text: [Themes: love & dating]
  
  In this Choose Your Story game, you are currently 10 years old and beginning to navigate life with your family.
  
  Somewhere along the way, your family will become a major influence on your life and will ultimately impact the way you navigate conflict in the future. To explore, choose one of the three:
  
  [Author's Note: In this game, you are a child in your adolescent years and starting to navigate life. You will enter a couple of life stages until you reach adulthood and find yourself in a romantic relationship. How will your upbringing and family influence your behaviour and the way you handle conflict in your romantic relationship? Thesis: This Choose Your Story game will discuss the impact of conformity, family structures, and conversation orientation within families on romantic relationship conflicts in adulthood.]
  
  > Conformity Orientation
  On a sunny afternoon, your friend invites you to a last-minute get-together by the lake. It sounds like a lot of your friends will be there with inflatables and water guns. Your friend also says that their parents will be providing a lot of food and drinks to fuel the day! You are super excited and you run to your parents to ask whether you can go or not.
  
  How do your parents respond?
  
  Scenario 1: "No, not today. You have homework to do! We have also already started preparing family dinner. Now go back to your homework and no bickering".
  
  Scenario 2: "How is your homework coming along? As long as you complete the work you need to do first, I don't see why not!"
  
  > Scenario 1
  Disappointed with your parent's response, you tried your best not to argue with them. Even if you know you will be able to finish your homework in no time, it is probably not a good idea to try to change their mind. Their decision is always final and it must be respected. You saunter back to your room, finish your homework.
  
  Right before dinner starts, your mom rushes by your room to let you know that your grandparents, aunts and uncles are coming for dinner. Your mom tells you to get up right away, get changed into something appropriate and help clean up the living room and kitchen.
  
  How do you respond?
  
  > say "Sigh, what is wrong with my t-shirt and jeans? It's not like any of our family has never seen me in my everyday clothes. And the house looks fine!"
  Your mom stares straight into your eyes, raises her voice and says once again to do as you are told without much explanation. Yikes, better not to get into any more arguments with her. You comply to avoid any more conflict.
  
  > A couple years later..
  It's June and there are only a couple of days left of school! Through the grapevine, it looks like one of your classmates is holding a big house party to celebrate, and lots of your friends are planning to go.
  
  What is going through your head?
  
  > Your parents would most definitely not approve of this party...  If you really want to go, should you sneak out of the house?
  So you sneak out of the house and head to the party. It was an incredible night to share with all of your friends and you are so glad that you decided to come out. However, in the back of your mind, you are really hoping your parents don't find out.
  
  It's past midnight now and you sneak up to the front of your house, open the door quietly and start heading to your room. Before you make it, you see your mom standing right in front of you with a glum expression on her face.
  
  Yikes, it looks like you won't be making any more plans with your friends for a while until your exams finish. The disappointment on your mom's face still haunts you slightly.
  
  > Present Day
  You are currently in university and in a beautiful relationship with your significant other. This is your first serious relationship and you guys have just passed 6 months!
  
  Arguments are few and far between. However today, an argument sparked up about the time you spend with your friends compared to with your partner. While you are getting ready to meet your friends for happy hour, your partner is feeling left out and states that it feels like you spend a lot of time with your friends rather than with them.
  
  How do you respond?
  
  > say "Sigh, are you kidding me? I always spend time with you! Since when did you have an issue with me spending time with my friends? I don't get why you feel like this, you don't even enjoy happy hour."
  Your initial response to your partner's statement was to resist. You did not want to hear any further complaints so you walk away from your partner to try to avoid the conflict. Your partner, now very frustrated, follows you and tries to get you to listen. Before you know it, both of you guys have raised your voices and you feel hostile toward your partner.
  
  In the end, you say, "I'll be back soon okay? Relax!" with a slightly glum expression on your face. Your mood for happy hour has now deflated a bit and you feel guilty for leaving.
  
  > A further look into Conformity Orientation
  This storyline illustrates how conformity orientation in families can impact the way adult children handle conflict in their romantic relationships. Previous studies have found that the way an individual communicates in their interpersonal relationships and their conflict behaviours in adulthood is largely influenced by how they learned to deal with conflict from their family of origin (Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2002). In order to investigate different family behaviours, the Revised Family Communication Patterns (RFCP) typology is used and the underlying conformity orientation dimension is highlighted here (Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2002).
  
  Conformity orientation is "the degree to which family communication stresses a climate of homogeneity of attitudes, values and beliefs (Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2002)." Families that have high conformity are characterized to be more traditional, hierarchical and strict (Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2002). At the beginning of the story when your parents did not let you go to the lake, high conformity is illustrated as they believe that your family is of greater importance compared to your interpersonal relationships outside of the family. Your parents took the initiative to make the decision for you and expect you, the child, to act accordingly (Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2002). In the scenario through which your extended family is about to arrive for dinner, your parents expect you to have high obedience and respect around your older family members. In other words, there is a clear hierarchy in your family structure and it is expected that your parents or older family members have authority over you (Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2002). In your teenage years, you are nervous to tell your parents about the party as you know that they may reject it. Therefore you sneak out in the hopes to avoid any conflict or confrontations. All of these characteristics of a high conformity family may influence a more negative conflict outcome when you encounter a conflict situation with your partner in adulthood. As illustrated with the scenario through which you respond by resisting, talking back with verbal aggression, and walking away from your partner, you see conflict scenarios as a negative thing that should be avoided.
  
  In contrast, low conformity families are characterized to have heterogeneous attitudes and beliefs and they value individuality(Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2002). As illustrated through the scenario in which you are allowed to go to the lake, your family generally sees that relationships outside of the family are equally as important as your relationships within your family. As you move into your teenage years, your family allows you to make your own decisions and encourages independence while being there to support you through your personal growth. Having open communication and freedom of choice in the family environment provides a safe space for individuals to talk about issues that they may encounter through everyday life. Thus, when you encounter a conflict in your romantic relationship, you do not see the conflict as a very bad thing, rather an opportunity to work out individual differences among you and your partner (Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2002). People from low conformity families, therefore, have better communication and problem-solving skills compared to people from high conformity families and may establish more positive conflict outcomes (Hamon & Schrodt, 2012).
  
  > References
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  Doughty, S. E., McHale, S. M., & Feinberg, M. E. (2013). Sibling Experiences as Predictors of Romantic Relationship Qualities in Adolescence. Journal of Family Issues, 36(5), 589–608. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513x13495397
  
  Fowler, M., Pearson, J. C., & Beck, S. J. (2010). The influence of family communication patterns on adult children's perception of romantic behaviors. Journal of the communication, speech & theatre association of North Dakota, 23, 1-11.
  
  Hamon J. D., Schrodt, P. (2012) Do Parenting Styles Moderate the Association Between Family Conformity Orientation and Young Adults' Mental Well-Being?, Journal of Family Communication, 12:2, 151-166, DOI: 10.1080/15267431.2011.561149.
  
  Koerner, A. F., & Fitzpatrick, M. A. (1997). Family type and conflict: The impact of conversion orientation and conformity orientation on conflict in the family. Communication Studies, 48, 59-75. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/10510979709368491
  
  Koerner A. F., Fitzpatrick, M. A. (2002). You never leave your family in a fight: The impact of family of origin on conflict-behavior in romantic relationships. Communication Studies, 53(3), 234-251, doi: 10.1080/10510970209388588
  
  Koerner, A. F., & Schrodt, P. (2014). An introduction to the special issue on family communication patterns theory. Journal of Family Communication, 14(1), 1-15. doi:10.1080/15267431.2013.857328
  
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