Personal Development Module 3: Family Structures

Personal Development Module 3: Family Structures and Legacies

• Family originates from the Latin word "familia," meaning a group of people living in the same household, related by blood, birth, or other relationships.
• A family is the smallest unit of society, an organization within a community.
• Families consist of individuals living together in one household.
• Families come in various forms, with differing compositions. Generally, families are composed of parents, children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and other relatives.

Types of Family Structures

• Nuclear Family: Also known as the "conjugal" or "traditional" family. It consists of a married couple and their children.
• Extended Family: Includes all relatives – grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins – living in close proximity. These relatives often live together, sharing household responsibilities.
• Single Parent Family: Composed of one parent and their children. This may result from divorce, death of a parent, or single-parent adoption.
• Step Family: A family formed after divorce and remarriage, where parents bring together their children from previous unions to form a new nuclear family.
• Foster Family: Includes a parent who serves as a temporary guardian for a child who is not their biological child.
• Adopted/Adoptive Family: The parents adopt a child with whom they have no biological relation, or one parent adopts a child of the other parent.
• Bi-racial or multi-racial Family: Family with parents or a parent coming from different races.
• Trans-racial adoptive family: The parents adopted a child with a different race.
• Conditionally separated family: Family where one of the members are conditionally separated from the others due to a job or employment, or hospitalization.
• Childless Family or Couple: A married couple or partners without children.
• Gay or Lesbian Family: A family where one or both parents have a different sexual orientation and are part of the LGBT community.
• Migrant Family: The family who settles in another place, moving from one place to another due to circumstances such as a job relocation.
• Immigrant Family: At least one or both parents are immigrants in a different country. Some of the children may be immigrants as well, and some may not.

Family Legacy

• Emotional Legacy: Children need security and stability in a loving environment. A positive emotional legacy helps them to cope with life's challenges. Families provide a nurturing place for children and can guide them towards emotional wholeness.
• Social Legacy: It involves the skills necessary for fostering healthy relationships with family, teachers, friends, community, and colleagues. At home, children learn respect, courtesy, love, and involvement. Social legacy is passed on through example. Role models play a crucial role in shaping children's social values and behaviors.
• Spiritual Legacy: This involves nurturing spiritual beliefs and values. Parents who successfully pass this legacy reinforce the importance of a godly life. Spirituality in children's upbringing is developed through parent's example, which helps shape their perspective of God and their values.

Genogram

• A genogram is a visual representation of a family's history that maps relationships and patterns across generations. It uses special symbols to illustrate various relationships and traits to show how they influence the present.
• It helps identify any patterns or traits in the family that may impact a person's current behavior.

Activity: Family Genogram

• Create a visual map of your family's history, including relatives up to three generations.
• Record details such as name, birthdate, death, marriage, education.
• Specify connections between family members, and any family habits or health issues (alcohol use, drug use, mental health, physical health, employment).

Family Relationship and Characteristics

• When family members plan and interact, a sense of belonging, wholeness, and dignity are developed.
• A strong family encompasses: commitment, appreciation, communication, time together, spiritual wellness, and coping ability.
• Family commitment is where the family comes first and family members cherish each other.
• Family appreciation involves showing love, celebrating special occasions, and looking for the positive.
• For effective communication, families must be open, honest, kind, listen attentively, and trust one another.
• Spend quality time together, engaging in activities like mealtimes, picnics, performing household chores, participating in religious or community services, school activities, celebrating birthdays, and playing outdoors.

Family Strengthening

• Five important aspects contribute to strong family relationships: learning, loyalty, love, laughter, and leadership.
• Learning: Involves absorbing values, behavior, and skills within the family, which guides children's lives outside the home, through observation and example.
• Loyalty: The support and unity within families during challenges and triumphs.
• Love: Expressing love in simple ways, treating family members as friends, focus on positivity.
• Laughter: Laughter is good for the family and a stress reliever (relaxing or fun activities).
• Leadership: Parents taking responsibility to set rules and guidelines for a strong and balanced family, through their example.

Activity: Relationship Plan

• Create a plan to strengthen family relations using an acronym (your first and last name).
• Designate specific activities and responsibilities for family members to achieve this goal.

Resources

• Personal Development Reader
• Personal Development by Ricardo Rubio Santos
• Persona Development Module Region X
• Persona Development Module 20-25 Region IV-A
• Personal Dev_Lesson 29-34 Building and Maintaining Personal Relationships, Frontlearners