Marriage and Family Strengths and Needs

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Marriage and Family Strengths and Needs

• Recurring Themes
• Marital and Family Strengths
• Different Families, Different Strengths
• Kin and Community
• Strengthening Families Through Family Policy

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Recurring Themes

• A. Families are dynamic they will always
  continue to change and there will always be
  families.
• B. Families are diverse they form a composite of
  race, ethnicity, social class, gender, and
  lifestyle variations.
• C. Families satisfy important societal and
  personal needs societal health and stability
  depend in large part on strong and stable
  families.
• D. Families need societal support the family
  needs greater societal and institutional support
  to overcome problems and grasp opportunities.

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Marital and Family Strengths

• A. Marriage may be seen as a forum for
  negotiating the balancing between the desire for
  intimacy and the need to maintain a separate
  identity through interpersonal competence.
• B. Marital strengths versus family strengths
• 1. Childfree couples generally have more time for
  each other and substantially less psychological,
  economic, and physical stress.
• 2. Many of our marital skills probably develop
  alongside our family skills.

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• 3. The relationships of families with children
  generally have greater stability because the
  emotional cost of a breakup is much greater when
  children are present in addition, children help
  fulfill our need for intimacy.
• C. Essential aspects of successful marriage
• 1. Numerous studies show a strong correlation
  between a couple's communication patterns and
  marital satisfaction.

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• 2. Commitment is a continual growing of a
  relationship, involving the willingness and
  ability to work together. Commitment to the
  sexual relationship within marriage is a very
  important aspect of marital strength.
• 3. Commitment involves give-and-take in order to
  be together and nurture the marriage
  relationship.
• 4. Commitment to success is an essential
  component in the formation of strong marriages
  and strong families.

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Family Strengths

• A. Family strengths are those characteristics
  that contribute to a family's satisfaction and
  its perceived success as a family.
• B. Family goals are unique to each family.
• C. Perfection in families exists as an ideal
  Family quality can be seen as a continuum.
• D. Family quality varies over the family life
  cycle
• 1. The overall cohesiveness of the family is
  severely tested at times although it often
  emerges stronger, it may have experienced periods
  of distrust, disorder and unhappiness.

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• 2. Families are idiosyncratic each is different
  from all others.
• E. The Family Strengths Research Project found
  that six qualities stood out repeatedly in
  successful families including appreciation
  spending time together commitment good
  communication patterns spiritual wellness and
  ability to deal with crises.

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• F. Ten areas of strength in successful families
  include commitment affirmation, respect, and
  trust communication responsibility, morality,
  and spiritual orientation rituals and
  traditions crisis management ability to seek
  help spending time together a family wellness
  orientation and a balance between cohesion and
  adaptability.
• G. Commitment involves the promotion of growth of
  other family members
• 1. Commitment is a prevailing characteristic in
  strong families of all forms.

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• 2. Commitment to the family involves the
  participation of family members in a worldview
  that encompasses more than only self-centered
  interest.
• H. Affirmation, respect, and trust are essential
  to family health.
• 1. Supporting others in our family and being
  supported and affirmed in return are important in
  maintaining a feeling of satisfaction and
  wellbeing.
• 2. According respect to our family members for
  their uniqueness and differences and encouraging
  members to develop their individuality is also
  important.

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• 3. Criticism, ridicule, and rejection will
  undermine self-esteem.
• 4. The establishment of trust that family members
  can be relied on encourages the
• development of self-confidence and a sense of
  responsibility for oneself and others.
• 5. Parental role modeling is a crucial factor in
  the development of qualities that ensure personal
  psychological health and growth.
• I. Our tones of voice, body language, eye
  contact, silences, a touch, or a gift are all
  forms of communication.
• 1. In strong families, communication is direct.

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• 2. Strong families talk a lot, trust one another,
  and are good listeners.
• 3. In times of conflict, strong families keep
  communication focused on the issues rather than
  the personalities of those involved.
• 4. Communication has been described as a huge
  umbrella that covers all that transpires among
  human beings.
• 5. Communication facilitates other family
  strengths.
• J. Responsibility, morality, and spiritual
  orientation are important for healthy families.

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• 1. The acquisition of responsibility is rooted in
  a sense of self-respect and an appreciation of
  the interdependence of people.
• a. Successful families realize the importance of
  delegating responsibility and of developing
  responsible behavior.
• b. Parental acknowledgment of a job well done
  goes a long way toward building responsibility in
  children.
• c. Healthy families know the importance of
  allowing children to make their own mistakes and
  face the consequences.

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• 2. Healthy families develop a sense of right and
  wrong, a moral code, in their children based on a
  firm conviction that the world and people around
  us must be valued and respected.
• 3. Families with a spiritual orientation see a
  larger purpose for their family than simply their
  own maintenance and self-satisfaction.
• 4. Spirituality gives meaning, purpose, and hope.
  
