The document discusses the application of family systems theory to understand the instability experienced by the Walls family in the book and film The Glass Castle. It analyzes how economic instability, Rex's alcoholism, lack of positive parenting, and role reversal negatively impacted the children. Key concepts of family systems theory seen in the family include emotional cut-off, differentiation of self, mutual influence, hierarchy, boundaries, and lack of equilibrium. While the theory provides insights, it has weaknesses such as oversimplifying relationships and not accounting for power differences within families.

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Family Systems Theory
Madison Bostdorff
University of Georgia

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Introduction
Family instability can be seen through parents’ behaviors, lack of income, and even multiple
moves as a family. The effects of family instability can be very debilitating for children going
through this and it is very evident in the children of the Walls family. One of the big issues in the
Walls family is economic instability. In a study done on the negative effects of instability on
child development, they found that “economic instability is most prevalent among low-income
families” (Sandstrom & Huerta, 2013). The Walls family is obviously in a great economic
instability. On top of this economic instability, Rex is an alcoholic, which leads to not so positive
parenting to his four children. Positive parenting in situations like this can be looked at as a way
to “ease the impact of instability on children” (Sandstrom & Huerta, 2013). Since this positive
parenting is not very present in the children’s lives, these experiences that the children have to go
through are quite traumatizing for them. The family systems theory comes into play here when
better understanding the parenting part of this. In this case of the Walls family, role reversal is
present since neither of the dad has an alcohol issue and the mother distances herself a little from
the role of mothering. When Rex’s addiction to alcohol becomes so unbearable that he decides to
tie himself up for a week to try to become sober, he is basically leaving it up to Rose Mary to
parent by herself. This has a big negative impact on both the children, but also on Rose Mary. In
this one scene where family instability is very present, we can apply this to the children being
affected from this because “a child’s transition from a two-parent family to a single-parent
family is associated with lower school engagement, poorer cognitive achievement, and more
behavior and emotional problems” (Fomby & Cherlin, 2007). During this hard week at the Walls
family home, the children go through emotional problems that no child should have to go
through. In situations like this where there is only one parent present in the home, some children

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are “subject to ‘adultification’ where they are required to function as a substitute parent or
partner, thereby crossing hierarchical family boundaries” (Allen & Henderson, 2017). When
Rose Mary or Rex wasn’t so present in their lives, they each had other to lean on when they were
struggling with the amount of instability in the home. The siblings of the Walls family stick
together, whether it was exploring together or coming up with plans like the one they made for
Jeannette to go New York. This leads to sibling relationships, which is a big part in family
systems theory. Poverty is also a big part of the family instability that goes on in the Walls
family and it is said that “childhood poverty and family instability affect adolescent outcomes,
such as cognitive and emotional development and educational attainment, that in the long run
undermine positive adolescent and young adult outcomes” (Lichter, Shanahan, Gardner, 2002).
Childhood poverty can have a big impact on the development of a child and can greatly affect
achievements later on in life. As they grow up and become young adults, they may express their
values in a different way than young adults who come from middle class families, because of
their disadvantaged backgrounds (Lichter, et al, 2002). With poverty, we also see that it can have
a big toll on their cognitive abilities, physical health, and mental health (Gunn & Duncan, 1997).
The children in The Glass Castle can be seen with lower cognitive abilities and also show signs
of decreased physical health. Poverty also affects the parents and can be seen through signs of
weakened mental health. When parents are affected, the children are then affected in a negative
way such as a “lower-quality parent-child interaction” (Gunn & Duncan, 1997). Through this we
learn that the way parents interact with their child can predict how their children’s outcomes and
also the amount of conflict and instability in the house can be seen through the health of the
parents. We are able to dive deeper into this concept when looking at the Family Systems
Theory. This theory comes to life when this concept of instability is looked at through each of

