The document discusses definitions of family from the perspectives of a student and textbook. The student's initial definition included aspects like shared experiences, lifelong commitment, and care for one another. The textbook defined family as an interdependent group that shares a history, experiences emotional bonding, and devises strategies to meet members' needs physically, socially, and emotionally. The document also examines diversity in modern families and challenges in defining the family while recognizing complexity.

1. DEFINING THE FAMILY

2. GOOGLE IMAGES OF “FAMILY”

3. YOUR DEFINITION OF FAMILY
 What did you include in your definition of the family (before reading the
textbook)?

4. YOUR DEFINITION OF FAMILY
 In your discussion board posts you mentioned:
 People who support each other no matter what
 Lifelong commitment (future oriented)
 Shared experiences and memories
 Keeping each other safe
 Care for each other (emotionally / physically/ financially)
 Mostly positive relationships- (e.g.do not judge or condescend; respect each other, there
for each other no matter what)
 Residing together
 Married / Not necessarily married
 With children / without children

6. DIVERSITY IN FAMILIES
 In the U.S.
 Married couples living with biological children - 24%
 Single-parent households- 26%
 Divorce –55% of marriages end in divorce
 Same-sex households increasing

7. DIVERSITY IN FAMILIES
 1950s nuclear family?
 Stay at home mother
 Working father
 2.5 kids
 This “Traditional” family, not
universal
 In 1960, only half of children were
living in this type of arrangement.
 https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-
tank/2015/12/30/its-no-longer-a-leave-it-to-beaver-
world-for-american-families-but-it-wasnt-back-
then-either/

8. DIVERSITY IN FAMILIES
 Families are often
violent
 Partner violence
 25% of women and
7.6% of men said they
had been physically
assaulted by a spouse,
partner, or date
 Child abuse and/or
neglect

9. CHALLENGES IN DEFINING THE FAMILY
 Define common features
 WHILE recognizing diversity and complexity

10. CHANGES IN DEFINITION OF THE FAMILY
 HOW DID YOUR DEFINITION OF THE FAMILY CHANGE AFTER READING TEXTBOOK?

11. DEFINING THE FAMILY
 Textbooks’ Definition
 Interdependent group of people who:
 1) have a shared sense of history
 2) experience some degree of emotional bonding
 Families offer the most intense and enduring of all interpersonal bonds
 3) devise strategies for meeting the needs (physical, social, and
emotional) of individual family members and the needs of the group as
a whole.

12. FAMILY TASKS:
FIRST-ORDER TASKS
 First order tasks:
 Essential business of the family
 Common to ALL families

13. FIRST-ORDER TASKS
 Maintenance Tasks
 Managing the Family’s Emotional Climate
 Boundary Tasks
 Identity Tasks

14. FIRST-ORDER TASKS: MAINTENANCE TASKS
 Maintenance tasks:
 Maintaining a healthy physical environment for the family
 Providing basic necessities:
 Food, shelter, and education
 The ways in which families to achieve this can vary greatly.

15. FIRST-ORDER TASKS: MANAGING EMOTIONAL CLIMATE
 Managing the emotional climate of the family
 Promote emotional and psychological well-being
 Closeness, involvement, acceptance, and nurturance.
 Strategies for dealing with conflict
 Affected by power dynamics within the family
 Patterns of power  experience of cohesion and cooperation  experience of intimacy and
emotional wellness.

16. FIRST-ORDER TASKS: IDENTITY TASKS
 Families facilitate the development of a sense of identity in three
areas:
 Area 1: Family themes
 Area 2: Identity of individuals within the family
 Area 3: Congruence of identities

17. FIRST-ORDER TASKS: IDENTITY TASKS
 Area 1: Family themes
 Organize the identity of the family as a whole
 Conscious, Unconscious, Intellectual, & Emotional aspects
 Define how family members interact with others and expect others to interact with them
 May be influenced by ethnic and cultural heritage
 We are Puerto Rican; we are Chinese;
 Predominant values that lead to behaviors
 Competitors, survivors, winners, losers,
  Feelings of potency, elation, or despair
 How individuals within the family orient themselves to others within and outside the family
Individual members’ personal identities

18. FIRST-ORDER TASKS: IDENTITY TASKS
 Area 2: Individual Member’s Identities
 Families contribute to individual members’ identities through socialization experiences.
 E.g. How we are supposed to act as males or females (impacts our gender identity)
 E.g. Our personal qualities:
 Strengths and weaknesses
 Differences between right and wrong.
 These influence how we interact with others and how we expect others to interact with us.

19. FIRST-ORDER TASKS: IDENTITY TASKS
 Area 3: Congruence
 Families aim to have congruent views of one another
 Congruence influences social interaction, personal identity
 Being “the smart one”, “the athletic one”, “the baby”
 Myths:
 When the views do not match reality or the individual’s view of themselves.
 May impact behavior of individuals
 Can create stress

20. FIRST-ORDER TASKS: BOUNDARY TASKS
 Boundary tasks:
 Delineate the limits of systems and subsystems
 Not directly observable
 Discovered by understanding the systems and subsystems relate to one other
 Discovered by understanding the flow of information between and within systems
 External boundaries: Delineate the family from other systems
 Determine family membership
 Regulate the flow of information between the family and other social systems
 Internal boundaries:
 Regulate the flow of information between and within family subsystems
 Influence the degree of autonomy and individuality permitted within the family

21. THE POLITICS OF THE FAMILY
 What makes a “good” family?

22. THE POLITICS OF THE FAMILY
 What makes a “good” family?
 Family functioning is dependent on successfully fulfilling first-order tasks.

