Essay on Family Analysis Project

Communicational patterns are strong within the family communicating, interacting, and listening to each other. Mom and Dad have open communication between them and with the children. No dysfunctional communication observed. The decision-making process is between Mom and Dad. The role structure is as equal as can be; Mom works full time and has two part time jobs because Dad is unemployed so Dad has a larger care-giving role. Family values are based upon strong Christian faith. Family attends church every week and children are enrolled in private religious school. Prayer is said before each meal and at bedtime. The family shares a strong religious core with tradition, values, and beliefs.

Family systems theory is useful when working with families who are impacted by an ASD diagnosis. The family systems theory focuses on the shift of an individual perspective to a family systems perspective. Family is the most important support system for a child. Family is looked at as a unit, therefore by using the family systems theory the professionals are able to identify the family’s influences on the individual. The family system impacts a child’s development as family members affect the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of one another (Paylo, 2011).

Parent and Community involvement does not occur overnight. I feel that schools must make parent and community involvement a priority, valuing and accepting each other’s differences. Schools, families and communities must work together to support all students in a learning environment to ensure every student is a successful learner. Positive family and school involvement fosters a partnership among my school encouraging students to reach their highest potential academically and in life. Parent and community involvement does not mean stay-at-home mothers coming to school to help as needed, or a businessman stopping by to see events occurring on campus. The role of school, family and community involvement is a partnership incorporating goal-oriented activities for all grade levels linked to academic success and student growth.

Feldman, R. S. (2014). Development across the life span (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ:

While reading The Family Crucible, the authors made it feel like I was watching a life-time television series. There were several high points and low points during the family therapy session that left me unsure of how the show would end. This book takes you on a journey using family counseling to help a family heal and communicate better with one another. I thought it was interesting how this systematic therapy took place in a time where therapy was looked at as taboo. Many times in that era family therapy was not an option. The main focus was on the family member with the issue and not on the parents or other family members. In the book the authors used different theories and approaches during the counseling sessions which were quite interesting. This process after time enabled the family to look at the journey they were on in order to understand how the family, as a whole, should function.

As the father of modern family studies, Whittaker, J. K. and J. Garbarino. (1983) observed, 'We know too much about the family to be able to study it both objectively and easily 'Some family needs could be considered as being met through a combination of expressive and instrumental functions, such as child care, and health-related supports. This applies on both Case Studies.

The Family Crucible is a story about the Brice family who is recommended by Claudia’s psychiatrist to go to family therapy due to the fact that she has not been making any progress in individual psychotherapy. The Brice family comes in to meet with Dr. Carl Whitaker and Dr. Augustus Napier, who co-facilitate family therapy throughout the entirety of the book.

Family structure can be described as the framework of any family; it details the roles, positions and responsibilities of each family member and describes how they function together as a whole to fulfill the primary objective universal to almost every family, to nurture one another. However, because parenting doesn 't occur within a vacuum, many influences such as culture, ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES) can largely affect how a family structures itself.

The family structure is made up of individuals living together in intimate groups with the purpose of caring and supporting each other. Rules and boundaries, spoken and unspoken, are developed by the family members. Family rules and boundaries change and shift over time in order to evolve and grow as a family unit. Some changes are subtle, but some events force major change within the family system. This paper applies the concepts of systems theory to the family system in the movie Sweet Home Alabama. Reese Witherspoon (Melanie Smooter) and Josh Lucas (Jake Perry) star in this heart-warming film telling a story of a young woman who flees from Alabama to reinvent herself in New York City as a high fashion designer. She leaves behind

Modern families today have parents who are extremely busy. Therefore there is often times where there is no time spent as a family. In spite of all of this there are ways to help strengthen weak families. The first way is to find time to spend more time together. You can plan family game nights, family outings, even family movie nights. It doesn’t have to be anything extravagant. Creating a family constitution is another way. It will help balance the family by adding certainty, and organization to the family. Lastly, families often don’t listen to each other, so taking the time out to just listen to what each other has to say will strengthen the bond in the family (3 Simple Ways to Strengthen your Family Relationships, 2012).

• The family consists of the mother and two children. The mother is forty-five years old, the son is 20, and the daughter is 18.

After a thorough review of the textbook and the course material, the specific family system approach that I choose to explore is the Bowenian Approach for this literature review. This specific family system approach is also known as the Bowen Family System Theory as well (D.V. Papero, 2006). The Bowen Family System Theory was established by Murray Bowen, a theorist and psychiatrist who specialized in treating children who were deranged and had schizophrenia (Rockwell, 2010). In the 1950s, Bowen wanted to explore a new venture so he decided that he wanted all of the family members of each child to be involved in an therapeutic process at the same time (Rockwell, 2010).

Murray Bowen's family system theory was one of the first comprehensive theories of family system functioning. It was developed in 1974 and it believed the family can be defined as a set of interacting individuals who are related by blood, marriage, cohabitation, or adoption and who interdependently perform relevant functions through roles. Relevant functions of the family include values and practices placed on health system theory is used to explain patterns of living among the individuals who make up the family systems (Edelmen, 2006).

In her book The Unfinished Revolution, Kathleen Gerson argues that today, family pathways are more important than family structure. In this context, family structure refers to the organization of a family, and the way that it has been changing as a result of the gender revolution. For example, some nontraditional family structures that are explored in the book include double parent families with both parents earning, single parent families (mostly single mothers), and families with same-sex parents. Gerson argues that while family structures are not negligible, it is family pathways that are more important for the children of the gender revolution. That is to say, the children value the dynamics of their family more than the structure. They are more concerned about how well their parents are able to provide them with the necessary emotional and financial support than they are about how well their families follow a norm. For them, it is more about feeling like they’re part of a family rather than just physically being in one. Gerson emphasizes this when she explains that the people she interviewed “focused on the long-term consequences of parental choices, not on the specific form or type of home these choices produced at any one moment in time.” One important implication of this argument is the way in which the children of the gender revolution imagine their own romantic relationships unfolding. Even there, they prioritize a feeling rather than a format. For example, one

husband and a dutiful, confidant wife. However, they aren’t much of a family at all, with little to