What Is the Goal of Defining Family? Best Practices for Teaching Family Communication

Family Communication is an inherently value-laden class. When students walk into the classroom, some of them come with a very negative view of family, whereas others walk in with an extremely narrow view of family. By prioritizing and facilitating the importance of multiple definitions of families, instructors can move through more complex topics over the course of the semester knowing that students have an understanding of why defining family is important--even if they are hesitant to change their definition. In this article I present eight best practices for teaching family communication. This set of practices provides a foundation for educators to broach a value-laden topic while building classroom rapport.