Fourthly, the child abuse might result in a strain on family cohesion. Based on the circumplex model of the family system theory, family cohesion is determined by various factors such as space, time, friends, emotional bonding, decision-making, recreation and interests (Olson, 1999). The family affected by child abuse might experience a disengaged relationship. According to Olsen (1999), a disengaged relationship involves extreme lack in emotional bonding. Family members engage in their own activities, interest predominates and they have separate time and space. In the mentioned case, the mother and her children engaged in their own activities most of the day as she worked full day and left her children at home under the care of the abusive nanny and her children. This may lead to an extreme lack of emotional bonding. Moreover, the mother failed to realise that the children were being abused even though it was ongoing for years which led to the older child detesting his mother as she did not protect them. From this case, it can also be seen that the children were unable to turn to their mother for emotional support due to the lack of bonding as the children did not inform their mother first hand when the abuse …show more content…
According the Zaccheus (2013), the tutors launched a campaign of physical abuse that included actions such twisting the boys' ears till they bled and making them do 1,000 squats when they got questions wrong. By doing so, the children’s self-esteem and confidence levels would have been affected as they were constantly discouraged. According to Ms Lynn Soh who is the head and senior psychologist in our local KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, poor self-esteem and confidence can increase the risk of having poor academic performance (Ng, n.d.). The children might also develop a fear in studying due to the extreme physical abuse when they get questions
Mahendra and Chitra have been dating for four year. They are both Indian decent living together in Jamaica Hills, New York in a small apartment. Mahendra and Chitra have been engaged for the past two years of their relationship and they are preparing for a traditional Indian style wedding with over three hundred people invited. They met at Mahendra’s brother’s wedding but their parents, who are helping to put on this extravagant wedding, have been friends for about seventeen years. Mahendra is twenty-nine years’ old, and has recently passed the bar; however, he is currently unemployed. Mahendra would like to wait until he has found a job before getting married. Mahendra does not like doing chores and relies on Chitra to do most
The Ainsworth article refers that if several caregivers are involved, and the attachment to the mother is weak or strained, the child may show favoritism towa...
Attachment, the product of nature and nurture, is critical to human development. Children learn about important aspects of their physical, emotional and social world through experience. The value of this experience is directly proportional to the quality of the attachment children are forming with their caregivers. Through the positive experience of emotional connectedness, children learn to build and maintain loving, trusting and secure relationships with others. If the caregivers are available to them, sensitive to their signals, consistently responsive to their needs, infants develop secure style of attachment. If the caregivers are indifferent or neglectful, inaccessible, unresponsive and unreliable, infants are prone to developing anxious, avoidant or disorganized attachment style (Pearce, 2009). Difficulties in forming childhood relationships significantly increase likelihood of interpersonal conflicts in adulthood. Anxiety disorder, PTSD, dissociative identify disorder, borderline, narcissistic personality disorder are dysfunctions that are linked to attachment insecurities. Interpersonal adult conflicts, such as divorce, family abuse, child neglect, sexual abuse, substance abuse are responses to emotional dysregulation caused by deep wounds in
Children in learning settings may come across various types of experiences like bullying, cyber-bullying, discrimination, etc. These types of experiences where perpetrator could also be a child or a group of children can disturb the process of learning. It also has long term effects on the child being bullied and the child/ group of children who are bullying.
Mary Main was Ainssowrth student. She therefore introduced another fourth category of attachment styles with her attachment studies with adults. During her longitudinal research project alongside her colleague Goldwyn on middle class children’s attachment styles, they found that about 79% of the time attachment styles remained constant from 18 months to 6 years of age (in Brandell & Ringel, 2007,). However in their observations about 5%) that did not fit into Ainsworth’s classification of attachment styles, which they called ‘disorganized/disoriented attachment’ (Main & Solomon, 1986, 1990). These children were fearful and engaged in repetitive or aggressive behaviors. Their behaviors at reunion were unpredictable. They displayed contradictory behavior patterns such as approaching and then suddenly avoiding or exhibiting misdirected behavior patterns such as crying when the stranger leaves or stereotypical behaviors such as rocking, hair pulling or freezing. The mothers of these children were either depressed or had unresolved grief due to early loss of own parents (Main & Solomon, 1986). In this type of attachment, there is no or very little organized strategy to cope with stress and to form an attachment relationship with the caregiver, because here, the attachment figure is the direct cause of distress or fear. An abusive, abandoned and frightening caregiver is the source of fear and the protector at the same time. The infant shows signs of distress and displays avoidant and inconsistent reactions in the presence of the caregiver (Bakermans-Kranenburg & van IJzendoorn, 2007; Stams et al, 2002).
