Audio
Core Beliefs on Families
In this book you will be guided through multiple “ways of being” a family from your author’s perspectives. Right at the beginning of this book our author’s state their 8 core beliefs about families and how they want us to think about “being a family” and what that actually means.
To start, let’s read through their eight core beliefs about families:
1. There is not one right way to be a family. Family life is as diverse as the persons who make up families. The “perfect” family does not exist.
2. Through communication, we build and reflect family relationships. In what we say and do, individuals and family systems define their identities and negotiate relationships with those inside and outside the family.
3. Each family works, and at times struggles, to create its own identity as family members experience and make sense of positive and stressful times. Families may be positive and affirming or dysfunctional and punishing. Families are always in flux, and the possibility for growth and change always exists.
4. Communication is the process by which family members create and share meanings in unique relational cultures. We literally talk families into (and out of) being.
5. Families interact and socialize members to their underlying values and beliefs about important life issues and actions.
6. Families reflect cultural communication patterns based on race and ethnicity, gender, power, and other significant in-group membership influences that shape family beliefs, values, perceptions, and expectations.
7. Families involve multigenerational communication patterns. Members are influenced by the patterns of previous generations even as they create their own patterns, which in turn, will influence future generations, unless consciously altered.
8. In well-functioning families, members work at understanding and negotiating their communication patterns and recognize that developing and maintaining relationships takes effort. Family systems have the capacity to adapt, create connections, and manage conflict. In the best of circumstances, families seek to communicate effectively and productively.