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the systems of this theory. This theory can be seen in many instances to be a contributor to the
overall stability or in this case instability of a family.
Family Systems Theory
Family systems theory can be explained through which, “ways that parents, children, spouses,
and extended family members mutually influence and communicate with one another” (Allen &
Henderson, 2017). When looking at this theory, you must understand what a family system is.
This can be described as “a unit of interdependent individuals (Allen & Henderson, 2017). When
applying this theory to real life situations, it is important to study and understand the concept of
holism, which is the idea behind studying the whole family and the different subsystems within
the family (Allen & Henderson, 2017). These subsystems include parental-subsystems,
grandparent-grandchild subsystems, and aunt-nephew subsystems (Allen & Henderson, 2017).
Using these systems in relation to things such as communication, interactions, and emotional
issues is key to this theory. As far as the history and background of this theory goes, it was
developed from a theory called general systems theory in the mid-twentieth century (Allen &
Henderson, 2017). From the GST theory, family systems theory was developed to be able to
understand how these systems that were mentioned above work in “universal ways” (Allen &
Henderson, 2017). Before the theory was created, psychiatrists and sociologists began thinking
about how families could act as systems, which led to family therapy developing (Allen &
Henderson, 2017). With this just developing, family systems theory started off with explanations
on how schizophrenia could affect young people by providing that it’s the influence from the
mother that is creating disorders that fall under the psychiatric category (Allen & Henderson,
2017). From there they move on to developing the idea that the family needs to be studied as
whole instead and this is where subsystems come in (Allen & Henderson, 2017). There are many

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concepts that the family systems theory runs off of and many of them are illustrated in The Glass
Castle. The first concept is emotional cut-off, which is when a family member experiences a
high amount of anxiety, so they distance themselves from other family members (Allen &
Henderson, 2017). It can be seen in The Glass Castle when Rex withdrawals from the family at
times when he is too uncomfortable. This is his way of coping when he is in situations that are
stressful and also in situations when he is drunk. Another concept of this theory is differentiation
of self, which “refers to one’s sense of being an individual compared to being related to others”
(Allen & Henderson, 2017). With Rex and Rose Mary not being very present and welcoming,
their children can be seen to some what pull away from them and become their own. They may
see themselves more as distinct individuals than being apart of a close-knit family, because of
how their parents have not been as involved in their lives as much as other parents may be.
Mutual influence, also known as family projection, is another concept that can be seen in The
Glass Castle. It is the way that others communicate with one another and specifically how
parents can affect their children by handing down their emotions to their children. It starts off
when the quality of Rex and Rose Mary’s relationship starts to deteriorate, because of Rex’s
addiction with alcohol. This then affects “the emotional well-being of others living in the house”
(Allen & Henderson, 2017). With their marriage being unsteady, this leads to negative
communication with their children. Next up is hierarchy, which we can see in the Walls family
through siblings. The older sibling takes over at times since the parents are both dysfunctional.
They all depend on each other for even daily needs such as food. Boundaries are another big part
of the Family Systems theory and we learn that all families have an open system because they all
interact with the environment in a way. The Walls family has boundaries that are complete
opposite of families who have flexible boundaries. Families who adopt flexible boundaries are

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those who are open to seeking out help for their family. The Walls family wants no help, as they
like to either ignore the problem or help themselves. When Rex drinks lots of alcohol, she
chooses to just ignore the problem since she doesn’t really know how to deal with him and his
addictions. When Rose Mary tries to support her family by getting a new job, Rex takes her
paycheck so he can spend it on alcohol. In the end, we can see that they do have open boundaries
at some points in their life since they allow experiences outside the home to influence them, but
they aren’t open for long since Rex restricts a lot. For the most part, they are close because of
Rex strictly restricting and regulating what happens within the family and also outside of the
home. For example, when the little girl has to go to the hospital because of a burn, Rex watches
the family with what information they choose to share. He doesn’t allow them to fully speak out
what is going on in the home. Next up is feedback and it is a concept that can either be positive
or negative and in the Walls family, they tend to give off negative feedback. The reason why
they fall under the category of having negative feedback can be seen through reasons like they
put a stop to communication and this can be seen when Rose Mary doesn’t communicate much
with Rex, because of his addiction and the need to feel like he is completely in charge of what
the family will do. This is not healthy for the family, especially for the children since the
emotions from this negative feedback between the parents would travel down to the children,
which can be seen as a part of their life that is out of control since the Walls family is not very
stable. This leads to a concept known as equilibrium, which is how families seek to balance
change and stability (Allen & Henderson, 2017). The way they create balance is not like most
families go about it. Since they are so unstable, they don’t really tend to seek balance. They
travel to many places and have a ‘living in the moment’ mindset, which isn’t so good for the