23. SECOND-ORDER TASKS: ADAPTABILITY AND MANAGING
SYSTEM STRESS
 Second-order tasks
 Whether and How families adapt or change the ways in which they fulfill their
family tasks as a response to environmental changes

24. SECOND-ORDER TASKS: ADAPTABILITY AND MANAGING SYSTEM
STRESS
 The family must adapt to changes within and outside the family system
 Changes  Stress on strategies  Reorganization of strategies
 Reorganization leads to adaptability
 Morphostasis: Processes within the family that RESIST changes  STABILITY
 Morphogenesis: Processes within the family that FOSTER changes and growth  CHANGE
 Systems have a tendency to maintain constancy (Morphostasis)
 Reorganization only occurs when stress reaches critical levels

25. SECOND-ORDER TASKS: ADAPTABILITY AND MANAGING
SYSTEM STRESS
 Closed or Rigid System:
 When families do not change even when they are required to
 Chaotic System
 When systems make adaptations when none are required
 In these systems, the achievement of first-order tasks are at risk

26. REFLECTION & APPLICATION
 Adoptive Couple v. Baby girl case description: This case involved an Indian father, Dusten Brown, who terminated his
parental rights outside the tribal court, unaware that the mother intended to place the child for adoption. Under the
ICWA, Mr. Brown’s consent to terminate parental rights would not be valid. Upon learning of the mother’s adoption
plans, Mr. Brown withdrew his consent and sought custody of his daughter. The issue came before the South Carolina
Supreme Court, which reluctantly held that the ICWA applied and granted custody to Mr. Brown. Two years later, the
United States Supreme Court reversed this decision by applying a narrow exception to the ICWA sections governing
parental rights termination.
 Listen to a podcast of the case of Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl (https://youtu.be/E9jh-Y7cBz8) and answer the
following questions.
 The Indian child welfare act was passed after social workers in the 60s were found to be removing Native American children from
their families at alarming rates.
 What definition of a good family were the social workers using to justify these removals? Which family tasks were social workers prioritizing? Which
family tasks were social workers ignoring?
 Do you think the family definition used by social workers is a good definition? Why or Why not?
 Who do you believe should have custody of ‘Baby Girl”?
 Support your answer by using the concepts discussed class (family definition, family tasks, family structure, family strategies, etc.)

27. THE FAMILY AS A SYSTEM

28. THE FAMILY AS A SYSTEM
 The family is a system
 System: a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an
interconnecting network.
 What makes a system unique are not the parts comprising the system, but the
relationships among the parts
 Studying a system:
 The relationships among the members of the family are more important than the
members themselves.
 The unit of analysis is the relationship.

29. THE FAMILY AS A SYSTEM

30. THE FAMILY AS A SYSTEM
Cap
Cap
Cap
Cap
Pile
Pile
Pile
Pile

31. THE FAMILY AS A SYSTEM: A BRIDGE
 Knowing the components of a bridge does not tell you what is the purpose of a bridge
 You need to know how all the component parts and subsystems are connected to one another.
 Wholeness principle: The whole is larger than the sum of its parts
Pile
Cap

32. THE FAMILY AS A SYSTEM: A BRIDGE
 The Foundation
 Pile - A concrete post that is driven into the ground to act as a leg or support for the new bridge
 Cap - The cap sits on top of a group of piles and will help disperse pressure to the piles below.
 Bent - This is the combination of the cap and the pile. Together, with other bents, act as supports for the entire bridge.
 The Superstructure:
 Girders - Girders are like the arms of the bridge. They extend from bent to bent and support the bridge decking. They also help disperse pressure to
the bents.
 Decking - The decking is what we would consider the road surface of the bridge. It rests on the girders, which are supported by the bents that are
made up of caps and piles.
Pile
Cap

33. THE FAMILY AS A SYSTEM: A BRIDGE
 In a system all parts work together and affect each other, even if they are not directly connected.
 Interdependence: If I break a pile and gap connection in a bridge, it does not directly affect the
decking, but it will impact the position of a girder, which in turn will affect the stability of the decking.
Pile
Cap

34. THE FAMILY AS A SYSTEM
 The family as a system
 Has common purposes/tasks that must be fulfilled
 SIMILAR tasks among diverse families
 Fulfill the physical, social, and emotional needs of the family
 Devises strategies for accomplishing these tasks
 Differ by family
 Composed of multiple subsystems

35. FAMILY SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE
 Systems are defined by their:
 Tasks
 Structure
 Composition: (Who makes up the family)
 Organizational Complexity
 Wholeness
 Interdependence
 Organization: (How the family interacts to fulfill family tasks)
 Strategies and Rules

