Family Communication

Question 1

Family

Answer 1

Family of origin: significant caretakers and siblings that a person grows up with, or the first social group a person belongs to, which is often a person’s biological family or adoptive family.

Chosen family: a group of individuals who deliberately choose one another to play significant roles in each other’s lives. A group of people to whom you are emotionally close and consider family even though you’re not biologically or legally related.

Question 2

McMaster’s 5 Role Functions: Gender role socialization

Answer 2

• The family is the first and most powerful source of gender role socialization
• No one is born knowing what it means to be a boy or a girl; parents and other family members explicitly or implicitly teach their children gender roles.

Traditional gender roles vs androgynous gender roles:
- Traditional: very specific ideas about who should perform what, disclosure and emotional expression
- Androgynous: who should perform what is based on skills, interest, ability and availability. Self-disclosure and expressions of emotion are not tied to gender.

Question 3

McMaster’s 5 Role Functions: Nurturing and support

Answer 3

• Parents and other family members give advice to children, give instructions and direct them, and answer questions
• Parents and other family members are ideally a primary source of non-judgemental understanding

Question 4

McMaster’s 5 Role Functions: Tools for individual development

Answer 4

• Parents and other family members act in ways that help children become independent, encourage children to explore their talents and interests, and make decisions
• Balancing connection-autonomy

Question 5

McMaster’s 5 Role Functions: Providing kinship maintenance

Answer 5

• Family members facilitate visits with other family members and chosen kin who live outside the home
• Facilitate recreation activities that involve family members and chosen kin who live outside the home
• Facilitate communication between family members and chosen kin who live outside the home

Question 6

McMaster’s 5 Role Functions: Basic resources

Answer 6

Food, shelter, clothing, health

Question 7

Systems perspective (1)

Answer 7

Families as systems
- When two people come together in a relationship, they form a system
- The system that’s created is a larger and more complex than the sum of its parts
- Interdependence: the actions, behaviors, or circumstances of one family member impacts all other family members (childhood illness, parent’s sexual infidelity, child failing out of college)

• Families develop unique communication patterns that could not be created individually. Families develop unique roles that define the range of acceptable behaviors in a family. These rules create stability.

Question 8

Systems perspective (2)

Answer 8

• Intergenerational transmission process: the way people handle conflict and communicate with others throughout their lifespan is often directly influenced by parental modeling
• Interactive complexity: a person’s behavior triggers new behaviors in other people AND is a response to previous behaviors by other people.
• For people in relationships, one person’s behaviors are intimately intertwined with the person’s behaviors. Families start intertwining.
• Problem of punctuation: idea that people attribute the cause and effect of a behavior differently

Question 9

Systems perspective (3)

Answer 9

• Triangles: when 2 people have problems with each other, one or both may triangle in a third member.
• People respond to anxiety in a relationship by forming a triangle and shifting the focus to a third person. In a triangle, two are on the inside and one is on the outside. Ex a newborn baby.

Question 10

Parent-child communication

Answer 10

Children are less likely to perform risky behaviors if they:
- Perceive to have open comm with their parents
- Are satisfied with family system
- Perceive their family cares about them
- Can solve conflicts without aggression

Question 11

Attachment Theory: key ideas

Answer 11

• Beginning in infancy we have an innate need to form attachments with others
• Early attachments influence future relational patterns; caregivers are very influential
• Interaction children have with caregivers leads to the development of internal working models

Internal working models
- Working model of self: the degree to which a child develops an internalized sense of self-worth that isn’t dependent on external validation
- Working model of others: the degree to which a child expects others to be supportive and accepting, rather than rejecting

Question 12

Attachment Theory

Answer 12

Adult Attachment Styles

Secure: positive self, positive others = I’m okay, you’re okay
Preoccupied: positive others, negative self (preoccupied with being in a relationship) = I’m not okay, you’re okay
Dismissive: positive self, negative others = I’m okay, you’re not okay
Fearful: negative self, negative others = I’m not okay, you’re not okay

Question 13

Families and poor health

Answer 13

Families can help keep their members healthy IF family relationships are high quality and if families are functional. Dysfunctional families with low quality relationships can be extremely unhealthy, especially for children.

Aversive family experiences during childhood (ACES) and adolescence.

What are some kinds of aversive childhood experiences?:
1) Affectionless control: low levels of caring + high levels of surveillance and control = leads to low self-esteem, self-criticism and self-blaming
2) High levels of destructive conflict: low levels of trust in the parent, poor communication with parent, and alienation from the parent
3) Extreme levels of cohesion: children in families with very low levels of cohesion tend to not feel connected to or cared for by their parents. Families with very high cohesion can make the emotional well-being of the parent rub off onto the child.
4) Abuse: in addition to damaging self-esteem and self-worth, abuse makes people more sensitive to stressors that can trigger episodes of depression