In this live talk, the host (Tameka Anderson) shares a harrowing personal story of extreme family dysfunction—her mother abandoning her during a violent encounter with a gunman—to illustrate the severity of dysfunctional family environments. She then outlines five common patterns of family dysfunction: substance‑abuse families, conflict‑driven families, violent families, authoritarian families, and emotionally detached families. The core argument is that effective communication is the single most powerful tool for breaking these cycles. She provides concrete communication strategies: becoming a better listener, empowering others, delegating clearly, managing conversations (including apologizing when wrong), and using positive non‑verbal cues. Throughout, she ties the advice to her own experiences (e.g., a mis‑communicated tea request with her daughter) and emphasizes that silence and the “don’t talk, don’t feel, don’t trust” rules sustain dysfunction. The talk concludes with holiday‑specific advice, a promotion for her book Parenting the Confident Child, and standard YouTube calls to action (subscribe, like, link in description).
Chapters
Thanks for joining me again on PTSD Parents Trying to Stop Dysfunction. So today we're going to be talking about how to break the cycle of family dysfunction. So we're gonna get right into it, shall we? And I'm actually going to be, you know, referencing a lot of things from my book. Um, I'll drop a link to where you can actually purchase my book if you so choose to. So one of the things that I always like to talk about is my family, because I cannot share anyone else's story but my own. So I always like to share my own family dysfunction, just so you know you are in good company. I'm not here to shame anybody. Family dysfunction happens. It's not something that You say, oh, I want to sign up for that. However, we can eliminate it. Okay, so what I want to do is I want to preface and start by sharing what extreme family dysfunction looks like. And I always like to read the little bit, you know, excerpts from my book just because it's so good. I'm just saying, like, who wrote this? All right, let me stop. But what does extreme family dysfunction look like? My mother left us with a stranger again. She told the man she would be right back. It took a while before she came back though. I'm guessing she was gone for a long time because when she finally came back, the man was furious. They began to argue. He pulled out a gun and said, I'm gonna kill you. So my mother took off running down the Chicago alley. I was tired of her leaving me, so I immediately took off running behind her. There had to have been an angel protecting us that day because I didn't hear the bullets whizzing past my head. I didn't feel the uneven ground under my feet. I didn't even hear my mother's feet as they pounded the pavement away from me. It was as if I was in a trance. I didn't feel anything. All I wanted to do was keep up with my mother. I take that back. I was feeling something. I was feeling frustrated. Frustrated because my little 7-year-old legs just couldn't keep up with my mother as she ran away from this bad man. All of a sudden, I heard screaming. It wasn't me. It wasn't my mother. It was another voice. It was a woman. I didn't recognize her voice, but I clearly heard her say, please stop shooting. That baby is running behind her. And the next thing I knew, the madman stopped. I finally realized that he was shooting at my mother and me. And because I was running behind her, we were in danger. The next thing I remember broke my heart. My mother never once turned around to get me. Then I fell into the arms of a stranger. Now I share that story because that is a picture of what extreme family dysfunction looks like, right? So let's talk about the 5 types of family dysfunction. Okay, so there's a substance abuse family, right? And this one is self-explanatory. Um, if anyone in your immediate family struggle with drugs and/or alcohol addictions, then this is your family, uh, dysfunction type. The next one is the conflict-driven family. got a lot of hurtful disputes, dramas, fights, and long-lasting feuds going on. So like, if your— if your family is known for not talking to each other, for holding grudges, this is the conflict-driven family. That's the type of, uh, dysfunction. Then there's the violent family, you know, physical, verbal, sexual, mental, emotional, financial, all types of violence. That's this type of family dysfunction. Then there's the authoritarian— authoritarian— how do you say the word? Authoritarian family. Like the my way or the highway type of family. Like super controlling. Um, yes, this is dysfunction, y'all. I'm just saying. And then finally the emotionally detached family. This is the lack of love and/or affection, repressed emotions. Like, you could— you probably feel like you had to walk on eggshells. Like, this is that type of, uh, a family dysfunction, right? And so one of the things that I always tell people is that there's one thing that can help to eliminate dysfunction, one thing that will break the cycle, that will crush it in half. One thing. If you master this thing, if you master this, not only will you be able to crush dysfunction, but all areas of your life will get better. So what is that one thing? Effective communication. Like, because dysfunction thrives in silence. And shame, because the the three unspoken rule of dysfunction is don't talk, don't oh look at that little thing, don't talk, don't feel, and don't trust. So if you talk, if you learn how to express yourself, if you learn how to communicate, you can crush family dysfunction. And I just want to real quickly tell you like. A couple of things that you can do to become better, speak, you know, communicator. Um, number