Social Isolation and Parenting | Questions-Answers

Running head: SOCIAL ISOLATION AND PARENTING
SOCIAL ISOLATION AND PARENTING
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author note

1SOCIAL ISOLATION AND PARENTING
Answer to question 1
According to the theory of family systems, each member in a family has a specific
and significant role to play following certain rules. On the basis of their roles individuals
constituting a family are required to interact accordingly with others and also respond in a
specific way (Johnson and Ray 2016). In this case study Miranda feels isolated as she has lost
her mother and at this time she required her husband to be by her side but he has to stay away
for work purposes which makes her feel isolated. Developmental stress refers to the way
person responses to stress which is said to dependent on the physical as well as emotional
needs along with expectations of the person (Lockie and Wong 2017). In this context
Miranda was emotionally weak as she had lost her mother and had to take care of her kids all
alone. The conflict going on within someone is harmful as it affects health conditions and the
person is unable to be socially resilient. In this case Miranda was unable to handle the
internal conflict that had engrossed her mind that is how could she take care of her kids all
alone and at time when her husband used to be away for work purpose she felt alone and
lonely. The five stages of change are precontemplation, contemplation, preparation stage,
action and maintenance (Devaney, McGregor and Cassidy 2017). Miranda took a step to
change her state of mind thus went to the family service agency for seeking support thus it
can be said that she was not precontemplate rather she was contemplate enough to find out
ways and talk to people to overcome the situation. The preparation stage is to consider useful
information for planning behavioral changes. Actions stage will require Miranda to be
committed to bring in behavioral change in her and the last stage is maintenance which
requires her to hold onto her changed behavior. As per the Hardiker model, Miranda’s son
can be considered under level 2 as he has some additional needs being a special child as he
might be suffering from ADHD. The boy faces problem in following simple directions as
well as focus on simple tasks. In these cases children need extra support from their parents

2SOCIAL ISOLATION AND PARENTING
and teachers as well. Level 2 in the Hardiker model includes those who are considered
vulnerable and need special attention and care. The five stages which lead to complete
change in an individual are precontemplation, contemplation, preparation for action, action
and maintenance. At the initial stage that is the precontemplation stage, an individual might
be or might not be aware of the problem but has no such thought of changing his behavior.
The important factors that need to be considered in this case are readiness to change, barriers
to change and expecting relapse (Rogers 2016). Miranda wanted to change her state of mind
thus she went to the family service agency so that they could help her out to cope up with the
mental condition she was in. In the precontemplation stage the characteristics are denial and
ignoring the problem and the strategies are rethinking about ones behavior, introspection and
self analysis and assessing the risks of the current behavior.
Answer to question 2
Macro level social workers work at the community level and the systems level and
these workers need to work with a larger group of people, community, city and some major
institutions. It does not involve working with individual clients but the workers can work
with some members of individual community as a part of their research or interventions.
These researches or interventions are developed to address some major problems or the
problems that can be tagged as large scale in nature. The problems considered under the
purview of macro social work affect the community as a whole. Micro level social workers
counsel mainly the low income individuals and these individuals are advised about special
programs and the micro social workers help in problem solving. In the case of Miranda, it is
micro level social work that will help her (Knight and Gitterman 2018). Micro level
sociology considers small scale interactions in between individuals that include conversations
and group dynamics. Micro sociology is considered as one of the key levels of analysis that
concerns the nature of everyday human social interactions as well as other agencies on a