Factors Affecting Family Structure

A family consists of a group of interacting individuals related by blood, marriage, cohabitation, or adoption who interdependently perform relevant functions by fulfilling expected roles. (Edelman, Kudzma, & Mandle, 2014, p. 150)

A traditional family is no longer considered the norm amongst a typical family structure. Many family structures consist of the nuclear family, single parent household, lesbian/gay family, childless family, grandparent family, and stepfamily. Each family is made distinctive, develops at different stages, and deals with family issues. Family development theory is used to help families deal with issues and how to handle them in different stages of development. Issues within the family can be caused by a numerous of situations from a child acting out to a parent getting a divorce.

Family structure can change as a result of a birth of a child, death of a parent, separation or divorce and these changes can interrupt the family structure. As a result,

What is family? It is defined as “a group of people related to one another by blood or marriage.” Three acclaimed authors: Shakespeare, Pope and Eliot, identify family in many different ways, some that are similar and some that are different from each other. To clearly understand how they all variously define family you need to dive deep into the context of their works. A couple of the authors use a textbook example of family and others create their own idea of the concept.

A family is the single most influential factor in the life of an individual. Being in a family brings with it support, relationships, connections, and love that is rarely found anywhere else in a person’s life. However, families are not all the same. Each individual family structure is unique when compared to the next. When looked at from a general perspective there are two main groups of which families fall into.

The concept of a family in today’s society, is often misunderstood. Some people see family as the people they live with, while others see it as blood relatives. The google definition of a family is “a group consisting of parents and children living together in a household.”, but today this is not always the case. Family is simply a group of people, or individuals that have a common bond and love and support each other, whether they are related by blood or not.

One way to analyze this Family is with the Family system theory. This theory states that the family functions as a system Within this system are rules, power structures and different patterns of communication. In this theory the family is seen as a whole rather than as its individual parts. We also assume that the family functions off of circular causality and redundancy principle plays a role in the family rules. The concepts that I am going to use to describe this family will include; family cohesion, communication pattern, roles of a few of the members, the family rules and circular causality.

In today’s modern society, there is no more “normal” families. Normal can no longer be defined because what we use to see as a typical family of a mom, dad, and kids is not the kind of family that most kids are being raised in. Today we have a variety of functioning families such as two same sex parents, and minority families. According to our textbook, how a particular family functions will depend on several variables. Starting with the culture in which the family originated from, the subgroup of that culture, the individual characteristics of family members, how the family adapts to stress, and how the family functions within their culture.

My family dynamical is framed surrounds traditional marriage. It features socialization, adaptation, describe formation, role-making, and self-concept development. Although conflicts have caused facing for a few of my family members. Initiating to divert from contextual beliefs positioning them in groups of matriarchy. Conflicts have impacted my family through divorces, children out of wedlock, and single women, parenting, attending the workforce, structuring childcare and independent gender responsibilities. Also cohabitation existence equates into the equation for survival measures. To no struggling with monthly obligations Enlighten by interactions symbolic and demonstrated the influences of history. Those family members restored power

In this last chapter, the author briefly summarizes the four definitions of family and how the family has changed over time. Although every family has different definitions of family, I believe most individuals agree that the interactional approach is more accurate. The interactional approach depicts that families have a sense of collective identity that emerges through shared activity and interaction. For instance, caring and helping each other in difficult times or simply just having dinner together every night. Furthermore, a significant change in families was the late transition to adulthood. Today, young adults are more dependent on their parents than they were in the 20th century because the expansion of higher education and the competitive

If one were to examine sociology at face value they may not be able to identify that there is a degree of science and sociological theories that are embedded within it. Upon looking at families and their structures, there are a vast array of key theories that are used to observe their behaviors: explaining why they are the way they are. In addition, it is imperative to look at how these theories ultimately affect families. Some theories that possess the most vivid and profound explanations of family structure are the conflict theory, interactionism theory, and the functionalism theory. These theories will be explored throughout the course of the paper to give individuals a deeper understanding of how family structures can be studied through these three different theories, as well as their impact on society as a whole.

What is a healthy family system and what is its relationship to a healthy development? Primarily, a healthy family system is the viewpoint, connection, and the productive relationship between groups of individuals that make up a specific family group. The (2015) basis of the family system to develop in a healthy manner is that all parts of an individual family are functioning as one and all parts of the family are linked and interrelated; they do not stand-alone. In order to understand the family system one must look inside the family structure to see how it is made up and how it interacts within itself and outside influences. The family system is distinctive and each family member’s development is original. The (2015) Family System concept views the entire family and its structure as one entity that is constantly learning, changing and evolving. This essay discusses the viewpoint, connections and relationship development dynamics that make up a family system. (Broderick, P. C., & Blewitt, P. 2015).

In order to fully understand family dynamics, one must understand family theories. Eight family theories were discussed in our book. Each person who studies family theories tends to truly understand several of the theories while showing favoritism towards a particular theory. The two theories I best understood are symbolic interaction theory and social exchange theory. Social exchange theory will be the theory that I will critique.

A family can be defined in many ways, but the common denominator in all is the love and fulfillment one gets by being surrounded by family members. Families can sometimes be at odds with each other, but the strain of this type of relationship usually creates an upsetting feeling to the people involved. People want others to rely on, talk to, do things with, share, love, embrace, and be part of. No matter what the family dynamic is the qualities the word family has will remain the same, as time goes by, and life evolves once again for every person living their

The definition of family is defined in various ways to many different people. Many people may say their family includes the family of orientation, extended family, and family of procreation. It all depends on how the child is raised. Three important factors, out of six, that I consider to be the main functions of family are socialization, economic cooperation, and care, protection, and intimacy. Some families may very well address these functions, while others may not. And because of that, family may be quite hard to define because it goes above and beyond the surface.