one, you can become a better listener. A lot of people don't listen. They hear someone speaking, but they don't listen, right? They're trying to figure out what they're going to say next. They're they're trying to find a reason not to listen to them, or whatever it is. Most people do not listen, and this is, this is what causes a lot of dysfunction, is when you don't know how to be a better listener. I always tell people, God blessed most of us with 2 eyes, 2 ears, and 1 mouth for 1 reason and 1 reason alone. Obviously to be a more effective communicator, but to watch and listen twice as much as we speak, right? So, um, become better listeners. That's one way. Learning how to empower the other person is another way to become a better communicator. So like, what does that look like? For example, if you are someone who likes to give compliments and you'll just say, oh, you know, I like— let's just say something that someone has no control over, which is the way they look. To me, that is not empowering because that person didn't have anything to do with their facial features. They were born this way unless they had plastic surgery. Then I— however, I digress. But more often than not, the person didn't have anything to do with, you know, their facial features and how they look. So to me, that's not empowering. To empower someone is to help them to see what's in them. And when you can help someone to really see the power that they possess in themselves, and you're able to articulate that, you can become a better communicator, right? Another way is to be able to delegate, learning how to delegate clearly. So I know sometimes my— my— I'm gonna talk about me, y'all, okay? We talk about me. I remember one time I told my youngest daughter to go get— make me some tea. Um, I have this one particular type of tea that I really, really like and I drink a lot, and it's ginger tea. Anytime I'm having stomach issues, the ginger tea really, really helps me. So I don't know what I was watching, or I don't know what was going on, but I wasn't paying attention. And I said, "Hey, can you go make me some ginseng tea?" And so she was in there, and she was in there for a long time. So by this time, I was angry, like, "What's happening? Why why aren't you bringing me the tea?" She comes back and says, "There's none in there." I'm like, "I literally just bought some. It's a ton of it in there. Go look again." So she goes in there, goes in there. Long story short. In there a long time comes back with the tea bag and she says, this is the only tea bag that I see in there, but it's actually the ginger tea bag. And I was like, yeah, that's what I'm talking about, that's what I want. She said, you didn't say that, you, you said ginseng tea. And I was like, oops. You are correct. And I had to apologize because I was wrong. So not knowing how to delegate clearly can lead to miscommunication. So making sure that you're very clear in your communication, making sure that if you mean something, you say what you mean. Don't beat around the bush. Like, there's a lot of people that beat around the bush, and I understand, especially if you've come from an abusive background. With the don't talk. I can get it, but learning how to really speak up is going to be very, very important. Another one is managing the conversations that you have. For example, like I just told you about when I told my daughter, hey, bring me this tea, I clearly said the wrong thing and She took a long time to come because she was trying to look for it, what she heard me say. Well, when she came back and she told me that I in fact was wrong, I apologize. That was my way of managing the conversation. I was wrong. I know a lot of parents who do not apologize, and that's probably going to be another video that we talk about. But apologizing to your children actually helps to build relationships, right? It takes nothing away from you as a parent. It just shows that you're human, you made a mistake, and it shows your children that you are safe enough to apologize, right? And then finally, positive nonverbal communication. So what does that look like? Let me tell you. I have a habit sometimes when I stand, I'm crossing my arms like this. Well, when you crossing your arms, it's not a great positive nonverbal sign. It can mean tons of things, but it doesn't mean that you're open and welcoming and, you know, you having this conversation with people. So I have to be very, very careful to not do that. So just watching your stance and how you are when someone else is in proximity to you, when you're having conversations with people. That's another way of communication. That is communicating something. If you're standing like this, even though you may not mean anything by it, it could send a message to someone else that you may be angry, you may defend— be defensive about something, and then they don't want to talk to you. They don't want to have a conversation with you, right? So I know the holidays are coming up. Those of you who are going to see family next week, communication is the only thing— effective communication, let me say that— effective communication is the only thing that breaks the cycle of family dysfunction. But if you do it right, you can break the cycle. You can build better relationships and have more fun with your family. So thanks so much again for joining me on this live, and if you would like to get a copy of my book Parenting the Confident Child, I will have the link in the description. I hope that you have an an amazing holiday. If you choose to be with family, think about what I was talking about both last week and this week. And if not, take care of yourself, and I will see you on the next live. Have a great day, and if you haven't already, subscribe, and talk to you soon. Bye.
