references

Institution Affiliated

Describing a Family

One of the most important components of the society is the family. In most contexts, it has been described as the most important unit of the society. This notion is widely held in many cultures including the most common religions such as Christianity and Islam. However, families especially in the contemporary society are experiencing challenges. It is the role of a social worker to identify the underlying issues that are facilitating these problems and address them. The concept of the family in terms of structure, communications styles and cultural conformity among others is discussed further in this paper.

The Otto family is a nuclear family. It comprises of a father, a mother and their three children. Mr. Otto is forty years old while Mrs. Otto is thirty years old. They have two boys and one girl. Michael and Nickson are twins and they are ten years old. Maria is the first born and she is sixteen years old.

The strengths of the Otto family is that the parents work together to provide for the family. The family is stable in that the parents are able to meet the basic needs of the children such as education, shelter, food and clothing. Furthermore, there is a strong connection between the mother and the children because they spend most of the time together. Since Mrs. Otto is a housewife, the family is in a position to save money that could be used to hire house helps and nannies. However, Mr. Otto is overburdened. He has to work every day including weekends in order to sustain the family. As a result, he has little time to bond with his children.

The Otto family is at the parenting stage whereby the parents have the task of raising their children. Raising the children places a huge burden on the parents as they try to raise school fees and also invests a lot of time on the children (Armour, 1995).

The consensual form of communication is common in the Otto family. The parents and the children speak openly about various issues. The children are given a chance to express their ideas and opinions. However, the parents make the final decisions about various issues. They also make a point of explaining their choices to the children in a bid to make them understand. The consensual form of communication ensures that children’s opinions are not suppressed. According to Koerner and Fitzpatrick (2012), consensual communication also maintains a family hierarchy whereby the parents occupy a higher position than the children because they make all the major decisions.

In the Otto family, Mr. Otto is the breadwinner while Mrs. Otto is a housewife. He supports all the financial needs of his family such as paying the house rent, school fees, providing food and even the medical care for the family. Mrs. Otto on the other hand is in charge of the children and household chores. She prepares meals, takes the children to school, performs the household chores and buys essential food items such as groceries. The assignment of roles in the Otto family is effective because the children are taken care of and at the same time the family can afford a decent lifestyle.

The members of a particular cultural group are confined to the rules of the culture. As a result, the family is designed and operates within these cultural norms. The social worker has to be aware of these norms in order to address the challenges the challenges that a family experiences.

References

Koerner and Fitzpatrick (2012)