Family Problems

The Healthy Family

• Communicates and listens
• Affirms and supports one another
• Teaches respect for others
• Develops a sense of trust
• Has a sense of play and humor
• Exhibits a sense of shared responsibility
• Teaches a sense of right and wrong
• Has a strong sense of family in which rituals and traditions abound.
• Has a balance of interaction among members
• Has a shared religious core
• Respects the privacy of one another
• Values service to others
• Fosters family table time and conversation
• Shares leisure time
• Admits to and seeks help with problems

Ref: Curran, Dolores. Traits of a Healthy Family. Minneapolis: Winston, 1983

The Bible and The Family:

• Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting to the Lord
• Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them
• Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.
• Fathers, do not embitter your children or they will become discouraged

Healthy Interpersonal Relationship Traits & Skills in the Family:

• Love
• Forgiveness
• Conflict resolution
• Self-denial
• Personal integrity
• Caring
• Biblical principles engaged, taught, and modeled
• Maturity
• Spiritual growth

Ref: Robert J. Salinger, "Toward a Biblical Framework for Family Therapy," Journal of Psychology an Theology 7 (winter 1979) : 241-50

Strategies for Resolving Family Problems:

• Reduce the stress
• Learn better coping skills
• Reframe the situation -- see the situation in a new light

The Causes of Family Problems:

The following are difficulties & obstacles to solving family problems:
--Habits, behaviors, and attitudes tend to prevent successful resolution of family problems, and may in fact be the cause of the problems in the family dynamic.

1. Lack of interpersonal skills & coping skills

• Lack of sharing of feelings:
  --Is there a security in the household to express emotions, fears, anger, etc.?
  --Is there an environment where free verbal interchange is available and welcomed?
• Taboo family topics:
  --Are certain topics for discussion unacceptable (feelings, sex, money, spiritual issues, politics...)?
  --Taboo topics create areas of safety and danger that affect problem resolution and can be carried into later life
  --Every topic should be open -- honesty and disclosure should be the primary guiding principles
• Fear of intimacy:
  --Feelings are not shared
  --Time not spent together
  --Lack of trust of other family members
  --Difficulties handling crisis situations
• Excessive, undefined, or unspoken, family rules
  --Have excessive rules caused a loss of individuality, creativity, or rebellion?
  --Have lack of well defined rules given the child an inappropriate freedom to make his/her own rules?
  --Have unspoken rules caused a hypersensitivity to relationship cues?
  
• Family status issues:
  --Have we avoided seeking outside help for fear of losing family status?
  --Has fear of being seen as "ordinary" limited options and flexibility to maintain an image?
  
• Family secrets:
  --Issues such as: illegitimate pregnancy, retarded child given up for adoption, previous marriage, bankruptcy, past history of prison...
  --Is pride preventing honest sharing?
  --Can God use our failings to be glorified as we grow and overcome?
  --Have we lost touch with who we are as individuals?
• Goals imposed on family members by one or more family members
  --Goals are good, but do they fit the "way" of the child divinely ordained by God.
  --Are the goals supporting who God has made that person to be?
  --Is the will of one human being imposed upon another?
• Family values held as sacred:
  --Values held as family tradition can be good and righteous but may be the source of conflict when challenged.
  --Family values should always be open to examination, justification, and modification with sufficient reason.
• Alliances of two or more family members against another:
  --Alliances in the family creates schisms and alienation.
  --Each person should cast his/her own opinion and judgment in each situation.
• Scapegoating another person or issue, family problems are avoided:
  --Focus of the attention on an enemy, problem, activity, cause, project, or any other distraction may prevent reasonable attention being given to the family problems.

2. Lack of Commitment to the Family:

• Solving problems takes time
  --Problems cannot be solved if one or more family members do not take the time, or have the desire to spend time with the family in conversation and negotiation.

3. Lack of Role Clarity:

• Who does the household chores must be clear
  --Driving children to activities, garbage, laundry, dishes, bedrooms, landscaping yard care, house maintenance, auto maintenance...
• Personality roles form in response to individual personalities and in response to power vacuum
  --Each person can take on a family personality role such as: the jokester, rebel, scapegoat, manager, problem solver, fixit person, etiquette advisor, planner, party person
• Role reversals can occur:
  --Parent-child role reversal (cartaking, supporting, nurturing)
• Coalitions:
  --Parent-child coalitions can form against other parent child coalitions
• Parent-Child overinvolvement
  --The child's activities can overoccupy the time and attention of the parent -- sports, schoolwork, social activities

4. Lack of Environmental Stability:

• Problems in the family due to influences outside of the home
  --social unrest, fire, theft, neighbors,
• Behavior problems in a family member that disrupts the family stability:
  --A family member who: has a severe illness, has an illegitimate pregnancy, deserts the family, engages in criminal activity, engages in drug or alcohol use, pornography or other addictions, domestic violence...
• Financial pressures:
  --Moves, job loss, demotions, promotions, mergers, bad loans and investments, gambling, shopaholism...
• Outside personality involvement:
  --In laws, ex-spouse, ex-lovers, mistresses, business partners, friends...

Ref: Outlined, with modifications, from Christian Counseling, Gary Collins, Ph.D., Word Publishing, 1988