36. STRUCTURAL COMPOSITION OF THE FAMILY:
ORGANIZATIONAL COMPLEXITY
 Individual family members (parts):
 Individual Adults/Caregivers
 Individual Children
 Organizational Complexity
 Family systems are composed of various subsystems
 Subsystems
 Any smaller components of the family system
 Individual members of the family
 Individual parts of the system
 Marital/Parental/Couple subsystem
 Parent-child subsystem
 Sibling subsystem

37. STRUCTURAL COMPOSITION OF THE FAMILY: WHOLENESS
 Wholeness
 The family system – the family members and the roles that they play – is
larger than the sum of its individual members

38. STRUCTURAL COMPOSITION OF THE FAMILY:
INTERDEPENDENCE
 Interdependence:
 The components of the family system are
 mutually dependent
 influence one another
 Example:
 If parents are experiencing high levels of conflict, the parent-child
subsystem will also be affected

39. STRUCTURAL ORGANIZATION OF THE FAMILY: STRATEGIES &
RULES
 Family Organization
 Strategies are the methods and procedures a family uses to accomplish its tasks.
 Different families may be identical in their composition, but unique in the
strategies used to execute essential tasks.
 The set of strategies the family uses makes up their pattern of interaction.
 Even if two families share a strategy, it is the set of strategies together that will
distinguish them and their pattern of interaction

40. STRUCTURAL ORGANIZATION OF THE FAMILY: STRATEGIES &
RULES
 Strategies are influenced by:
 Historical era
 Race
 Ethnicity
 Socioeconomic Class

41. STRUCTURAL ORGANIZATION OF THE FAMILY: STRATEGIES &
RULES
 Rules:
 Define what is appropriate behavior in the family
 Define the roles of the individual family members
 Reflect the values of the family
 Well-established strategies that are used routinely.
 Customs within the family (e.g. dinner rules)
 The result of having rules is that they maintain the family system and contribute to the
stability
 Makes the families unique

42. STRUCTURAL ORGANIZATION OF THE FAMILY: STRATEGIES &
RULES
 Rules:
 Overt rules: explicit and openly stated
 Cover rules: implicit (everyone knows the rules although no ones has explicitly stated them)
 Most family rules are covert
 Metarules
 Rules about rules
 The limits and exceptions to rules
 How and when the rules apply
 Determines whether some rules are more important than others
 Much more difficult for individuals to pinpoint what metarules are in our families.

43. THE FAMILY SYSTEM AS A SUBSYSTEM
 Micro-level: Focus on the individual and his or her interactions in specific
settings
 Macro-level: Focus on interconnectedness of marriage, families, and
intimate relationships with the rest of society
 A family systems perspective focuses on micro-level variables
 But remember that the family is a subsystem within broader community and
societal systems

44. A DATE WITH YOUR FAMILY
 https://youtu.be/Gd7RqwgDUDg
 Describe the family subsystems and its members
 Describe a family strategy and the task it is meant to fulfill

45. THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR EPISODE
 https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6a3vu8

46. PITTS VS. MOORE
 Amanda M. Moore and Mathew W. Pitts lived together “on and off again” for over eight years. While
they were separated in 2008, Moore had a brief relationship with Eric B. Hague, which lasted only a few
months. Once this brief relationship with Hague ended, Pitts and Moore resumed their relationship and,
some months later, Moore learned she was pregnant. During the pregnancy, Pitts attended some
prenatal appointments and attended one birthing class. Moore gave birth in November of 2009. After
the birth of the child, Moore was the primary caretaker and for the first seven months of the child’s life,
Pitts was the sole source of financial support. The couple ultimately separated in mid-2011, after which
time Pitts had continued contact with the child that “focused on playtime, with occasional feeding and
less occasional bathing and changing of diapers.” Pitts brought action in District Court seeking parental
rights, at which time Moore asserted that Pitts was not the biological father. A paternity test confirmed
that Pitts was not the father and he stipulated to these facts. However, the District Court ultimately
concluded that Pitts was a de facto parent of the child. Moore appealed the decision claiming that:
“Pitt[s’] role in the child’s life has been short, inconsistent, and devoid of the daily caretaking functions that
characterize a de facto parent; that Pitt[s’] removal from the child’s life will cause no trauma to the child; and the . . .
award[] . . . intrudes on the parent-child relationship between Moore and the child.”

47. INDIAN CHILD WELFARE ACT

https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1201&context=nulr

48. DEFINING THE FAMILY
 Your Definition of the Family:
 Group of people with a history
 Family and Extended family
 Long-lasting relationships
 Shared values ? & Identity
 Emotional Bond
 Care
 Conflict
 Goals of the family:
 Meet the needs of the individuals
 Belongingness
 Food & Shelter
 Textbooks’ Definition
 Interdependent group of people who:
 1) have a shared sense of history
 2) experience some degree of emotional
bonding
 3) devise strategies for meeting the needs of
individual family members and the group as a
whole.
 It is a complex system
 Has common purposes and tasks that must be
fulfilled
 Devises strategies for accomplishing these
tasks
 Composed of multiple subsystems