The Six Characteristics of Families

According to Garris L. Christian (2006) he describes the six characters of families, which are based on their own unique beliefs, cultural context, and family tradition. Three of the six characteristics that strongly resonate to me are role, rule, and hierarchy. Role family can be described as never good enough, peacemaker, everyone feels responsible within the family, a lot of activities, over worked, helpful at home, and/or outside. Each role has certain behavioral expectations. Those characteristics of the families’ role are very positive behavior, but there can also be negative consequences. The rule families follow the tradition of the oldest person in the family setting the standards and loyalty to the parents, brothers or sisters. The term of hierarchy family structure in male and older family members occupy a higher status. This would include the children obeying their parents strict family rules and carrying out a higher status attitude.

Garris (2006) states in the article regarding to the role family, which illustrates my family system. Family system has a significant impact on family members. I reviewed the members of my family. Each one had a particular role, one became very “helpful”, and the others became very “helpless”. For example, I have a brother who was a “silence helper” and was very industrious. Every time my mom or dad needed him for help, naturally they called him. They forgot that he was not there or not available in that moment. Even when he went to the church, or the school the teachers or the church members always asked him for help. In contrast, another brother loved to rely on my good helper brother even until now. According to the article it states, “There is usually a peacemaker, a clown, a rescuer...

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...lict, misunderstandings and even hostility can occur for children, families, and teachers” (Garris, 2006, p. 5). Families’ rules sometime create a dilemma for the children. Children are not able to distinguish which is right or wrong.

The article and my life experience helped me to understand the six characteristics-boundaries, roles, rules, hierarchy, climate, and equilibrium and how their functions. Each family is unique. It is my belief, as an early childhood educator, we must have this skill and knowledge in order to help children and family. According to Gui (2006) emphasis, “Making an effort to under-stand families will open up opportunities for you to better serve children and their families (Garris, 2006, p. 8). The more we understand a child’s family the better we serve the family because we can get a lot of the children’s information through their parents.