Family interactions and Systems
Have you ever thought about they way that you interact with
your family and why that is? Or how you and your family seem to work together? I
hope to be able to share more about the ways families and a little about why
they are the way they are. To understand family dynamics, we have to understand
about 4 major theories in family life and development. A theory is an attempt
to explain the why and how of phenomena based off of evidence and truth gained.
Now these four major theories are:
1.
The Symbolic Interaction Theory-
Basically, the symbolic theory is when
someone does something and how it is interpreted by the other person in the
family or the relationship. Typically, if the people or groups are on opposite
pages and do not understand what the other has meant or means by what they did,
then conflict can occur in that relationship. For example, If someone (person “A”)
leaves out their omelet pan and the dishes used for breakfast because they were
going to be late to work but intends to clean them as soon as they get home and
their significant other, roommate, or friend (Person “B”) decides to clean them
and be nice. That would typically be a nice gesture, but if person “A” gets home
and person “B” says quickly “Hey I cleaned up your mess in the kitchen”. Person
“A” may take offense at being told they were messy and assume that person “B”
was being rude when in reality they were just informing them of what they had
done. In essence it is a miscommunication.
2.
The Exchange theory
For the Exchange theory think of an
old-fashioned bartering or balance scale. In any ideal relationship there is
the expectancy that there is or will be an equal give and take between you and
your partner. That is, if you give a little then you in return get a little.
This can be a good way of being able to gauge how well your relationship, but
you must know that sometimes you have to give a little more than you get and
that can be for a while as your partner or family member struggles for any
various reasons. To further illustrate, if you have a few different pies in
front of you and you know that your friend absolutely loves apple pie while you
like pecan pie more then they do, you may propose that they can have a little
more of the apple pie if you can have a little more of the pecan pie. A fair
trade in both responsibility and enjoyment.
3.
The Conflict theory
Conflict. Every type of
relationship of any sort is bound to have some type of conflict whether it is
big or small. Something that you need to know is that not all conflict is bad,
in fact it is actually healthy for a relationship to have some form of
conflict, provided that it is not extreme or built up into more that it should be.
For instance, it may be the way that you or your partner put the dishes and silverware
in the dishwasher, or it may be a bigger issue like you’re feeling like your
opinion is not being heard inside your relationship. IT typically comes when
one person in the relationship has more “resources” like; money, social skills,
friends, dominance, or influence on others, and they use it to their advantage
in the relationship.
4.
The
Family Systems theory
The Family Systems theory is that
a system is greater than the sum of its parts. Which means that something is
better when it is all together and working (a system) rather then when it is
all just jumbled together and in parts. Think of the phone or computer that you
are reading this blog on. If you just had all the parts sitting on your desk or
in your hands and it wasn’t put together, you probably wouldn’t be able to do
much with it. But when your phone or computer is put together and working you
can search for anything and do so much with it!
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