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Compare And Contrast Family Systems Theory

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In my opinion there’s more differences than similarities between the Family systems theory and the Human Development/Family life cycle theory. The Family systems theory is the most common family theory there is. The belief is basically that if something happens to one member it affects the whole family, it’s kind of like the domino’s theory when one domino falls they all fall with it. Some concepts of this theory pertain the belief of boundaries in every aspect of their life which could mean the emotional, psychological or physical aspect. As well as the belief that everyone needs to work together as a team, they feel wholeness by being together, they include the parents, children, and even extended family. I’m very familiar with the Family …show more content…

The Human Development/Family life cycle theory is more about the belief that individuals evolve over time as they react to certain universal developmental challenges. For example, from my understanding it’s more about taking care of one’s self and their personal experiences shaping them into who they become rather than the family having that effect on them. A similarity they might have is that both theories have a huge impact on the people with these beliefs. Both of these theories shape the individuals in a certain way. There’s a couple of different family types; there’s a family of orientation, procreation, nuclear, blended, and extended families.

The traditional nuclear family is essentially the smallest family made up of the parents and children only while the pluralistic family structure is in fact the stepfamilies or the remarried couples. Back in the day technology hadn’t been discovered therefore traditional …show more content…

Nowadays, it’s more common to see both parents be the source of income, which is a good thing because equal sharing is tied with marital satisfaction. It also seems like both parents have at least a high school diploma in our current generation. Obviously the more education you have, the better pay and knowledge you get so this can only benefit the spouses. Furthermore, parents look as though they’re having less children at this present time. Long ago having kids was beneficial, but now it seems to be an economic liability and so parents prefer not to have as many children. Everything is so expensive already, I can’t imagine having a child and not being able to support them. Gender roles are not intuitive, they are learning and according to Mead culture is the key to gender differences. Even though there’s been progress toward Egalitarian roles in the family, there’s still quite a few things that haven’t made much progress. Plenty of women still engage in what is called “second shift” which in essence it means after work they come home with housework responsibilities. This however causes conflict between the partners because there is still not enough help from the males. In household chores men only do about half of the time that women do in a week. Even when it comes to single parents there’s more sympathy when people see a single father, while it’s normal to see a single mother

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331 Words | 2 Pages

According to Parsons, nuclear family is familial form consisting of a father, a mother, and their children (pg. 453). A nuclear family is also considered to be the “traditional family” and this occurred greatly during the 1900’s. The traditional family would be a man and women get married at a young age, have children, the father goes to work and makes the money, while the wife stays home to raise their children and tent to the house. It was expected that the wife has the house clean and for dinner to be on the table when their husband was home from work, this was the dominant model for people living in the 1950’s.

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106 Words | 1 Pages

From the three main sociological perspectives I think the functionalist views on family fits the American family and how it’s changed in the last fifty years. The family creates well-integrated members of society by instilling the social culture into children (“The Functionalist Perspective.” Boundless Sociology, 21 Jul. 2015). Functionalist understand that times have changed over the last fifty years and you have to be willing to change with society. American families can’t be stuck where families were fifty years ago.

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878 Words | 4 Pages

The market economy also produced new ideals of family life and the roles of men, women, and children. This formation of gender and family roles created a sense of middle-class idealistic lifestyle where domestic responsibilities lay on women (the realms of home and caregiving roles within the family), while men were responsible in the public and economic realms of family. These ideas of domesticity created a decline in birth rates that no longer required many children to participate as part of an economic unit of family. While the ideal of separate spheres of social life expanded and redefined roles within the home, many families were unable to fulfill these ideologies due to financial necessity creating not only an economic gap, but social gap between working class and middle class families. The extreme gaps of wealth within the North also defined the differences between classes of working families and middle to upper class families.

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697 Words | 3 Pages

While family structure has changed dramatically since the 1950’s, what current changes are we seeing; and how is it affecting the roles to which we play in a compromising world. In the 1950’s families consisted of a head of household (the Father), the house wife (or mother); and their offspring (the children). The father’s duty was to bring home the bacon, while making end meets for his family, while the wife stayed home and cared for the children, the elderly; and took on the household duties. These families usually lived in the suburbs, where they raised their children; while teaching them the proper ways of life. During this time in history, young women were expected to find a mate through persuasion, then get hitched; and eventually produce an offspring.

