The article chosen is “The Impact of Family Communication Patterns and Perceptions on
Risky Behavior: A Social Cognitive Perspective by Qingwen Dong (2005). A given family
possesses significant impacts on the way information flows from one member to another. Young
people exhibit risky behaviours that they emulate from the practices of the community. For
instance, in a family where the parents tend to discourage their children from engaging in an
argument with authority, such children are always vulnerable to participating in risky behaviours.
The patterns of communication that would be effective during the communication process
include laissez-failure, consensual, protective and pluralistic patterns. All the above four patterns
are relatively long term effects on the children. Taking an example in the consensual pattern,
most parents desire that their children should embrace communication but in line with the points
of view of the parents. The patterns have significant impacts on how my family communicates.
Through patterns of communication in a family, one can devise a way which enables
them to convey their feelings to one another effectively. Through this way, there is an
improvement in the communication and social skills of a person. The communication patterns,
in one way, also lead to the identification of the flaws in the way someone positively relates to
one another (Gupta, 2010). It would be of great importance for human services professional to
understand the ways families interact, bearing in mind the variations in the communication
patterns. Understanding the way families interact enables the human services professional to
identify the most effective means in the ways idea flow among the family members. Also, the
professional identifies the most effective communication model. Such a useful communication
model also enables the professional to identify the necessary conditions that favour the
application of such models.
References
FAMILY AND COMMUNICATION 3
Dong, Q. (2005). The Impact of Family Communication Patterns and Perceptions of Risky
Behavior: A social Cognitive Change. Journal of the Northwest Communication
Association, vol. 34, pp. 3-7.
Gupta, G.S. (2010). Family Communication Patterns, Development and Validation. Journal of
American Communication Association. Vol.3.