Introduction
My research question is how can we help family members of different generations to connect and understand each other?
The project is to help families to express and explore emotions and thoughts together safely. It helps families to understand each other’s experiences and views, appreciate each other’s needs, build a bridge in which everyone could have a chance to communicate with their family member and understand better and experience the process of a “shaping future relationship”.
My project is based on the high-context culture in Asia where people intend not to say what they want to say directly but express through non-verbal action. Many affections sign send from elder are quite cryptic that it’s hard to sense, which leads to the generation gap. The generation gap can result in misunderstanding and cause friction between different generation. Therefore, how to shorten the distance between family members has become a crucial issue.
A good family relationship is based on the communication between family member, and the process of communication is also a mode of interaction with the family(Bienvenu Sr, 1969). Many researchers actively exploring communication skills between family, but very few studies have studied the intimate relationship between children(18years old-35 years old) and elders, they mainly study the intimate relationship between children(under 15 years old) or Sexually Abused Children or Children with Anxiety and their parents(Appendix 10). My project is mainly to explore how to better communicate between teenagers(18years old-35 years old) and elders. The project is designed specifically to support family conversations around such real-world issues and sensitive topics, such as marriage.
Methodology
During the project journey, I explore a mixture of methods. Most relevant are: experiment, observational, interview, focus group, questionnaire and reflexive practice – building interventions that imposed a improvement in intimacy relationship.The knowledge I acquired through these methods is applied to my iteration intervention.
For my initial idea(Appendix 1), I used mask as a technique, drawing their mood on the mask and wear their mask to communicate with other people, but can’t speak, only rely on body language. Result show that it resolves a little embarrassment, but it also increase the difficulty of communication. There are few information acquisition channels for online communication, a lot of interactive information is hidden, and it is difficult to feel the other’s person mood.
In order to better carry out my project, I explored family communication patterns(Appendix 3), relationship satisfaction, and conflicting styles. At the same time, I launched a questionnaire(Appendix 2). In this survey, I found a breakthrough point in the seating arrangement of the dining table in Chinese. So I discussed with my stakeholders via Zoom to discuss the breakthrough point(Appendix 4). Seating arrangement and family status and power hinder the communication between children and parents to some extent, and communication will be affected by power and family status. The relationship between parents and children is destined to be unequal. Parents are more likely to be in a controlling role, and children are more likely to be in a role of being taken care of and controlled. Even in families that emphasize the concept of equality, Nor can it eliminate this objective inequality. Power dynamic is a vital key in communication, which is the area I explore further.
In addition to this, I reached out experts: Junyi Cao: a creative and energetic service designer, she has been exploring the relationship between people; Yifei Shen: a psychologist expert. After talking with Junyi Cao(Appendix 8), I decided to use a game as my intervention(Appendix 5). I invited one of the stakeholders to play the sport game with her family. Results determined that playing games can indeed strengthen the relationship between family member and make you temporarily forget about power and status. However, when playing games, most of your energy is on the game, and you forget to communicate. After that, I reached out Yifei Shen(Appendix 6), she gave me some suggestions on game design and recommended a game for me to use as a reference. It prompted me to produce my iterative intervention— a board game. Games are common methods of psychological counseling, which use abstract questions to allow visitors to express their truest thoughts.
In the game, there will be question cards(Appendix 9)(Cover the four aspects of money concept, family concept, values, and emotional bottom line)and interactive cards(The content of the interactive card will include some art therapy activities). You can give yourself and your family member an opportunity to express yourself through the choice of both parties, communicate emotions, and feel the similarities and differences by answering questions. Before playing the game, completing the questionnaire(Appendix 7), and then a 30-minute game will begin. After the game, there will be a 2-3 minute interview(Appendix 7). In order to consider that participants may lie and are unwilling to tell their true feelings, the game and interview process will all be recorded by video so that they can record the most real reaction when they communicate.
Reflection and Analysis
In the project journey, I kept challenging myself by trying many things I never did before, such as writing e-mail to experts, writing articles on the blog, writing report, at the same time, I learned how to develop interventions to check question, how to refine my question and intervention strategy to make it sharper and more purposeful.
My previous interventions and research focused on how to reduce the conflict between different generations and find the solution for the question, but I found that communication is a long-term process, this problem cannot be changes in the short-term. From my first intervention(Appendix 1), it resolved a little embarrassment, but it also increased the difficulty of communication, through this failed intervention, I have learned more about my stakeholder and family therapy. I have learned the concept of different communication pattern. I have learned that games are common methods of psychological counseling, such as sand table and tarot cards, which use abstract questions to allow visitors to express their truest thoughts. This knowledge allowed me to successfully find a breakthrough point—power dynamic, contact the experts, and got their valuable opinions, and the game facilitates communication and provides insight into individual and family dynamics.
Conclusion
This year of research and experiences have shown and taught me that communication is a long-term process, this problem cannot be changed in the short-term. However, finding from my research had made me feel that I am making a small contribution on the development of family dynamic in China.
In the early stage of the project, I think that a solution must be found for my project, otherwise it will be a failed project, but now my idea is that as long as someone participates in my project, their ideas have changed because of my project, which is a big step for success.
For the intervention, the board game and art-based interactive card provide families the opportunity to communicate, work as a team, learn more about each other, explore thoughts and feelings, and have a different relational experience of each other. This has the potential to increase emotional intimacy. This increased emotional intimacy is the support that offers family members a secure base from which to grow. Accordingly, how to help family members of different generations to connect and understand each other in the long term further research and more people to engage, consistent documentation, intervention, and testing.
(actually my iterative intervention has not received feedback yet, and it is still in progress. I am still designing the question card and interactive content in the game. I expect to finish my iterative intervention in the next two weeks, if I get the feedback from my intervention, I will write the feedback into the reflection and analysis part)
Bibliography
Bienvenu Sr, M. J. (1969). Measurement of parent-adolescent communication. Family Coordinator.
McLeod, J. M., & Chaffee, S. H. (1972). The construction of social realty. In J. T.Tedeschi (Ed.), The Social Influence Process.
Olson, D. H., & Barnes, H. (2004). Family communication. FACES IV Package.Minneapolis, MN: Life Innovations, Inc
Ariel, S. (2005). Family play therapy. In C.E. Schaefer, J. McCormick, & A. Ohnogi (Eds.), International handbook of play therapy: Advances in assessment, theory, research, and practice. New York: Jason Aronson.
Gil, E., & Sobol, B. (2000). Engaging families in therapeutic play. In C.E. Bailey (Ed.), Children in therapy: Using the family as a resource. New York: W.W. Norton.
Keith, D.V., & Whitaker, C.A. (1981). Play therapy: A paradigm for work with families. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 7, 243-254.
video：https://www.bilibili.com/video/av42164412?p=1 (question card in the game)
the reality show: https://www.ifsp.tv/play?id=zMx3wfq0RJM (study case)
Appendix 1:https://koyoung.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2021/05/24/experiment-wear-mask-to-communicate/
Appendix 2:https://koyoung.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2021/07/23/communication-pattern-survey/
Appendix 3: https://koyoung.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2021/07/23/four-modes-of-family-communication/
Appendix 5: https://koyoung.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2021/08/22/intervention-5-game/
Appendix 6: https://koyoung.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2021/10/17/expert-response-and-outline-of-the-game/
Appendix 7: https://koyoung.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2021/10/24/questionnaire-before-playing-the-game/
Appendix 9: https://koyoung.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2021/10/23/reference%ef%bc%9athink-about-the-question-in-the-game/
Appendix 10: http://www.lianalowenstein.com/lWorkshops.html