Chapter 1:
Introduction to the Family
Chapter Preview
• Our Framework for Understanding Family Communication
• Defining Family
• Understanding Family as a System
Chapter Outline
I. Framework for Understanding Family Communication
a. View family as a system of interconnected relationships
b. See communication as the primary way families develop, create, maintain, and alter
identity.
e. Eight core beliefs about families:
i. There are many ways to be a family.
ii. Each family must work, and at times struggle, to create its own identity.
iii. Communication serves to construct as well as reflect family relationships.
iv. Communication is the process by which family members create and share
meanings.
v. Families interact and socialize members to their underlying values and beliefs
about significant life issues.
f. Families develop a relational culture: shared set of meanings, expectations, and
rules for interaction that contributes to creating a unique communication system.
II. Defining Family
a. What does the word family mean to you?
i. Biological ties: blood, birth?
b. Frames for crafting family definitions
i. Role lens: relationships are familial to the extent that people feel/act like a
family
ii. Socio-legal lens: relies on the enactment of laws and regulations to define
family
iii. Bio-genetic lens: depends on extent to which relationship is directly or
potentially reproductive and whether or not the partners share genetic material
III. Understanding Family as a System:
a. System: The family as a system of interconnected relationships, and communication
d. Self-regulating patterns: the family develops behavioral patterns, or different
meanings or rules, that serve to regulate the system and make life predictable
i. Communication rules: behaviors expected or prohibited in a relationship
ii. (Re)Calibration: function of maintaining stability in a system
1. Maintenance feedback: encourages maintaining the status quo
2. Change-promoting feedback: recalibration at a different level, enabling
family to grow, create, innovate, and change
e. Interactive complexity and punctuation: seeing cause and effect as interchangeable
i. Interactive complexity: each act in a system is a response to previous behavior
but also triggers new behavior, so cannot assign cause-effect
ii. Punctuation: refers to the interruption of the sequence of behavior at intervals
to give it meaning (“where things start”)
IV. Types of family systems:
a. Family of origin: the family, or families, in which one grows up
b. Two-parent family: Two married or cohabiting parents – heterosexual or LGBTQ –
and the children who result from their union (via birth, adoption, remarriage,
fostering)
h. Adoptive families: bringing a child from outside the family system (or from extended
family) into the family system
i. Foster families: serve children who cannot remain living with their biological
relatives at a given time for safety reasons
j. Extended or multigenerational family: group of relatives living within a nearby
geographic area or in the same household; linking two or more family systems
k. Intentional family: pair or group of people, unrelated, who share commitment and
consider themselves family (also called fictive, voluntary, or chosen family)
l. Non-human family membership: people who regard pets as family; share
psychological bond
V. The State of the Contemporary Family
a. Structural and demographic influences on family systems
vi. Stepfamilies continue to increase through remarriage and cohabitation
vii. Families continue to be constructed through adoption
viii. Foster care provides temporary alternative families for many children
ix. Some families are constructed or expanded through scientific technologies
x. More adult children are living at home
xi. LGBTQ families continue to increase
xii. Longer lifespans influence family systems
b. Economic influences on family systems
i. Dual-career family systems are now the norm
ii. Managing work-life issues are a major consideration for working parents
iii. Commuter or long-distance marriages are also increasing and women are
increasingly becoming the leavers who may travel for work
iv. Negative impacts from poverty are increasing
v. Homelessness is increasing for families with children
c. Cultural influences on family systems
iii. Family structures are impacted by racial and ethnic differences
iv. Increases in immigration create needs for support for English-speaking
services
VI. The New Normal Family
a. More recent literature has moved from focus on troubled families to “normal”
families, but there is little agreement on what is normal
c. Stress the central role of communication in functional family systems, keeping in
mind two core beliefs:
i. There is no one right way to be a family
ii. There is no one right way to communicate within a family
VII. Discussion Questions
c. Viewing your family from a systems perspective, what concepts would you focus on
or not focus on from this perspective? How do you see the components of the system
perspective reflected in your family experience? Which are most relevant, and why?
d. Select two demographic trends about families discussed in this chapter that you think
are the most important to reflect the state of your family today? Which of these
demographic trends in this chapter do you expect will influence your future family
life and why?
e. How do you describe a well-functioning family? What are three things members of
this family should definitely do/say, or not do/say?
