Family Theories

 Hello everyone! I hope you had a great week! Like I said, I'm going to be making these blogs weekly. This week's topic is going to be a little different than last week's topic. This week we are going to be taking a look at the family as a system. Before I get into the details, I want to first talk about theories. The definition of a theory is a supposition or system of ideas intended to explain something. It is an attempt to get to the why and how. The important thing to remember about a theory is that something is either true, or it's not. We are going to look at several family dynamics and theories today about how they work as a system. 

Theories allow us to look for certain actions or behaviors in an intimate relationship so that we can understand them better. The first one that I want to talk about is called the family systems theory. This is the idea that a system is more than the sum of its parts, meaning that we influence each other more than we know. For example, I served a full time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints where I left my family for two years to go teach people about how they can grow their faith in Jesus Christ. I knew leaving my family for that long was going to affect me, but I had no idea that it was going to affect me as much as it did. Before my mission, I felt relatively close to my family. I loved them and cared about them but it wasn't until they were gone that I realized how much they contributed to my lifestyle and even my personality in some ways. Many different things influence the way your family can affect you even when you don't realize it. One of the theories that interestingly ties in with that is the theory of metarules.

A metarule is another way of saying an "unstated rule". Meaning rules that aren't necessarily spoken but they are still followed. I'll take another example from my family. In my family, we had an rule that whoever was the oldest child was the one who got to ride in the front seat of the car. No one ever spoke about this rule but everyone knew about it and followed it. Another example would be how in certain families, there is a system of assigned dishes. Take for example a dad who has a favorite mug that he uses every time he comes home from work and relaxes. The cup might not necessarily his but the whole family knows not to use it because they know that when dad comes home, he's going to need his cup.

Another theory that I would like to discuss today is conflict theory. Us as human beings naturally hate conflict. We try to avoid it when we can. When we can't, it can make us very uncomfortable. The thing about conflict though is that it's completely natural. There is no such thing as a perfect marriage on this earth. There will always be conflict. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing. What if I told you that there was such a thing as positive conflict? In fact, lets take a look at what positive effects come from conflict in a family. A lot of the time when there's conflict, issues are brought up in conversation. A lot of these issues may not have been spoken of outside of conflict. Conflict can help clarify and resolve issues in the family. It can increase our awareness of who we are and how we are behaving. It might even help you understand how others are perceiving actions that you are making. We don't grow by skipping along in the meadows while everything is just breezy and perfect, we grow by striving; recognizing who we are and who we want to become. Of course not all conflict produces these changes, but when conflict is handled correctly, it can have essential positive effects when you are trying to improve your marriage and/or family.

In conclusion, understanding different theories can help us understand families better and can also help us to improve how well they function. Thank you for taking the time to read this! I'll see you next week with another interesting topic!