Conference quark::human_relations-v1

	

	:-) ;-) ;-)

	

	I think it is a family where all the needs of the child are met,
	and met satisfactory - but that's my guess, cuz I sure don't know
	what a "normal" "healthy" family is!

	Angeline

A functional family is where the children see how a husband and wife cooperate
equally as a team; without power struggles, with love.

A functional family is where children learn to interact with each other on
an equal basis and are able to support and encourage each other.

Maybe it's easier to describe what a functional family is not...

In a functional family, curiousity is not an antisurvival trait.

Jim.

    One of the worst shocks of my adult life is realizing that with
    all the troubles we had when I was growing up, I was blessed with
    an extremely healthy family situation. 
    
    My parents married in 1950; for several years they co-owned and
    operated a Union-76 service station with my father's parents. I
    was born in 1954, my brother in 1956.  We all lived in a house in
    back of the garage, with a garden and a flock of geese.  I think
    my mother's father even lived with us for a while. 
    
    We didn't have much money but we had a lot of fun.  One time my
    grandmother tried to chase the geese out of the garden.  They
    wouldn't leave when she shooed them, so she threw some rocks at
    them.  You have to understand that normally my grandmother
    couldn't come within 20 feet of what she's throwing at -- that's
    probably why she brained one of the geese and it keeled over dead.
    She cried and everybody else laughed and after everybody calmed
    down we had roast goose for supper. 

    Somewhere in the late fifties the grownups sold the service
    station.  My father took a job in town as a mechanic for the local
    Dodge-Chrysler-Plymouth dealer; my grandparents moved to a nearby
    town and my grandfather opened a barbershop (he learned barbering
    in France during WWI, when he was in the Canadian army). 
    
    The house we moved to was very small and primitive, but it was our
    own, and over the next years we put a lot of work into it -- added
    onto it, put in indoor plumbing and a real flush toilet, put in
    solid oak floors and wood panelling in the living room. From the
    time I was old enough to hold a hammer, my father taught me to do
    the jobs of handicraft well.  I learned to measure 2x4's for
    framing, level them, and toenail them to the baseboard.  I learned
    to seat a faucet and put in a breaker box.  I helped put shingles
    on our roof and painted the woodshed myself when I was 12 [all
    right, I had a little help from my brother]. I learned to tune a
    car; much later I even overhauled my Dart's engine with his help. 
    
    My mother taught me to make biscuits and pie dough before I was
    even tall enough to reach the counter.  She taught me to care for
    a garden.  I can can crab apples or peaches, make pickles or
    chokecherry jelly, butcher, dress, and cook a chicken.  I can
    fell a tree with a chainsaw, chop the blocks into sticks, stack
    them, and build a fire in most any sort of stove.
    
    From my grandmother I learned that life is fun.
    
    From my grandfather I learned that living is an honorable
    occupation.  He didn't have much formal education, but he had a
    good mind and read constantly clear up to his final illness. He
    believed deeply in the worth of mankind and of each of us, and
    that there was a right way to live.  Living rightly is its own
    justification, and if one lives by one's principles, no matter
    what the cost to one's emotions, one's life will ultimately be
    fulfilling.  Do the right thing, as DEC would say. 
    
    From them all I learned to respect myself, and I learned that if a
    job was worth doing, it was worth doing well.  I learned that I
    was responsible for my own choices and my own life.  I learned
    that if I didn't give it my best try, I didn't have any business
    complaining.  Yes, Virginia, that's why I'm such a perfectionist.

    I never once felt that being a woman was anything but wonderful. I
    never once felt that being myself was anything but as it should
    be.  I used to want to be Marcus Aurelius.
    
    When I grew up and left home, these principles led me in some
    directions that my parents didn't and couldn't approve of. But
    because the love and the respect were strong, we've been able to
    reforge the bonds as they see that I had to follow my path, even
    if it was the wrong path for them. 
    
    I think the most noticeable trait of a healthy family is that it
    assumes the children will leave.  It encourages them to leave.  It
    even wants them to leave so the parents can get on with the next
    stage of their lives together.  Because we love each other and
    respect each other's individuality, going our way is not a threat
    to the family structure. 
    
