The Importance Of Essential For Healthy Family Functioning Essay

The story brings to the forefront on how parents need to anticipate the family needs and take proactive steps to ensure healthy family dynamics during any stressful or critical situation. A family that has functional dynamics has the ability to offer support, concern and love to each other when a chronic conflict or

Nurses interact with families in a variety of community-based and clinical settings. The family nursing process is the same, regardless of the setting or whether the focus is on the family as a whole or on an individual in that family (Crisp & Taylor 2005). In the case of a 3 year old girl just diagnosed with leukaemia, it is important for a nurse to critically analyse the situation and address any immediate concerns. The nurse must address any professional issues that may arise and any potential impacts of hospitalisation that may affect the child and the family. Also provide support and education to reassure and comfort them. The primary concern for paediatric nurses is the welfare of the child and the family (Crisp & Taylor 2005).

‘The family performs important tasks that contribute to society’s basic needs and helps perpetuate social order.’ (Anthony Giddens 2006 - Page 238) Functionalists believe a family’s paramount purpose is to raise and support their children within society.

George Murdock has carried out a study involving 250 families. From his analysis, he has argued that the family performs four basic functions for its individual members and society at large. He has referred to these as

The focus is on the messages being clear with respect to content and direct in the sense that the person spoken to is whom the message is intended. Roles, focus on whether the family has established patterns of behavior for making family functions operate which include provision of resources, providing nurturance and support, supporting personal development, maintaining and managing the family systems and providing adult sexual gratification. In addition, roles includes consideration of whether tasks performed within the family are clearly and equitably assigned to family and if the tasks is carried out responsibly by the family member. Affective Responsiveness, assesses the degree to the point which family members experience appropriate affect in the presence over a

Both parents work and they share parenting roles. The father is more of the disciplinarian, as the mother tends to pick favorites. The father says that everyone has their fair share of chores from the 19 year old to the six year old. The mother said that each of their children have different aspects of themselves and play different roles in their family. Their older daughter is pretty distant since she has moved out a few years ago, but does come around when needed. The second oldest daughter is the protector of the younger girls and decides who does what chores. The oldest so is the protector of the younger boys and is the man of the house when the father is not home. The middle girls are the brains of the family and the younger boys are the entertainers, as they are very active in sports.

Promoting health within the family is just as important as the health of each family member. Assessing health patterns within the family structure, aids in identifying specific areas where nursing can intervene and help the family move in a direction of better health. Utilizing Gordon’s functional health patterns aids the nurse in collecting detailed health information from physical, mental, and social aspects of the family. Essentially, the data gathered helps in formulating nursing diagnoses in areas of wellness, risk and actual diagnoses.

PER REPORTER: Mom works at Menge Mart. After work, she comes home for a minute and leaves the children home by themselves. When Halee was in a facility, they left the older child home alone with no phone. This was before Thanksgiving. Someone bought the child a phone card so she wouldn't be without a phone. It's unknown if they had food then. Halee goes to someone else's home to eat. They are left home all the time. They don't know when they will come back when they are gone. Mom and Zack are always going out of town. They went to Missouri two times. Mom would move back to Tennessee if it wasn't for the children being in school. They are left with no phone and they have to borrow a phone. They have no way to reach someone if something happened.

During this assessment, I interviewed a single-family home with a 32 year old mother, M.S, with a 4 year old daughter, M.S. II, from Costa Rica. The daughter was in pre-school and the mother had graduated high school and immediately worked with event planning. The family does not attend church, but practices under the Catholic traditions. I would place this family under the preschool stage of the family life cycle due to the oldest child is 4 years of age and the mother is adapting to her child’s needs in growth-producing ways. M.S and her daughter love spending time outdoors taking walks and visiting gardens. M.S. sews various items, including lunch boxes and aprons in her free time too.

Relationship was established to build trust and compliance, followed by assessment of the family type and structure. Functional family assessment evaluates how individuals behave towards one another, looking at the here and now of the family relations (Wright & Leahey (2009). The interview was conducted and findings were used in developing plan of care based on family function and coping ability in relation to health and wellness.

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.

The history of family therapy began around 1960, when Gregory Bateson coined the term, “system thinking.” This type of therapy was a daring departure, both technically and philosophically, from traditional and individual treatment during the 1960s. Gregory Bateson was inspired. He felt that the unit known, as “the family” needed to be celebrated and that is exactly what he did” (Family Therapy, 2010, Para 1) Along with Gregory Bateson, are a list of several others who contributed to the evolution of Marriage and family counseling. This list includes the founder of social work, Mary Richmond, Mr. W. James, who researched the organic expression of social systems intervention and Mr. J. Dewey. Each of these

My family health assessment was conducted using the 11 Gordon functional health pattern. Marjorie Gordon’s functional health pattern is a guide for establishing a comprehensive nursing date base, using the 11 categories enable nurses determines the following aspects of health and human function (Gordon 1987). The Gordon 11 functional health patterns are health perception/health management, nutrition, elimination, activity/exercise, cognitive, sleep/rest, self perception/self concept, roles and relationships, sexuality and reproduction, coping and stress tolerance, values and belief. This paper will summarize the findings of each health pattern as well as the family based nursing

Talcott Parsons argues this statement, by saying, that there are two broad functions of the family- primary socialisation and stabilisation of the adult personality ‘throughout the emotional security, including sexual expression, provided by marriage’ (O'Donnell, 1997).

In the eyes of functionalists, nothing else can compare to the emotional support that the family provides for one another. This emotional support was especially absent in the Cartwright family and the main person to blame for that absence was Emily. Emily only cared for her children and provided them emotional support when they were babies, but once she had another baby coming along she would completely forget about the previous one. In order for a mother to successfully achieve her role in the family, she must follow Murdock's ‘four essential functions of the family’. These four