"The highest purpose of communication is communing, which is becoming one with each other."

So wrote relationship experts Barry and Joyce Vissell in their book,"The Shared Heart"

Sadly, many families and groups of friends who come together during the holiday season have only superficial conversations.  However, by using some simple agreements and some questions as conversation-starters, they can have a much richer and more enjoyable time of sharing their life experiences.

First, what gets in the way?

     Five main impediments to quality family conversations:

1. Most families don't set aside the time required for sharing meaningful life experiences and telling stories.  For example, meals are often rushed.  As Sonia Cohen suggests in the title of her article, "Savor Life by Slowing Down the Table."  (For a full description of this issue, see http://www.timeday.org/ honoring "Take Back Your Time Day."

2. Most families don't understand that some basic agreements are necessary to support quality conversation, and they don't get those agreements for turn-taking, listening, brief sharing.

3. In the U.S. we are immersed in a "culture of critique" (linguist Deborah Tannen's term) in which people routinely interrupt, correct, disagree, and argue with one another.  This makes conversing risky and un-safe.

4. During dinner table conversations in the American culture, children tend to be the performers and the adults the spectators, which makes it less likely the elders will share personal experiences.  (This pattern was described to me years ago by anthropologist   Gregory Bateson, and I believe it largely holds true.)

5. Too many distractions:  Televisions and radios claim our attention. Phones ring, people enter and leave and over-talk one another.  There is a sense of busy-ness in the home.

Fortunately, those five factors can be minimized.

Here are four basic methods that increase the quality and satisfaction of conversation for a group of family and friends talking together:

1. Set aside a time, even 15-20 minutes, for talking and listening.
2. Ask everyone to agree to these simple guidelines:

            --Take turns talking.

            -- Listen respectfully and seek to understand

            -- Share personal experience that has meaning

   --Speak briefly, no more than a few minutes

      3.   Use some "conversation-starter" questions that evoke personal stories. Creative starters can make the contributions more spontaneous, less rehearse.

      4.   Rotate hosts, with that one person keeping the process on track with focus and time management.

     A few years ago I surveyed 32 American families to learn what children and adults would most like to hear from each other.  From the survey results I wrote a long list of questions and topics for memory-images and assembled a "Better Conversation Kit" that could be used for gatherings of family and friends.   I discovered that young people were interested in hearing stories of the elders' life experiences.  (This kit has been revised and will be available soon at www.conversationmatters.com, the "conversation tools" link.)

     Two other items that are helpful:

● a timer that keeps sharing within the time limits.  (Three to six minutes has been a good range of time when I've used this method for a church picnic, group workshop, and groups of friends.)  An inexpensive 3-minute sand timer or watch with a second hand work well.

● a "talking object":  Almost any object will work.  A stick or a ball, or a family memento, for example.  Only the person holding the object gets to talk.

    I can hardly think of all the benefits there are to family conversations when they're well-conducted.  Kids learn a lot of new information, certainly. But they also learn how to converse with civility; they increase their speaking vocabularies and learn more accurate pronunciation; and they practice adapting their behavior to others in order to hold their attention.

Finally, let me mention this excellent program:  Called "Eat, Talk, Connect," an activity now being used in some communities around the nation.  I talked with the coordinator of such a program in Park Rapids, MN (Ms. Mari Jo Lohmeier) and learned that when school children had family meals at least 3 times a week, they got better grades and were less prone to start smoking or get involved with drugs.  As well, because of parents' meal planning, everyone had better nutrition, which resulted in better health.