• a. By traditions and rituals, families find a
  link to the past and a hope for the future.
• b. Strong families often have a sense of family
  history, strengthening a sense of connection to
  its roots.

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• L. Research consistently identifies the capacity
  to deal effectively with family crises as a
  characteristic of strong families. Members of a
  strong family unite to face the challenges of a
  crisis.
• 1. The cumulative effect of other family
  strengths enables strong families to deal with
  crises.
• 2. Strong families are able to accept changes
  resulting from crises and to see possibilities
  for growth in them.
• M. Effective crisis management is associated with
  the family's ability to be open to resources
  outside itself.

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• 1. Strong families acknowledge their
  vulnerabilities.
• 2. Strong families' experiences of
  interdependence within the family better equip
  them to recognize the interdependence among
  families and community.
• N. Making time for family is an interlocking
  trait that brings together other characteristics
  found in strong families It expresses commitment
  to the family.
• 1. Spending time together is necessary to develop
  adequate communication and to build cohesion.

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• 2. Healthy families give play and leisure time
  high priority.
• O. Having a family wellness orientation means
  making a conscious decision to live our lives in
  ways that move us toward optimal health in
  physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and
  social dimensions.
• 1. Wellness is positive, proactive, and focuses
  on being healthy and whole.
• 2. Families oriented toward wellness take
  advantage of educational opportunities that help
  them gain perspectives on family developmental
  processes.

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Different Families, Different Strengths

• A. recognition of the commonality
• B. Ethnicity is a complicated and ever changing
  phenomenon.
• C. Family strengths associated with
  African-American families include (1) an
  extended kinship network (2) flexibility of
  roles (3) resilient children (4) egalitarian
  parental relationships and (5) strong motivation
  to achieve.

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• D. Latino families often live in nuclear families
  near other families in the extended family
  network.
• 1. Latino culture emphasizes the family as a
  basic source of emotional support, especially for
  children.
• 2. In Puerto Rican families, the role of mother
  is central and is expressed in the term
  marianismo.
• 3. Mexican-American families tend to emphasize
  the needs of the family above those of the
  individual A child's padrinos (called compadres
  by the parents) are an important part of the
  family support system

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• 4. Family strengths associated with Latino
  families include being family centered strong
  ethnic identity high family flexibility a
  supportive network of kin egalitarian decision
  making and family cohesion.
• E. Responsibilities to aged parents and to close
  relatives are fundamental to the family
  institution of Asian-American families.
• 1. In Chinese-American families, the concept of
  hsiao (filial piety) involves a series of
  obligations of child to a parent.

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• 2 . Strengths of Japanese-American families
  include (1) close family ties indicated by
  strong feelings of loyalty to family (2) low
  divorce rates and (3) a complex system of values
  and techniques of social control.
• 3. Due to patterns of immigration and disruption
  of family relations, Vietnamese-Americans have
  developed variations in their traditional
  extended family household and kin system.
• 4. Strengths of Asian-American families include
  filial piety family as a cohesive unit value of
  education feelings of loyalty and extended
  family support.

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• F. Native Americans are a diverse group.1. In
  general, Native American families see human life
  as being in harmony with nature.
• 2. Relations with kin are often characterized by
  residential closeness, obligatory mutual aid,
  active participation in life cycle events, and
  the presence of central figures around which
  family ceremonies revolve.
• 3. A special role for the elderly has
  historically been recognized as a strength in
  Native American families.

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• 4. Strengths of Native American families include
  extended family network value placed on
  cooperation and groups, respect for the elderly
  tribal support system and preservation of
  culture.

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Kin and Community

• A. Whether we are married or single, we have
  relationship needs.
• 1. We need to nurture others by caring for a
  partner, children, or other intimates both
  physically and emotionally.
• 2. Social integration involves being actively
  involved in some form of community, through
  knowing others who share our interests and
  participating in community or school projects.
• 3. The knowledge that assistance from others is
  available keeps us from feeling anxious and
  vulnerable.

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• 4. We need intimacy with people who will listen
  to us and care about us.
• 5. We need reassurance as to our skills as
  persons, workers, parents, and partners to
  maintain self-esteem.
• B. Few aspects of family life exist to which
  relatives do not make a significant contribution.
  Even when extended families are separated
  geographically, they continue to provide
  emotional support.
• C. In addition to kinship networks, many families
  have extensive networks of affiliated kin and
  friendships. The strength of kinship ties depends
  more on feeling than biology.

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• 1. The wellbeing of the family depends not only
  on its own resources, but also on the support it
  receives from the community in which it is
  embedded.
• 2. Despite the complexities of modern life, the
  families that love, shelter, and teach us remain
  America's greatest national resource They
  deserve to be nurtured, strengthened, and
  protected.