My Family Origin
Family of origin refers to the significant siblings and caretakers that an individual grows up with, which is also the first social group that a person becomes a part of, often the biological or adoptive family that someone grows up in. Families have a significant influence, directly and indirectly, on the values that their children. The kind of family that one grows up in determines their values and behavior concerning social choices. Children’s moral self is significantly impacted by watching how their parents decide what is right and wrong, how they interact with others and the choices they make.
Family characterization
I was raised in a traditional family with a mother, father, three brothers, and one sister (Wohl, 2016). Some of the other characteristics that make up my family of origin include the fact we all stayed together until we got to college, that’s when I first left home and lived away from my parents. Before that, we did everything together, including having meals, attending church sessions together every Sunday, and taking part in voluntary activities to help the community. It was a consistent and stable family with both my parents employed, making sure that we did not lack anything. We also had a set of clear rules about the role that every member of the family played in terms of tasks. Everyone played their specific roles in consideration of the well-being of the other members of the family.
Values/learnings from my family of origin
Value and respect for the elderly
The elders, including our grandparents, great uncles, and aunts, are a significant and essential part of my family of origin, which raised me to respect them and value their words of advice (Swift & Brighouse, 2016). My interactions with the elderly members of the family helped me understand the history of the family, and though the entire family, I learned the importance of respecting the elderly and listening to their opinions concerning how to go about various challenges that I may encounter in life. I learned about how to be a valuable member of society by respecting and valuing my elders. I learned the value of respect as my family encouraged respectful communication even in situations where there are disagreements.
Hard work
Working hard is one of the major values that I learned from my family of origin. I was raised to believe that nothing comes without effort, and for this reason, I understood the importance of putting extra effort into what I do in order to achieve success in everything I do. This includes success in academic, professional, and personal matters that are of great importance. I have learned to work hard regardless of the position I hold in employment and school in order to achieve the goals I have set.
Compassion
Compassion is a value that I learned from my family of origin as it taught me how to be a good human being and friend. This involves knowing how to treat other people who are in needy situations or going through difficult times in their lives. It is about not looking at people that are homeless with disdain as my parents taught me to be empathetic to those people that are not as fortunate in life as we are. I learned to exercise compassion by taking part in voluntary activities to help those that are experiencing unfortunate events in their lives.
Responsibility
My family of origin instilled the value of responsibility in me, in which l I learned to be accountable for everything I do. This includes admitting to any mistakes that I have made and working on improving them to become a better version of myself. It also included learning the importance of making a commitment to people and following through to see that I live up to the promise I made through the commitment and knowing that someone is counting on me and making sure not to let them down.
Framework
The framework that I chose is the family systems framework, which provides that it is difficult to understand individuals when they are in isolation from each other (Palombi, 2016). Understanding is better developed when individuals exist together as one family and one unit that is emotional. This is because families are interdependent and interconnected, and for this reason, they have to be together and not isolated. Every member of the family has rules that they need to respect and roles that they have to play for the peaceful coexistence of the members. This framework got introduced by Dr. Murray Bowen, who states that there is a specific way that the family members can respond to each other in accordance with their roles, which get established by agreements made by all of them in the relationships they share. The family systems have boundaries within which patterns of behavior develop, with one member’s behavior influenced by the behavior of another member towards them. Maintaining the same behavioral pattern can either lead to dysfunction or create a balance in the system of the family. Role changing can also drive the family apart of maintaining relationship stability among the family members.
Conclusion
Family is a critical part of every individual’s life as they are able to develop values through it. The values that one portrays often reflect the kind of upbringing they had. Understanding one’s character can help in explaining the kind of background they were brought up in and the family values that they learned. It is important that families instill values that make their children grow up into productive members of society.
References
Palombi, M. (2016). Separations: A personal account of Bowen family systems theory. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 37(3), 327-339.
Swift, A., & Brighouse, H. (2016). Family Values.
Wohl, A. S. (Ed.). (2016). The Victorian Family: Structures and Stresses. Routledge.