    The other noticeable thing is that even though they have just as
    many problems as unhealthy families, they survive.  My brother and
    I both had trouble in school.  My brother had trouble with the law
    and medical trouble; I had a baby long before I got married.  We
    never had money. My parents fight and my father sulks.  I spent a
    good portion of my adolescence shreiking at my mother.  But
    because the bonds underneath are strong and honest, we can all
    still be friends. 

    --bonnie

    
    	I think a *functional* family provides the most healthy environment
    possible for it's members. Healthy is a broad term, deliberately
    chosen here as such, but also it's a positive one. Jim, although
    it may be easier to describe what a functional family is *not*,
    please continue to enter what a functional family *is*, like you've
    done already. They were great!
    
    	Joe Jas
    

    re: .5 (Bob)
    
    >>	Not sure what a "DYSfunctional" family is

	That is very obvious by your note.  Understanding the various
	depths and levels of a dysfunctional family might help you to
	realize that a dysfunctional family is not one where all family
	members end up in a cemetery or an institution.

    >>	I chose this style of verbiage, because there are SO MANY labels 
    >>	being thrust upon us, that somehow we  tend to beleive that ONE 
    >>	of those lables must include ourselves...Labels belong on 
    >>	software, foods, cars, and clothes.

	I agree.  But sometimes labels help people who've spent their
	life not identifying with anything find an arena or forum where
	all the individuals involved have similar needs and problems.
	For a person from a dysfunctional family, this is sometimes the
	last link in his or her sanity chain.
    
    >>	The only "really" dysfunctional family is one where NOONE 
    >>	survives, learns nothing, and everyone goes to jail, the asylums, 
    >>	or commits suicide. Thats a long way from the norm.

	In my view, your definition of dysfunctional is completely off.
	Dysfunctional has to do with emotions and attitudes and how the 
	family members are treated by the parents, how the adults treat 
	each other.  It's physical, mental, and/or sexual abuse.  Or do 
	you feel that sort of practice is part of a "functional" family?

    >>	It comes down to this: If you don't see what you need: Invent 
    >>	it. If its there, get it. If its wrong for you in some way: 
    >>	Modify it.

	Tell this to a five year-old girl who's forced to sit on the
	floor with the dog during dinner while her parents throw her
	food.  How is she supposed to modify?  What should she invent?
	Tell this to four year-old whose grandfather begins a ten-year 
	sexual abuse cycle.  Tell this to all the children who've been 
	repeatedly beaten or the children whose mother commits suicide
	while the children are forced to watch.  I rather doubt they,
	and there are more Adult Children of dysfunctional families 
	than you know, would agree with you.
    
    	A functional family is one where unconditional love is given 
    	without implementing any form of guilt.

						Carla

From .4:
    
>    I think a *functional* family provides the most healthy environment
>    possible for it's members. 
    
From .6:
    
>    A functional family is one where unconditional love is given 
>    	without implementing any form of guilt.

    These statements make it sound like the only functional families
    in the world are the Brady Bunch and the Huxtables, and that's
    just not true.  In a way Bob is right in .5 -- there is a
    continuum from extremely healthy to extremely unhealthy. 
    
    A functional family has fights, name-calling, internal politics,
    petty jealousies, resentments, and sibling rivalries.  There's
    plenty of guilt -- about sex, about making more money than your
    parents, about wanting to be a mechanic like your father when your
    father slaved all those years to get "something better" for you,
    about moving away and not moving away, about marrying the "wrong"
    people and working for the ERA.

    "The most healthy environment possible" usually gets translated
    into "I'm doing this for your own good," which may or may not
    be correct.
    
    Unconditional love?  Not from most people.  The difference is that
    the condition it depends on is more likely to be the behavior of
    the child more than the condition of the [drunken, abusive,
    whatever] parent. 

    No, the difference is that in a functional family, a "good enough"
    family, the skills you learn to fill your family role are the same
    skills you need to fit into and cope with the outside world.
    Whatever other problems your family has, you don't need to learn
    skills to protect yourself against your family.  Or not too many
    of them, anyway.
    
    I suppose the boundary between functional and dysfunctional is
    crossed when the child has to learn more skills to defend from the
    family than to cope with the world. 