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children since they aren’t getting the kind of structure that they need. As you can see, the family
systems theory is very applicable to the Walls family and the way they live their lives.
Strengths & Weaknesses
With every theory brings its own strengths and weaknesses. The Family Systems Theory brings
much strength to the table. First off, this theory allows theorists to dig deeper than just seeing the
family as a single unit. It enables them to see how families interact and also how family members
are affected by certain processes as a whole and individually (Allen & Henderson, 2017). In my
opinion, this is the most important strength to me, because I believe that when you look deeper
into each family then you are able to see things that other theories wouldn’t see. Another strength
of this theory is that it helps in coming up with plans of intervention for when families go
through troubled experiences. For example, if children are going through times of loneliness then
some interventions could be integrating more effective ways of communication with the people
they love or miss. This theory also not only can be applied to parent-child relationships, but also
to sibling relationships (Allen & Henderson, 2017). When this theory was applied to the
relationships of siblings, they found that “the sibling subsystem is often more influential than the
parental subsystem” (Allen & Henderson, 2017). I found ease in using this theory, because in
ways it directly correlates with the Walls family. For example, the Walls siblings have a great
relationship with one another. They help each other in times of trouble and support each other
through all the moves they have to go through with Rex being in charge. As stated earlier, sibling
relationships are truly important when it comes to discussing family systems. One last key
strength with this theory is being able to learn more about the concept of role reversals, which
can happen in families that may involve parents who are alcoholic or even parents who are just
not able to properly take on responsible parental functions (Allen & Henderson, 2017). This

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strength can definitely be seen in The Glass Castle when the older siblings take charge of their
younger siblings and take over the roles of their parents. Through this strength, theorists are able
to study how certain roles may be reversed in certain situations and study the impact this has on
children. Even though there is much strength with applying this theory, there are also challenges
that arise when applying it to families. First off, there are possible ways that this theory could be
applied in a stereotypical way (Allen & Henderson, 2017). For example, when discussing gender
perspective, “systematic concepts of ‘overfunctioning’ and ‘underfunctioning’ can be seen as
disrespectful to families, particularly if a family member is gravely ill and requires a great deal
of care” (Allen & Henderson, 2017). I would have never thought about using this theory in a
stereotypical way, but now it is clearer to me how it could be possible in certain situations.
Another weakness of the family systems theory is the fact that it doesn’t take in complex
relationships as complex, but instead simplifies them down (Allen & Henderson, 2017). This can
be seen in real life through sibling relationships when the theory could possibly diminish the
personalities of siblings (Allen & Henderson, 2017). Sibling relationships are very complex and
cannot be simplified when studying families in a deep way that the family systems theory says it
does. And lastly, unlike the feminist theory, the family systems theory lacks in differentiating
between the power of men and women, along with children and adults (Allen & Henderson,
2017). One of the biggest critiques of this theory is that it assumes that each member in the
family has equal responsibility levels (Allen & Henderson, 2017). This is not true, because there
are usually family members that are more or less equal than others (Allen & Henderson, 2017).
With this weakness, we can show how important power is in the family with how the power is
distributed in the Walls family. The dad obviously has the most say in where the family goes and
what they do, but the mother also has a say with what her children do at times. We see here that

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the power in each family can be seen differently, which is why this is a weakness in the family
systems theory.
Conclusion
When family systems are studied, we are able to see conflict within the families and how they
choose to deal with it, how they interact, the boundaries that are set if there are any, the feedback
within the systems, relationships including sibling relationships, and much more. After learning
more about family systems theory this semester and through this paper, I have learned that one of
the biggest strengths is that when you study families through the lens of family system theory,
you are able to understand more deeply the systems involved in families and being able to
understand how members of the family communicate and influence each other in their actions.
Through this movie, The Glass Castle, I was able to apply the concepts of family systems theory
to real life events, which greatly helped me to better understand how family systems theory is
studied and applied. Through this, I was able to better understand the Walls family and how their
interactions with the outside world and also with each other formed them to who they are today. I
now see families with a different perspective after studying family systems theory and the way
that you view each system within the family when looking at families. I now think of families
with an application perspective, since I now have enough knowledge to apply the concepts from
family systems theory to any family and its members. Studying family systems theory also
helped me to understand how family instability can wreck havoc on both children and their
parents. Looking more into instability within the family also helped me to better understand the
effects of it, even the specific ones like mental health. Family systems theory and family
instability go hand in hand when studying families. Through this, I learned that concepts build
theories and family instability definitely was a concept that built family systems theory.

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References
Allen, K. R., & Henderson, A., C. (2017). Family theories: foundations and applications.
Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.
Brooks-Gunn, J., & Duncan, G. (1997). The effects of poverty on children. The Future of
Children, 7(2), 55-71. doi:10.2307/1602387
Fomby, P., & Cherlin, A. J. (2007). Family instability and child well-being. American
sociological review, 72(2), 181-204.
Lichter, D. T., Shanahan, M. J., & Gardner, E. L. (2002). Helping others?: the effects of
childhood poverty and family instability on prosocial behavior. Youth & Society, 34(1),
89–119. https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118X02034001004