WEEK 2: Family Mapping Systems

So mapping systems...not something I would connect with familys on an ordinary day but today was no ordinary day! We discussed in class about how the family is a system that is made up of subsystems, those subsystems are create to fill a need or purpose and each "creation" if you will has a role or "norm" that it does in order to work in harmony with the other subsystems to contribute to the family, the MAIN system! I have it in this awesome diagram but i have yet to figure out how to get that drawing on my blog.

ANYWHO, I love what we discussed in regards to the reading that we did. Salvador Minuchin is BRILLIANT i just LOVE that he created a way to chart the study of family behavior and in such a way that we can relate it to something personal through genograms.

I think that of all of the genograms that I found, this was my favorite, I'm not sure if you can see the key very well with this photo but there are so many subsystems that would prove to be beneficial in the study of family interactions and influences, both internal and external.

I would like to make this same type of chart for my family and my husbands family, every family has issues and i think that some of those issues can be worked through or at least understood if you take into consideration what influences are impacting the family. I tested it out on my own family, Here is a little example those influences that effect my family and our functioning system family unit.

my parents are wonderful parents, in my extremely biased opinion, they are the BEST! I started thinking about the way that they raised my in comparison to how they raised my sister. With my older sister, all of her friends were within a ten mile radius, she had great grades, she also had a group of friends that was all LDS and parents that where friends with my parents.Because of those influences on the family, My older sister was allowed to walk to her friends house and was not given a car, she purchased one later on in her life, she was also allowed to stay out late because she was close to the house, my parents were very aware of the people around her and could contact her easily. She didn't have a cell phone because with her surroundings, it wasn't necessary. now me on the other hand, i had mainly non-LDS friends and they lived about 30 minutes away, i was givin a car because in order to see them and go to work, i needed one, in effect from my distance from home a majority of the time, i was also given a cell phone to contact my parents, because i had a car, that could become a car problem and i worked with a distance. However, because of those external influences, i had a curfew of 11pm until i moved out, their decisions were influenced by the way we connect with our society.

It so important to know that in all issues, there are influences, both within the family unit and outside, the more we identify those influences and time lines those influences, we will be able to better understand the tendencies of our family roles.