    I have to wonder how many adequate but insecure parents have been
    pushed over the edge into abuse or drinking because of their fears
    they couldn't provide a "perfect" family. 
    
    --bonnie

    
    	Re .7 -
    
    Granted, a functional family will better provide skills for coping with 
    life than a completely dysfunctional one, and, you can consider a certain
    instance of a family "functional" based on this attribute. However,
    family dysfunctionality has a much deeper impact than the particular
    skill set one ends up with. One's concept of self is completely
    formulated during early family years; would you say something like
    "subconscious self-image" is a skill? 
    
    A healthy environment *definately* creates and fosters a positive self
    concept, image and feeling. Some parents actually believe that cold,
    callous treatment of a child during the childhood years "will better
    prepare him/her for the rough and tough world of adulthood". That's
    just dead wrong. And *completely* dysfunctional. (I spose that parents
    really *deserve* arbitrary respect - just cause they're adults. Yeah,
    and the human body is really this gross and disgusting thing; God
    help the child should he/she develop a feel for part of his/her
    anatomy - the *shame* on you now! Children are to be seen and not
    heard; "You'll get some love only if you've pleased mommy"..."Go
    see your mother; I'm too busy to try and understand you now", etc.)
    
    Of course the child has no where to turn to, for the fear of
    abandonment is so great, cause it means certain death for the child.
    Merely as a survival mechanism, the child incorporates all of this
    Ca-Ca into an illogical rationalization that he/she *actually* must
    be bad, no good, etc - in an effort to be acceptable to the parents.
    
    I'll therefore tighten up my definition;
    
    A functional family is one which produces offspring having a positive
    self-image. This is nearly a "given" for later life, developing
    spontaneously within the household environment, which completely
    supports this outcome. 
    
    Conversely, if your feelings of self happen to be poor, if you
    feel that you're inately a bad person, look back to see what was
    happening in you life...when you were about 5 years of age! 
    
    	Joe Jas
    
    

    re: .8
    
    Well, yes, I guess I was thinking of a positive self-image as a
    skill.  It seems to be such a dynamic, changing thing that
    interacts so dynamically with the world around me that I don't
    tend to think of it as a reflection in the mirror. It's more
    like a moving picture.
    
    But I'd go along with your tightened definition that a functional
    family produces members with a positive self-image.
    
    The consequence of that definition is that you can't tell a
    functional family by looking at it from the outside.  The only way
    you know whether it failed is to look inside the adult children
    to see how they feel about themselves.
    
    I'll reiterate what I said before, however:  it does NOT take
    a perfect family to produce healthy children.
    
    --bonnie

    
    	Re .9                                                                
    
    	Yes, what you say is true! I can think of very well esteemed people
    I know who definately came from "apparently dysfunctional families",
    like certain friends of mine who never had or knew their father...Not
    having a father figure in the household is certainly a far cry from
    a "perfect" idealization. One friend maintains that you can use
    that fact as either a self defeating or self motivating catalyst.
    He happened to choose "self motivating"!
    
    	Joe Jas 

re .7
>   These statements make it sound like the only functional families
>   in the world are the Brady Bunch and the Huxtables...

    Actually, the Huxtables are doing all right...  ;)  Aside
    from double-takes from people who used to think Huxtable was
    a made-up name! 

    To me, the word "functional" in other contexts often means
    "just barely running."  At the risk of making a meaningless
    analogy, is a functional family akin to a functional car in
    that it gets you where need to go, but not *necessarily* in
    great grace, comfort, or style?  Whereas a dysfunctional
    family might be akin to a car that doesn't run, in that it
    may keep the rain off you, and it could even look really
    sharp to the casual observer, but just doesn't do what it's
    supposed to do? 

    I guess then the question becomes, "what is a family supposed
    to do?"  At this point I have to resort to hand-waving, and
    words about "give a person a sense of self-worth" and
    "prepare a person for life outside the family" and "provide a
    haven where a person can trust everyone around."  Good goals,
    although sometimes hard to define and recognize.

    Just out of curiosity, the tone of the discussion about
    disfunctional families implies disfunction in the treatment
    of children in such families.  Can a family without children
    be disfunctional?  Or is the word generally reserved for the
    (almost certainly more harmful) case involving children? 

