Man : Knotted (Family Life)

A Family Life

A family is the basic structural unit of any society. 
Society is defined as 
a. the social system made up of inter-related and inter-dependent institutions, 
b. such as family, education, work, religion and law. 





     Gordon Marshall, a sociologist defined a family as:

           i. “An intimate domestic group 
          ii. made up of people related to one another 
       iii. by bonds of blood, sexual mating or legal ties. 
      iv. It has been a very resilient social unit that has survived and adapted through time.”

Family

The family is an important social institution, functioning positively for both the individual as well as the society. 
According to the sociologist George Peter Murdock, 
i. a family is the primary agent of socialization, 
ii. and socializes new members into the culture of the society 
iii. by teaching them common societal norms and values. 

The family controls society's members to maintain consensus and social order through the institution of marriage.

     Moral and Religious principles, 
       a. a family comes into being through the institution of marriage and then children. 
             b. A family also includes the parents of the husband and 
             c. any unmarried siblings as 
              d. well to form a vertically extended family. 
       Marriage as a means of preventing sexual anarchy in the wider society.

Factors Important in the Foundation of a Family

a.    Create a Nurturing and Accepting Family System.

Human feels the need for acceptance, the need to experience a sense of belonging to something and someone. The need for acceptance is more powerful in your family than anywhere else. The spirit of acceptance and putting it  into affirmative, interactive action in your family:

·      Put your family on Project Status.
Consciously decide to actively and purposely work on improving your family situation every day. The need to do:
      - Reschedule business activities to make time for your kids.
      - Help your children set and achieve goals.
      - Set aside an hour a day for the family, every day.

·      Bring out the authenticity of every family member.

Each child in your family has a core set of unique skills, abilities, interests and talents "all of which make up their genuine identity, their "authentic self." Children have a sense of hope, a feeling fun and excitement. Starts on ways to discover and bring to the surface the authenticity and hidden talents and interests of each of your children.

- Respect and encourage your child's uniqueness.
- Catch your children doing something right.
- Look for the best intentions in your children.

·      Create a sense of security and peace in your home.
Children look to you and your spouse as a solid and safe base of operations. When they're subjected to a conflict-ridden home, their base is shaken to the core. Some actions that will ensure that your family becomes and remains a secure stable base for your children and not a war zone:

      - Take arguments private and keep them private.

     - Stop being a "right-fighter."

     - Eliminate patterns of verbal abuse.

     - Deal forthrightly with destructive behavior.

b. Promote Rhythm in Your Family Life.
Children need rhythm in their lives, and it is unsettling to them when they don't have it. This factor is critical to the well being of your family, and here are some steps to help promote that rhythm.

·      Create a predictable pace of family life.

Scheduling events of the day or the week may be difficult but, your family does need a pace a rate of progress throughout the day built around key activities:

          - Specific times when meals are served.

          - Regular bedtimes.

          - A specific list of chores.

·         Be accountable for your choices.
The choices you make are 100 percent your responsibility, and they affect your interactions with everyone else in your family. Acknowledging your accountability means that you should be willing to ask yourself questions like the following:
 
      

c.     Establish Meaningful Rituals and Traditions.
Your family may celebrate rite-of-passage rituals, or bedtime rituals of a bath followed by story time. Establish rituals and traditions in your own family:

·      Plan purposeful celebrations.

        Birthdays, Father's Day, Mother's Day, and other events are all opportunities to create a tradition or even a ritual.

           - During the holidays, create traditions such as baking certain foods.

            - Play the same music at birthday parties.

            - Make sure your children either buy or make their own gifts.

·      Tell family stories.

Build into family get-togethers special times for retelling these stories, complete with slides pictures and mementos. Bring out picture albums or old films to enhance the storytelling experience.

·      Worship together.
For many families, attending a worship service or prayer  is a major family ritual. Family participation in worship is an excellent way to enact a family's faith through rituals and lay a spiritual foundation for children.

d.   Be Active in Your Communication.

The greatest things you can give your children are your ears and your voice. Meaningful dialogue takes into account each family member's need for acceptance, self-respect, encouragement and security.

·      Change the backdrop in which communication occurs.

Children tend to be more comfortable, more receptive and tend to open up in "safe" environments, rather than if you "sit them down" in a chair or at the table to talk. Strategies for encouraging active communication"

      - Make time to talk in the car.

      - Have discussions during game time.

      - Listen to CDs with your children and share your thoughts.

·      Discuss sensitive subjects such as politics or religion.