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818 Words | 4 Pages

This is all a social issue because this is the way society “wants” us to be. Men are to be big, masculine workers; while women are small and petite, and are supposed to stay at home with the children. Coontz suggests “Until businesses and schools adjust their hours and policies to the realities of two-earner families, even the best-intentioned couples are going to have difficult times” (Coontz 14,2014) suggesting that public issues is the best approach to viewing things such as marital

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684 Words | 3 Pages

Family structure talks about family arrangement and composition which includes the roles and interactions (Edelman, 2014). According to Minuchin (2012), the family structural theory emphasis on the important of the family structure and its changes that occurs and how the individuals in the family relate collectively over time to put up and accept each other. Minuchin says further that a well-functioning family will choose how to solve and handle the family experience with a positive outcome. The goal of a structural family is to express the strengths in each other in critical moments, and helping each other through it. Developmental theory is the methods used as the viewpoint of family tasking and development through phases of life (Edelman, 2014).

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375 Words | 2 Pages

Bowen family systems theory is used for understanding both family emotional and relationship processes (Knauth, 2003). Kolbert, Crothers, and Field (2013) suggest that although there are few publications on Bowen family systems theory, it provides counsellors with a framework for clients, specifically with helping adolescents understand how their functioning and identity have been influenced by their family. Bowen’s differentiation of the self has been argued to be equivalent to identity, and an individual’s balance both togetherness and individuality within their family, family members are both borrowing and lending aspects of themselves between each other (Kolbert, Crothers, & Field, 2013). Bowen, (1978, p. 188) suggested that individuals

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1589 Words | 7 Pages

The Family Systems Theory Family systems theory is a framework for understanding families and their strengths and dysfunctions. The strengths identified among family relations can be used to help solve existing problems. The same applies with problems identified. The family system theory is based on Bowen’s theory which argues that people cannot leave independent of each other’s network of relationships. People within a family are connected emotionally, which affects their overall well being and social relations and behaviour.

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932 Words | 4 Pages

It’s like building blocks, if you are missing one of those blocks or it is not doing what it should do, it will make it difficult to support or build, and this applies to both society and minority such as family. Theorist Robert K. Merton bases his thoughts on routines, practices, and events in an institution to see if they serve as functional or dysfunctional, as said earlier, to that society, and that it’s clear/obvious, also known as manifest functions are observed. Furthermore, another perspective of society that I can also compare to family is conflict theory. Conflict theory sees “social differences as inevitably leading to social oppression and inequality”, and also they are based off “structural inequality built into the relations between groups.”

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722 Words | 3 Pages

Family systems therapy is basically evaluating the family system functioning as a unit and there are a few types of family therapy that uses this approach such as “structural family therapy, intergenerational family therapy and strategic family therapy” (Family Solutions Institute MFT Study Guide). The approach I think most useful would be structural family therapy which examines the family relationships, styles and common attitude during a therapy session. This allows the therapist to get a better understanding of what is going on in the family and the best way to solve

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541 Words | 3 Pages

Individualisation addresses choice-making where social action is progressively made by the distinctive individual. The nuclear family, of a married mother and father and their children, have certain gender roles and stereotypes attached to them. The father has always been the breadwinner of the family and the mother has the domestic responsibility of housework and taking care of the children.

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1217 Words | 5 Pages

Many cultures that exist do not identify with the concept of immediate or extended family—all kin is family, by reaching outside the nuclear family structure” (Raney, 2015:6). The Simpsons depicts how family concepts are/were portrayed more than 20 years ago and shows the life and roles of a nuclear family. Diverse Gender

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430 Words | 2 Pages

So, what most people view and inborn is typically socialization. Child-rearing might be socially adjusted to assume that women are better at raising children, but this is only because stay-at-home dad is still relatively new—with time society will change to accommodate both women and men stay-at-home parents. In Anne-Marie Slaughter (2012) article, she states that women cannot have it all, and I agree. But, why do we expect them women to have it all when we do not expect men to have it all.

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1100 Words | 5 Pages

“The Changing American Family” by Natalie Angier states, “Fictive families are springing up among young people, old people, disabled people, homeless people, and may well define one of the ultimate evolutions of the family concept, maximizing, as they do, the opportunities for fulfillment of specific social and economic needs outside the constraints of biological relatedness.” The ever changing social dynamics and circumstances of this life have opened the definition of family to encompass individuals who can fill those deep-seated needs

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745 Words | 3 Pages

The family is the basic unit of the society. They are peoples’ pillar of strength, inspiration, encouragement and love. From the very beginning of one’s life, the family played a very important role in the overall development of the child – his personality, interpersonal relations, the way he saw himself, and his viewed of the world. The family then is not just a group of people who shared the same name and lived under the same roof. Rather, they are people who loved each other, interacted, and helped each other grew into better individuals.

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