VIII. Case Study Questions
c. If we take a systems theory approach to understanding Lacy and Staci’s
situations, what might lead to problems or misunderstandings?
Activities
Think Pair Share: Working together supports the active engagement of students in the learning
experience. Using these prompts, or discussion questions above, can help punctuate the lecture
presentation of concepts. Students should first reflect individually, then pair up to discuss their
ideas with a peer, then share outwardly with the class.
Family: Who’s in and Who’s Out? Break students into small groups to discuss people that they
consider members of their family.
• Are they all blood- or legally-related to them?
• Do they exclude any members of their extended family?
Interactive Complexity Exercise: Using an example of the demand-withdraw cycle or the
parents-daughter diagram, divide students into small groups and ask them to create their own
diagrams using a unique example (siblings, coach-athlete, teacher-student, boyfriend-girlfriend).
Each behavior is marked with a letter A, B, C, or D. When the groups are done creating their
Family Definition
Activity Option 1: Before reading Chapter 1, have students write down a definition of family.
Discuss the challenges inherent in creating a definition of family. Then, after reading Chapter
1, ask them to revise their definition, if their perspectives on “family” have changed. Ask them to
discuss any revisions they made. How, if at all, did the information in Chapter 1 motivate them
to revise parts of their definition?
Activity Option 2: Place students in small groups to discuss their reaction to the text’s definition
Cultural Conception of Families: Ask students to examine their own cultural history. Have
them write a short narrative addressing “who is my family?” Within that narrative, have them
identify, if possible, the culturally-based conception of “family” with which they were raised.
Ask them to pursue questions such as, “Are deceased relatives considered ‘family’?” or “Are
second and third cousins considered family?” “Under what conditions are friends members of the
family?” “How are unrelated godparents viewed from a family perspective?”
Discourse Dependent Families: Individually, have students reflect upon a family they know
that they would consider a discourse-dependent family. Ask them answer the following questions
by themselves and then share some of their thoughts with the class as a large-group discussion.
• What, in your opinion, makes this family “discourse–dependent”?
• How well does this family manage the communication necessary to represent their
relationships to the outside world?
Family Metaphor: Encourage students to reflect on their definitions of family and family
communication through metaphor and art. Specifically, give the students paper and crayons and
instruct them to draw the answer to the question, “What is family?” Within that
conceptualization, tell them to depict communication within the family and where it “fits” into
their definition of family. Does it create family behaviors/attitudes/values? Does it create family
Primary Parent Systems – Real and Fictional: As a class, ask students to brainstorm single
parents portrayed in movies and on TV. Write ideas on the board. Then, discuss as a class which
characters seem most accurately portrayed and why. What does this tell them about social biases
about primary parenthood? What conclusions can they draw about primary parent families from
the comparison between real and fictional single parenthood?
Changes in the American Family: Send students in search of current research and/or news
stories describing the rapidly evolving nature of American family life. Students should find
articles on the contemporary American family or the family of the future. For example:
Be prepared to discuss in class the following:
• What did I learn from this article about changes occurring in the structure or functions of
the American family?
State of the American Family: Before class, assign each student (or groups of students) to
research issues in a specific contemporary family type (e.g., single parent, adoptive, foster,
multi-ethnic families). They should research and print out one (pop culture, yet credible) article
about that family type. Have them reflect upon questions such as:
• What are 2-3 ways this type of family has changed in recent history?
• How does this family type reflect the changing landscape of families?
Have each student or groups of students present their “findings” about their family type. Be
ready with statistics, figures, and facts about each family type in order to elaborate on the
information they present.
Media Depictions of American Family: Bring to class several forms of print media targeting
family audiences (e.g., magazines devoted to mothering, fathering, children) and pass out to
groups of students. Assign them to do a content analysis on the magazines.
• What are themes or common trends that emerge from the “data?” What do you notice
about the way American families are (and aren’t) depicted?
• What and who ISN’T included in the portrayals of family?