Have students conduct a family observation - on your own family - or a family on TV

Take notes on your observations.

One suggestion is to divide note taking into 3 sections: speaker, content, process observations.

Be alert for expressions, body movements, interruptions, topic changes, and times that one family member disconfirms another by ignoring, changing the topic, disparaging the speaker, or bringing in a third party.

• Who sits close to whom?
• Who's farthest away from whom?
• Does this proximity and distance reflect the level of verbal involvement between members or not?
• Who talks to whom?
• What is the emotional climate in the family, what they talk about and the way they interact during periods of calm versus periods of tension?