Family Systems Project

I have spent most of the week working on my family systems project. The project was to create something that represented the system within my nuclear family. I chose to compare my family to the three little pigs story and made peg dolls and mini houses for them.

Each member of my family is a character within the story. My brother is the pig that built the house out of straw, I am the pig with house of sticks and my mom and dad are the third pig with the house of bricks. The big bad wolf is family conflict. As I did this I began to learn more insights into my family and even my own behavior within a family. I think it is important if we from time to time examine our families and the roles we play in them, and strive to make changes within our home. 

Gender- Equal Does Not Mean Identical

This weeks discussion was on gender and the roles that we play. I think it is an extremely important and relevant topic for us to cover. We have been told that our gender is an eternal part of who we are. I firmly believe that. I think it is vital that we understand that. Our Heavenly Father has created us so in such a divine way, that we are naturally unhappy when we cannot fulfill these roles. I think if we cannot understand our work and mission that we are doomed to a life filled with unhappiness and doubt. It creates a disequilibrium so to speak. I know because I have experienced this. As I began to enter my late teen years I began to place more important things above my role as a wife and mother. In many ways I did not want to be a mother. I loved children, but I wanted to have a career and motherhood just seemed very distant. In many ways I feel that I lacked the ability to be a good mother. I had seen many bad examples growing up, even within my own family and felt that I was destined to become like them. As my faith in Jesus Christ grew so did my confidence in my ability to have a happy home. Family is truly a faith based work. It takes faith to be able to create families and to be a mother. I am grateful for the knowledge of my divine role. It creates so much joy and happiness in my life to know that I am on the right course.
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Diversity...really??

This week we have the topic of family diversity. We had the interesting discussion of whether all cultures are equally valid in producing happy and healthy families. In my opinion I feel like all cultures are not the best to create happy and healthy families. I would like to clarify here that when I say culture I do not mean race. I mean culture as in , "A system of shared beliefs, norms, behaviors, and expectations that persist over time, and prescribe social behavior and assumptions." For the sake of this blog post I will also define family purpose as the ability to produce healthy offspring. Healthy in all respects psycho, social, and biological development. I am going to take the stance that not all cultures are equally helpful in raising a family. I think we can all agree that the culture of a drug addict micro-society is unhealthy for children. Most of society believes this, that is why we have programs such as CPS in place. There is also a specific culture where adults will marry and are perfectly capable to have children, but choose not too. It is important to have an opinion, I think often we tend to have the opinion that all cultures are right. I think we need to learn and examine and find out for ourselves whether some environment are better than others.

Whats theory got to do with it?

This week we discussed different family theories. I know what your thinking...ugg theories, those annoying things that we all have to learn about each semester when all we really want to do is get into the real meat and potatoes of the school. I have found however through more explanation that these theories really are awesome. They explain some great family interactions. 

Systems Theory- the theory that most families have a type of system with each individual playing a specific role with accompanying rules.Its really not as technical as it seems. For example many families have the peacemaker in the home that kinda defuses the tension. We can also have the baby of the family who has a certain role that accompanies it. I think this is particularly valuable in that we can think about what roles am I playing? What rules does my family have?

Exchange theory- What I put into the relationship I want to get out of as well. Haha so this is a big one in my newly married life. For example just yesterday I cleaned an area and then I specifically left the light on in that area so that my husband would notice that I had cleaned. To my slight annoyance though he didn't notice so I just pointed it out, seeking the praise I felt I deserved. I think we all do this. Often however it becomes a problem when things are not always rewarding and then we think that we cant be in this relationship anymore. 

Conflict theory- This is a theory where the one that through conflict we try to gain the upper hand and change things in the family. I often was guilty of this one growing up. I would always try to gain control of the situation so I would receive less punishment that I probably really deserved. 

I think these theories are valuable in that they can hep us understand our family dynamic more, and make it a more peaceful and loving place to be.