Since the 20th century, researchers have sought out solutions to help assist families and the individual components that make up family systems overcome the challenges and schisms that can inhibit individuation and stability. Two theoretical perspectives, the family-systems theory and the family-development theory, were conceived to gain as Balswick & Balswick (2014) noted, gain “a wide-angle view of family life” (p. 22). Though these two theories have merit, one I found to be more advantageous in gaining a better understanding of the family as an actively metastasizing organism, which needs to be approached more adaptively.
Burgess, R. L., & Conger, R. D. "Family interaction in abusive, neglectful, and normal families." Child Development 49 (1998) : 1163-1173.
The family structure is made up of individuals living together in intimate groups with the purpose of caring and supporting each other. Rules and boundaries, spoken and unspoken, are developed by the family members. Family rules and boundaries change and shift over time in order to evolve and grow as a family unit. Some changes are subtle, but some events force major change within the family system. This paper applies the concepts of systems theory to the family system in the movie Sweet Home Alabama. Reese Witherspoon (Melanie Smooter) and Josh Lucas (Jake Perry) star in this heart-warming film telling a story of a young woman who flees from Alabama to reinvent herself in New York City as a high fashion designer. She leaves behind her redneck husband and white-trash upbringing. Melanie finds herself engaged to the cities most eligible bachelor and has to return to Alabama to request a divorce from her first love and confront her past ("Alabama," 2002).
According to Richard Charles (2001) “the effectiveness of family systems theory rests not much on empirical research but on clinical reports of positive treatment outcomes, the personal benefits experienced by the families that underwent this kind of treatment, and the elegance of Bowen’s theory” (p. 279). Bowen’s family systems theory views the family as an emotional unit and is a theory of human behavior. Systems thinking are used to describe the complex interactions in the unit. However, the client’s ability to differentiate himself/herself from the family of origin is the basis for Bowen’s family systems theory. In addition, the primary focus for growth within the emotional system is differentiation of self. Differentiation of self will be explored as well as how it relates to a church congregation.
Everyday, a child witnesses an act of violence. Not on television but in their own home. "Family and home are not havens in which a child finds nurturing and safety, but rather a battleground where fear, anxiety, confusion, anger, and disruption are significant threads in the tapestry of home life," Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing. Children of family violence are often abusers or victims of abuse themselves. Family violence is a cycle that is very hard to stop. A home is supposed to be a safe place where children learn how to love and relate to others. If they are constantly seeing violence in their parent's relationship, then they assume that a normal relationship is also filled with violence. Often, children do not understand why the violence occurs and may be afraid to share their emotions because of fear. They may associate love and pain together, because this is witnessed in their home. This could lead to psychological problems and confusion about relationships. Children who witness family violence tend to have behavioral, interpersonal, and emotional problems.
"A family is a small social group of people related by ancestry or affection, who share common values and goals, who may live together in the same dwelling, and who may participate in the bearing and raising of children. They have a physical or emotional connection with each other that is ongoing" (Vissing, 2011) and is the foundation of all societies. They can be formed by a grouping of father-mother-children or even more complicated combination of relatives. In the primary stage of family life in the United States, everyone from every generation lived together in one house. Subsequently, the idea of traditional family evolved and a married couple with children is at present, often called the traditional family. There are many types of families; however, this paper will focus on the traditional family. It will describe how the functionalist perspective, conflict perspective, and the interactionism theory apply to the sociological institution known as a family. It will explain some of the similarities and differences between the sociological theories in regards to families and how they affect the family members.
This paper will examine sociological theories and how they relate to the social institution of the family. We typically view society as a group of people, but in sociology, society is not a group of people but a social organization. People are molded by society to fit within the accepted societal bounds. Society must be understood using “the meanings that people put on their values and beliefs” (Bartle, 2010). Within sociology there are three major perspectives. These are the Functionalist, Conflict and Interactionist Perspectives. Each perspective views society in different manners, with each being correct and relevant since social institutions are too complex to be defined by any one theory. Each perspective will be used to explain the perspectives’ relevance to the family.
Sousa, C. (2011, January 26). Longitudinal Study on the Effects of Child Abuse and Children’s Exposure to Domestic Violence, Parent-Child Attachments, and Antisocial Behavior in Adolescence. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2921555/
Styron, Thomas. "Childhood Attachment and Abuse: Long-term Effects on Adult Attachment, Depression, and Conflict Resolution." Child Abuse and Neglect 21 1997): 1015-23
I began this program during the spring semester of 2014 at which time I enrolled in the working with family’s course. Unaware how much I would relate to the family systems theory in regards to my personal life. Moving forward I have been able to connect many situations during my practicum experience to this theory as well.