The Form and Function of Family



The Form and Function of Family

Introduction

The family is an institution that has its own social functions. The family is an essential element of the person as such; because we form an identity from a family, lives within a family environment exert its influence to the personal identity of the components of it (Worden, 2003). Today in society we can find different forms of families, for classification purposes we will build on the definition of a family is a group of related or unrelated people living in one house:

Nuclear family: It consists of father, mother and son, is the typical classic family

Single parent: Only one parent and children or daughters

Extended-Single parent: There is a parent, son or daughter and members of the family

Single parent-complex: There is a responsible parent and son or daughter and share life with people outside the family

Family-man: It is a family consisting of a component (single)

Complex-Family: It is a family where people live at home and outside the family

Extended-Family: It is a family home he shares with familiar people

The main functions of the family

Reproduction (the reproduction of life, that is, having children, the continuation of the human race);

Economic (social production of the means of life spent on the restoration of the production forces of their adult members, management of its economy, the availability of its budget, the organization of the consumer);

Educational (the formation of the child, the systematic nurturing family group for each of its members throughout its life, the constant influence of children on parents and other adult family members);

Communicative (family mediation in contact with its members, the media, literature and art, the influence of family members of their diverse connections with the surrounding natural environment and the nature of perception, intra-organization communication, leisure and recreation).

Elements of Family Structure Theory

Family structure theory is one of the basic concepts used to describe family interaction. This term is the key to the structural theory of the family. A structured approach to families is based on the idea that family is more than the individual bio-psychodynamics of its members (Nichols, & Schwartz, 2001). Family members are related according to a specific device, which controls their transactions.

Individual family members make up a complex whole, and that cannot be understood by examining members separately.

The family is a structure of related parts or subsystems.

Family has a structure that can only be seen in its interactions.

Patterns of interaction become ingrained habits that make change difficult.

Each action or change affects every other person in the family.

Each family has certain rules that are self-regulating and peculiar to it. The family is a purposeful system; it has a goal. Usually the goal is to remain intact as a family.

For families to function well, subsystems must maintain boundaries.

Despite resistance to change each family system constantly adapts to maintain itself in response to its members and the environment.

Changes in family systems are caused by both nominative (predictable life cycle changes) and non-normative (crisis) stresses.

Systems change through the family life ...