     These discussions are for the sole purpose of teaching children how to express their opinions and learn how to communicate. Providing a forum for your child's self-expression is one of the ways you can bolster their self-confidence and enhance their communication skills.

·      Do some "quilting."

This is a term used to describe family interactions involving a common activity. The object of "quilting" is to begin a group project together, such as:

       - Painting a room.

      - Cleaning the house.

      - Washing the car.

      - Building a playhouse

     - Tending a garden.  

e.    Learn How to Manage Crisis.

When it comes to family life, it's not a question of whether or not a crisis will hit "  it's a matter of when. No matter how smoothly your life goes, no matter how well you parent with a purpose, you'll encounter some crisis, and it will impact your life together as a family. Maybe you discover that your child is addicted to drugs or alcohol. Or your family must adjust to life with a chronically ill child or parent. Your best chance to navigate the rough waters of a crisis is to have a consciously designed crisis management plan in place for overcoming the tough stuff " before it hits. Your plan might include any of the following.

·      Be prepared before a crisis strikes.

The crucial thing about crisis is preparation. Keep in mind certain signs  that can serve as clues that a crisis is brewing.

·      Remove danger.

This may mean calling the police yourself, confiscating dangerous items, keeping your child from having contact with certain people or removing him or her from a dangerous place " physically or emotionally.

·      Work the problem, not the person.

Never attack or blame the family member in crisis when you're upset with a child, it can be terribly tempting to blame and criticize them. But when you do this, that child learns to "cover his tracks" the next time he or she gets in trouble. Aim your energies at solving the problem instead.

·      Close ranks.

When a crisis hits, family members tend to turn on one another, blaming or ripping into someone with personal attacks. You must resolve that your relationships will exist on a level above blame and personal attacks. If family members are unable to turn to one another, a crisis will shatter family unity.

·      Find meaning in your suffering.

Don't allow yourself to be devastated for no reason, no meaning and no purpose. You've got to create some value to the pain that you experience in life. Should some injury or tragedy befall one of your children, you may learn from the event, and thereby protect him or her and your other children more effectively in the future. You may choose to take some social action to create meaning out of suffering.  

Factors Destabilizing the Foundations of Family

The destabilizing factors are a direct result of increasing effect of globalization and a smaller world due to communication, the world is under the control of a few privileged countries, which control all the resources and have made others subservient on the basis of their power and authority. Under the influence of these forces all over the world, people are forced to do dual work, hence the need for many women to work to meet the demands of the family. Here are some more destabilizing factors.

a.      Influence of Western concepts:

i. Western concepts of feminism seem to be trickling into our family system as well. 
ii. slogans such as “women liberation” and “women rights” and try to inculcate in them that family life is interfering with their rights and that they should go out and be independent. 
iii. These slogans are mainly responsible for many women abandoning their children to day cares and governesses and working in full time jobs. 
iv. affects children in an adverse way, but also has a negative effect on family life, sometimes ending in a divorce as well. 
v. This mostly stems from an unawareness that family life does not infringe upon women's rights at all rather cements those in a positive way.

b.      Media Portrayal of Role Models:

i. TV play which actually portrays the family life, giving full independence given to both men and women to do whatever they want, and 
ii. the parents don't even seem to exercise any control or apprise them of anything constructive. 
iii. The acting actually teaching women ways to invite male attention and to do whatever they please, without any religious or moral boundaries. 
iv. Drama serials  seem to teach all the young people to engage in school and university romances.
v.  the media who become the role models for our young generation and  idealizing about the sort of adult life , and consequently when 
vi. they do step into practical life and realize that life is not as glamorous as it is shown on TV, 
v. they fall into a deep depression and fail to appreciate what they already have. 
vi. Family life then has no attraction for them.

c.       Increasing Effect of Materialism:

a.  Every single drama serial shows huge palatial homes, with lush green gardens and spacious lavish offices and handsome salaries. 
b. Advertisements which talk about “making a phone call and earning thousands of cash.” 
c. All this amounts to degrading the dignity of labor, and hard work and dignity of labor is downplayed, . d. when they are unable to meet the demands of their family members of materialism, become depress. Or they turn to other illegal means to get it.

d.      Emphasis on same caste and creed:

a. When looking for a suitable match, families often look for a person of the same caste and creed. 
b. This either leads to no marriage at all or to mismatched couples. 
c.  either end up divorcing or lead an empty shell marriage. 
d. In such cases, women easily fall prey to those liberation slogans discussed earlier, leaving the family life in shatters.

e.   High Standards:

a. Inclusive high standards for physical appearance. For the groom's families,
b. often translates to the girl being tall, fair and slim., know how to cook, how to exercise unquestioning submissiveness 

Essential Family Values

 In our home family values are rules or ideals that, as a family, we agree to live by and stay true to. The list of essential family values would be a mile long.

