Dawn O. Braithwaite Ph.D.

About

Dawn O. Braithwaite, Ph.D., is a Willa Cather Professor of Communication at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She studies how families interact to create, navigate, and change relationships, routines, and traditions, especially in stepfamilies and chosen families.

A Distinguished Scholar of the National Communication Association (NCA) and the Western States Communication Association (WSCA), Braithwaite has published six books in 14 editions, including Engaging Theories in Interpersonal Communication (3nd ed.) and Family Communication: Cohesion and Change (10th ed.), as well as over 130 articles. She received NCA’s Brommel Award for Family Communication, the Samuel Becker Distinguished Service Award. Braithwaite served as President of WSCA in 2000 and as President of NCA in 2010.

Books by Dawn O. Braithwaite Ph.D.

Recent Posts

How to Hold Onto a Strong Sibling Relationship

Maintaining sibling relationships takes effort. Here are some communication strategies and actions to maintain sibling relations.

Love Actually?

If you think of love as only an emotion, you are missing out. It is in the actions and vulnerability of giving to another that we find ourselves.

How to Open Your Heart and Doors to Voluntary Kin

Feeling lonely or rootless? Don’t miss out on the opportunity to build life-changing family relationships of the heart.

Discovering Strategies for Civil Family Conversations

Holidays and other gatherings can bring out the worst in families. By practicing civil communication tools, families can survive the tensions of family differences.

Parenting Daughters in the Age of Social Media

Social media use is especially important, and potentially harmful, for daughters. How do parents create successful guidelines and functional communication?

Think You Are Having a Conflict With Someone?

Quite often, people mistakenly believe they are engaged in a conflict when they are not. Here are two characteristics of a conflict that must be in place for a conflict to exist.

Why So Many People Bond With a "Work Spouse"

Do you call a best friend at work a “work spouse"? Is having this platonic and very close relationship in the organization a good thing?

Renewing Marriage Vows

Wasn’t having one wedding enough? Why would any couple want to renew their vows?

Can You Do Mindfulness?

How can we best “tune in” and communicate mindfully in close relationships?

Take Action to Keep Your Family Rituals Fresh

What do you do when family rituals are not working out?