sister are all very successful people. As the youngest child it is my duty to be able to either match or surpass their accomplishments. I will always work harder to impress them because if not I will not feel like I made them proud. This is how I want to live my life but at the same time I know that if I don’t accomplish these almost unreasonable tasks, I will always know that they love me no matter what.

9. What brings us down makes us stronger… My sister and I grew up in a home where our parents never fought, well at least not in front of us. We thought we had the perfect family. Boy were we wrong. Our family is anything but perfect but that is what makes it special. I think because of this we never really treated each other with the respect that we should have. This all changed one day when we were on vacation and she almost died when her car was struck by a drunk driver…Hold on to your siblings because you never know when they will be taken from you. It was a hard lesson to learn but we are now closer than ever.

10. Home Many families view home as a “nesting ground” or place of refuge that brings people together. (Galvin, 2008) p. 341 As a family we have moved several times. Due to the ongoing move we have always thought of home as a place where you go where you are surrounded by family. No matter where you are if you are surrounded by the ones you love, you will always be home.

11. Works Cited Galvin, B. a. (2008). Family Communication. Boston: Pearson.