PCB 4024 : SPECIAL CHILDREN AND FAMILY COUNSELING Course Leader: Puan Hajah Sabariah Siron

COURSE NOTES
TOPIC 2: BASIC CONCEPTS OF FAMILY

CONCEPT OF FAMILY Family is a basic unit in social system. Each family system is itself embedded in a community and society at large. It is a collection of individuals sharing a specific physical and psychological space. Evolved a set of rules Ascribed roles for its members Organised power structure Overt and covert form of communication Relationship between members of this micro culture is deep and multilayer Based on shared history Shared internalized perceptions about the world Shared sense of purpose. Within such a system individuals are tied to one another by powerful, durable, reciprocal emotional attachments and loyalties that may fluctuate in intensity and psychological distances between members over time, but nevertheless persist over the lifetime of the family.

.1 FAMILY AS A SYSTEM Molded by its existence at a perticular place and time in history, and in shaped further by a multitude of interlocking fenomena such as: race, etnicity, social class membership, life cycle stage, number of generation in this country, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, physical & mental health of its members, level of educational attainment, financial security, family values, family belief system.

1.2 ECOSYSTEM MODEL OF FAMILY

Peers, society & community

Family Individual

Social, culture, politic ( gender, religion, ethnic)

Family interact with the environment. family and its members do not exist in vacuum, alieneated or by itself. family is a network of exchanges of resources. Family has to interact with the environment to fulfill its members needs.

1.3 FAMILY SUBSYSTEMS Subsystem are components of family structure. They exist to carry out various family tasks necessary for the functioning of the overall family system. Spousal subsystems Parental subsystems Sibling subsystems Each member may belong to several subgroups at the same time, the family are capable of organizing themselves into a limitless number of such units. Each person may have a differing level of power within different subgroups, may play different roles, may exercise different skills and may engage in different interactions with members of other subsystems within the family. Subsystems are defined by interpersonal boundaries and rules for membership. They regulate the amount of contact with other subsystems.

 Such boundaries determine who participates and what roles those participants will have in dealing with one another and with outsiders who are not included in the subsystem. 1.4 TYPES OF FAMILY Nuclear family Extended family One -time -around family Cohabiting family Single- parent- led family Dual-career family Blended family Polygamic family 1.5 FAMILY GENOGRAM

AHMAD

ANI

ISMAIL

KATHY

EDI

DAUD

SALLY

NOR

MARY

MOHAMAD

RAMLI

YAT I

MAJID

AINUN

FIGURE 1 :THREE GENERATION FAMILY GENOGRAM 1.6 FAMILY RELATIONSHIP Families create and indoctrinate new members. New members are recruited through birth, adoption and marriage.

Although members have the autonomy and not expected to live under one roof, family relation remain intact for life.

 Despite the seperation of members by vast distances, sometimes by death, the familys influence remains. Even when a family member experiences a temporary or permanent sense of alienation from ones family he or she can never relinguish family membership. 1.7 Relationship with siblings are likely to represent our longest commitments. FAMILY DYSFUNCTION Family failed to fulfill its purpose of nurturing the growth of its members. Five dysfunctional family structures are: enmeshed families disengaged families families with peripheral male families with noninvolved parents families with juvenile parents 1.8 ENABLING AND DISABLING FAMILY SYSTEM

i. ii. iii. iv. v.

Growth and change in the family system is inevitable. In the process of growing up, family members develop individual identitity but remained attached to the family group. Members are interdependant on one another for money, food, clothing, Shelter, affection, mutual commitment, companionship, socialization, expectation of long-lasting relationship and other nontangible needs.

Families maintain a history by telling and retelling their story over generations, thus ensuring a sense of family continuity and shaping the expectations of members regarding the future. To function successfully members need to adapt to the changing needs and demands of fellow family members as well as the changing expectations of the larger kinship network, the community and the society in general. Enabled family system: balanced system of family unit while simultaneously operating on behalf of the interests of all its members as individuals.Invent procedures that attempt to satisfy the conflicting interest of the family members.Family members are accomodative in nature.

Disabled family system: manisfestated in unstable, rigid or chaotic family pattern.

1.9

CONCLUSION

` Being married and having children has impressed on my mind certain lessons, for whose learning I cannot help being grateful. Most are lessons of difficulty and duress. Most what I am forced to learn about myself is not pleasantMy dignity as a human being depends perhaps more on what sort of husband and parent I am, than on any professional work I am called upon to do. My bonds to my family hold me back ( and my wife even more) from many sorts of opportunities. And yet these do not feel like bonds. They are, I know, my liberation. They force me to be different sort of human being, in a way which I want and need to be forced. Anonymous

TOPIC FOR DISCUSSION 1. Discuss the implication of Anonymouss family experience in relation to family system. 2. Discuss on the different types of family, its impact on the family system and its influence on the members of the family.

sabariah_siron@email. unitar.edu.my 3.01. 2009