    -- Linda Huxtable

    re: .11 
    
    I'm glad to hear your Huxtables are doing all right . . . I
    thought of you when I wrote that but I decided the chances of
    confusion were minimal.  :) :)
    
    The following rambling thoughts are just some ideas I had as I
    thought about your questions.  I don't pretend that they make any
    sense. 
    
    I guess from the point of view of biology, the purpose of the
    family is to raise new members of the species.  In that sense, as
    long as the child was able to function as an adult and produce yet
    another generation, the family would have been successful. 

    But in that case, I doubt that most of the families that produce
    emotionally crippled adults would really be unfunctional, since
    unless the physical abuse is so bad it endangers the life of the
    children, the children grow up to be adults.  Indeed, several
    types of these Adult Children are more successful than ordinary
    happy people like me because the skills of denial and premature
    coping with adult situations come in handy when pursuing a
    career. I doubt that the ability to have fun is a skill that
    contributes to the survival of the species.
    
    Or is it?
    
    Lately I've had the feeling from talking to people around me that
    dysfunctional families outnumber the functional ones. Sometimes it
    seems that the unhappy families have more children than the happy
    ones, too.  Does this mean that they're at a survival advantage in
    this society?  Does that mean that even though the adults are
    unhappy and unable to form healthy relationships, biology is
    being served?
    
    Obviously I'm overlooking something here.
    
    --bonnie


    

    
    	I believe family dysfunctionality is always expressed in the
    conext of children. Either children as children or adults as children,
    who will not or never had the "correct" environment to grow out
    of childhood into a well esteemed adult.
    	I dont want to speculate as to why it seems that there are so
    many, possibly the majority, of people who could claim "family
    dysfunctionality" as part of the cause for they way they are. Certainly
    a means of propagation of this syndrome would be geometric, as each
    (unknowing) offspring would model their own family after the one
    from which they came.
    	I was watching a program on Norway on channel 2 last night,
    and was given a piece of information "at random", I'd say...One
    of the interviewees was talking of his upbringing and distinctly
    mentioned the kind of "soul murder" that characteristically takes
    place in a dysfunctional family. Soul murder happens when a child
    is taught that his/her feelings have no value (He/She has no value...)
    relative to absolute dicipline and obiedience toward the parents.
    	According to one author (John Bradshaw of Bradshaw On: The Family)
    this style of child rearing was very prevalent in Germany before
    the start of WWII. He claims that Hitler took advantage of this
    social state, in his creation of the Nazi regime. That no one
    questioned "orders" or "directives" coming from "higher above",
    that they simply carried them out, (as they had always been taught
    relative to parent's absolute last word on things) was a key element 
    to the quick and efficient mobilization of the German power at that time.
    	Religions also teach that there are some things that you do
    not question, you simply must accept as "gospel", absolute, the
    last word, etc. Perhaps family dynfunctionality in this age, comes
    from old age ways which have remained throughout the generations,
    that simply do not fit and are not appropriate for this era. I'm
    only talking about the "Bow your head to the ultimate, absolute
    way, you little worthless nothing!" type teachings of old world
    thinking. Certainly, in this age, the results of this are becoming
    readily apparent and we are coming to know a better way to parent
    children.                                     
    
    	Joe Jas                                   

    My therapist (who specializes in and has written a book on children
    of disfunctional families) claims that 98% of families are to some
    extent disfunctional.  But there is certainly a continum - a family
    that repeatedly has the children hospitalized for burns and bruises
    inflicted by the parents is certainly more disfunctional than one
    where the parents are trying but sometimes too busy to give the
    children all of the nurturing they need.
    
    And I am also curious about what a truely functional family is like.
    What I would give to spend a day in the corner of such a household...
    
    Elizabeth

re: .14
    
    I've read an extract of a book that claims that same thing,
    (author is someone named Ross; is that the same one you're
    referring to?) and I think, if you will pardon the expression,
    that it's total bullshit.  The author of the book was so incapable
    of imagining life in a healthy family that s/he equated functional
    with perfect.  
    
