Communication skills are some of the most useful tools a person can acquire. Communication is something you can never avoid, because there is no way not to communicate. So if we are always communicating, whether we intend to or not, what information are people gathering from us without knowledge?  A communications study conducted by multiple universities yielded about the same results every time, only about 14% of our communication is made up of the words we say. 35% is the tone we use and about 51% of our communication is through non verbal cues. this is huge! this means that those words we so carefully try to chose and control are only communicating less than a 5th of the message!
Communication is especially important to discuss from a family relations perspective because those components of communication get even more complicated when you add a few more people to the equation. not only are people picking up on your tone and non verbal cues, they have to decode every word you say as well. here is the kicker though, you encode your meaning is these words before they even leave your mouth! we live in a world that we constantly try to communicate through symbols we call words and actions. because we are not telepathic we must transfer our thoughts and feelings through the code of words, tone and body language. what makes this even more complicated is that we often don't share the same symbols with those we love. they may hear a raised voice or see the roll of the eye and perceive that we are detached or angry, when we may just be excited about the subject or sarcastic. Decoding can be a very tricky business, with the end result often being confusion and discord.
With that in mind here is my advice: ASK FOR CLARIFICATION!
make sure that you understand the pure meaning of what they are trying to communicate to you! This may seem awkward or embarrassing to you, but DO IT ANYWAY! before you react and become a victim in your environment, ask for a clarification, here is a polite and simple way to do so, " Am I correct in thinking that when you did or said this, that you meant ........" asking for simple clarification can be a way of cutting through the codes and empty words and get down to pure meaning. We may not be psychic, but we can be open and honest.
my last word of advice on this issue is that it is just as important for the listener to listen well as it is for the speaker to speak well. we need to let those we love know that we respect them enough to try and glean meaning from them.