Having strong well defined family values helps solidify the foundation for a strong, tight knit family. When cultivated long enough this closeness provides a soft place to fall when life doesn’t go according to plan.  Strong and consistent family values are important in building trust and confidence in each family member.

1.      Belonging.

a. It is important that each member of my family feel that they are loved, that they belong and that they matter. 
b. Being a cohesive family could mean that you spend every spare minute together doing family activities but keep in mind that everyone is different. 
c. Each person should be allowed the space and freedom to explore the activities they think they may enjoy. 
d. Courageous and more willing to take chances if they know they have a safe place to come back to when things don’t quite work out. 
e. Coming together for special occasions and holidays and just spending time together as a family is what helps build that sense of belonging.

2.      Flexibility.

Order, schedules and structure in the family  would help to maintain some level of sanity. But too much structure and the unwillingness to give a little can result in a lot of unhappiness and resentment. The more flexibility in decision making, for example, the happier your family will be for it. Imagine one member of the family always thinking they are right and enforcing their way of doing things. This certainly wouldn’t lead to much happiness within the family unit.

3.      Respect.

To a  family, 
a. to respect each other is to take feelings, thoughts, needs, and preferences in to account when making decisions. I
b. acknowledging and valuing everyone’s thoughts, feelings and contributions to the family as a whole.

c. Respect is indeed earned and there is a very fine line between it and fear. 
d. The only way to earn and keep someone’s respect is to first show them respect yourself. Respect as an important family value will extend out of the home and into school, work or other social settings.

4.      Honesty.

a. This is the foundation of any relationships.  
b. Encourage honesty by practicing understanding and respect when someone tells you of their wrong doings. 

5.      Forgiveness.

a. Forgiving people who have wronged is an important choice to make. 
b. Forgiveness is a choice. 
c. Holding a grudge, is not conducive to a close family with mutual respect.

      Keep in mind that everyone makes mistakes, occasionally say things we wish we hadn’t and none of us are perfect. Get issues out in the open, gain some understanding and move on. Life is too short.

6.      Generosity.

a. Giving without thinking “what’s in it for me” is an important value for anyone wanting to be a responsible, contributing member to society. 
b. Through generosity we build empathy since we tend to think more about what people want or need. 
c. Being generous doesn’t mean simply handing over money to someone in need but  it include giving your time, love, attention or even some of your possessions.

7.      Curiosity.

a. Children have a natural curiosity.  
b. it’s important to encourage and push our kids and even ourselves to be curious about things. 
c. Critical thinking is an important skill that can be learned and developed through exploring your own curiosity.

8.      Communication. 

 a. Communication is as much an art as it is a science.
 b. A failure to communicate will likely lead to unhappiness and misunderstandings. Small issues grow into larger ones and when they eventually boil to the surface it’s unlikely they will be resolved calmly. 
c. Communication is a lot more than simply speaking your mind. In addition to spoken words, communication also extends to : 
    i.   tone, 
    ii.  volume, 
    iii. expression, 
    iv. eye contact, 
    v. body language and 
    vi effective listening.

d. The most important value for families to have,  talking openly about anything – hopes, dreams, fears, successes or failures – all without judgment, it’s encouraging and strengthens the bond.

9.      Responsibility.

a.  Responsibility is something that is learned.  
b. This sense of responsibility extends well into adulthood. 
c. Setting out individual responsibilities for family members works to instill this quality in everyone.

10.  Traditions.

a. Traditions are what make a family unique, they draw people together and create a sense of belonging. 
b. Traditions don’t need to be expensive, elaborate or a lot of work. 
c. It can be something as simple as a lazy Saturday morning sipping coffee and chatting or an annual dinner to ring in the new year. 
d. If you don’t currently have traditions in your family, create them!  Get creative and have fun.

A very important thing for families is to teach their children is how to make good decisions. If they have watched their parents making well thought out decisions over the years, they will tend to be good decision makers themselves.

A healthy, happy family benefits our whole society. 

Among the children of strong families there is less crime, less divorce and less emotional problems. 

They tend to go on and have strong, healthy families of their own, having learned from their folk's example.

Extract and excerpt taken with thanks from :
Sherri Kruger
Nasreen Ahsan, Hafsa Ahsan

Dr. Phil McGraw