    I'll grant you that 98% of the families in this country have room
    for improvement.  But that does not mean they're dysfunctional [is
    there agreement on the spelling, by the way? I've seen both
    "dysfunctional" and "disfunctional"].  Having your parents
    too busy to give you nurturing one day when you come home from
    school feeling bad does not damage you for life.
    
    --bonnie
    
    
    
    

    RE:  .15
    
    I agree totally.  If we confuse dyisfunctional (how's that spelling?)
    with what somone has decided is "perfect", the entire perspective
    of the question in .0 is lost.  If we assume (yeah, I know how that's
    spelled) that since most (51%?) people grow up to be fairly well adjusted
    people, and if we assume that they grew up that way because they
    had family situations that were functional enough to produce this
    result, then the question becomes "what is a 'functional enough'
    family?".                                                       
    
    Marion

Well...

I think things are complicated in that dysfunctional people can come from
functional families, and functional people can come from dysfunctional families.
Also, dysfunctionality can rear up and bite you when you least expect it.

Jim. 

    About two weekends ago my husband and my teenage son and daughter
    and I ended up in quite a row. Everyone was sensitive and touchy and a
    lot of hurt feelings got poured out. Afterwards he suggested we
    get counceling because he thought our family was sick. (Interestingly
    enough my family had these kinds of incidents and his never did.)
    I told him that if he wanted to go and find a family councelor
    for us to go to I would be quite willing to go. However, I told
    him that I thought that our willingness to express feelings and
    talk about what is bothering us, even if we get upset in the
    process is a sign of a healthy family not a sick one. In general
    very little gets "hidden under the carpet" for any length of time.
    We almost always tackle rough and painful emotions...not always
    with success the first few times...but we do. I suspose by a "Leave
    it to Beaver" type standard we would be classed as disfunctional...
    but when I look at the kind of people my kids are growing into I
    wonder about the standards instead. I would be curious to know
    if others responding to this note feel that having these sometimes
    painful and loud and angry exchanges of feelings..which we do try
    to work to resolution over time...is a sign of health or illness.
    
    Bonnie
    
    Bonnie

    Gee, Bonnie, thanks for giving me such a good leadin for the
    article I dug out of my files! 
    
    According to Claudia Black, the author of "It Won't Happen To
    Me",(1) the most outstanding traits of a disfunctional family are: 
    
    1.  Unpredictability -- the children never know what's going to
        happen.  Will Daddy still be there when I get home from school?
        Will Mommy lose her job now that she's drinking again and we'll
        move and I'll have to start in a new school again next fall? 
    
    2.  Inconsistency -- the parents are attentive and concerned
        one day, distant another, actively hostile at yet another
        time.
   
    3.  Silence and denial -- where healthy families have explicit 
        rules governing behavior (If you're going to be home later 
        than 10, call home; whoever uses the last of the roll puts 
        out the new toilet tissue), disfunctional families have one 
        unspoken rule:  Thou shalt not talk about our problem.
    
    So in general, if you're talking and arguing about the family's
    problems, you're better off than co-dependent families, who
    are putting a lot of energy into denying they have a problem.
    
    However, Black mentions also that a lot of arguing about secondary
    problems, such as what to do about a troublesome child, can be a
    way of denying underlying problems, such as alcohol or drug abuse
    or incest or whatever, by diverting attention elsewhere. 

    And she does mention that a healthy family can have other
    problems, problems that can require counselling.  
    
    --bonnie
    
    (1) This is from an article that I clipped from one of the
    grocery-store women's magazines last spring.  

	From "Bradshaw on: The Family", by John Bradshaw, Chapter 3
	Reprinted without permission. "Pronouns "he", "his", "him"
	have been used for grammatical consistancy...No sexual bias or
	insensitivity is meant" Italics in caps.

	pgs 41-42;

	"Consider this the beginning of your quest for new and fruitful
self awareness. Let your major focus be on your family of origin. Your
original family was the unit from which you came. If it was a functional 
unit, that family was the source of your individuality and strength and 
emotional buttress. Your family of origin, if functional, gave you a 
permanent conviction of belonging. Your original family is where you lived 
out the most passonate and powerful of all your human experiences.
	As you examine what a functional family is, you can also focus on
the family you are now in or the one you are creating.
	There are healthy and functioning families. To say something is 
functional is to say that everything works. My car, for example, may have rust 
spots on the trunk, but if it drives well, then it is fully functional. It 
works.
	A functional, healthy family is one in which all it's members are
fully functional and all the relationships between the members are fully
functional. As human beings, all family members have available to them the use
of all their human powers. They use these powers to cooperate, individuate
and to get their collective and individual needs met. A functional family is
the healthy soil out of which individuals can become mature human beings.
This involves the following:

	a. The family is a survival and growth unit.
	b. The family is the soil which provides the emotional needs
	   of the various members. These needs include a balance between
	   autonomy and dependancy and social and sexual training.
	c. A healthy family provides the growth and development of each
	   member including the parents.
	d. The family is the place where the attainment of self-esteem
	   takes place.
	e. The family is a major unit in socialization and is crucial for
	   a society if it is to endure."

	pg. 48-49;

	"When two people in a healthy relationship decide to be parents, they 
can model self-dicipline and self-love for their children. They accept having 
children as the most responsible decision of their lives. They commit to being 
there for their children.
	When such a relationship forms the foundation of a family, each child
in the system has the safeguard of NEEDED AGE SPECIFIC DEPENDANCY, as well as
the security to grow through experimenting with his unique individuality. In
fact, the more stable and secure the parental relationship is, the more the 
children can be different. As long as Mom and Dad satisfy their own needs
through their own powers and with each other, they will not USE the children
to solve these needs.
	Functional parents will also model maturity and autonomy for their
children. Their strong identity leaves very little of their consciousness
unresolved, repressed and unconscious. The children, therefore, do not take on 
their parents' unresolved unconscious conflicts. The parents are in a process
of completeness. They model this process and do not need their children to
complete themselves.
	The children are then free to grow, using their powers of knowing,
loving, feeling, deciding and imaging to get their own individual 
self-actualization accomplished. The children are not constantly judged
and measured by their parents' frustrated and anxiety-ridden projections.
They are not the victims of their parents' "acting out" their own unresolved
conflicts with their own parents.
	Each person in this kind of system has access to his natural 
endowment. Family therepist Virginia Satir calls this endowment the five 
freedoms. These freedoms are:

	1. The freedom to see and hear (percieve) what is here and now,
	   rather than what was, will be or should be.

	2. The freedom to think what one thinks, rather than what one should 
	   think.

	3. The freedom to feel what one feels, rather than what one should 
	   feel.

	4. The freedon to want (desire) and to choose what one wants, rather
	   than what one should want.

	5. The freedom to imagine one's own self-actualization, rather than
	   playing a rigid role or always playing it safe.

	These freedoms amount to full self-acceptance and integration. 
Enormous personal power results from such freedoms. All the person's energy
is free to flow outward in order to cope with the world in getting one's needs
met. This allows one full freedom. This amounts to full FUNCTIONALITY. 

	The five freedoms are opposed to any kind of perfectionistic system
that measures through critical judgement, since judgement implies the 
measuring of a person's worth. Fully functional families have conflicts and
differences of opinion, but avoid judgement as a condition of another's worth.
"I am uncomfortable" is an expression of feeling - "You are stupid..." is an
evaluative judgement.

	A client of mine felt terrible because she had come home from work 
feeling frustrated, angry and hurt. Instead of saying to her children - "I
need time alone. I'm angry, frustrated and hurt," - she looked at the 
children's unkept rooms and began screeming at them and telling them that
"they never think of anyone except themselves". She made them responsible for
her frustration, anger and hurt. This is abusive judgement. It attacks the 
children's self-esteem.

	The issue of judgment underscores what is perhaps the major process
in functional families, viz, the ability of each member to communicate 
effectively. In fact, some theorists have looked upon good communication
in the family as a ground of mental health and bad communications as the mark
of dysfunctionality."

    I've only seen glimples of what might call a functional family.
    
    It's amazing to watch in action.  Children and adults treat each
    other as human beings.  This can be done during conversation, a
    hug, a shared tear or just allowing another the space to be.
    
    I don't think that people in functional families think they are
    different from other families, but they are.  Being in their midst
    is like being in another place in time.
    
    536.20 -- Thanks very much for you input!
    
    Gina