Family Dynamics: Scenario Based Case Study (Psychology)

This case study delves into the complexities of family dynamics, exploring factors that influence family life such as changes in structure, financial pressures, and individual issues. It examines various aspects of family relationships, emphasizing the importance of good communication and work-life balance. The study identifies common challenges families face, including separation, divorce, communication issues, addiction, abusive parents, and criticism, and offers strategies for coping with these difficulties. It also suggests recommendations for improved communication and transparency and government policies to address family conflicts. The case study aims to provide insights into understanding and navigating the challenges faced by families in modern society.

Family Dynamics:Scenario
based case study
(Psychology)

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Factors that affects family life in our society..............................................................................1
Discuss and consider the various aspects of relationships within a typical family.........................3
The possible challenges or difficulties that such a family may face................................................3
Family can cope up with these challenges with the use of different strategies...........................5
Recommendation and government policies................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
The form of friction or disorder arising within a group when the beliefs or actions of one
or more members of the group are either resisted by or unacceptable to one or the other is known
as conflict (Tucker and Finkelhor, 2014). Any conflict that occurs within the family members
such as between husband and wife, parents and children or between siblings is known as family
conflict. The struggle for power in the society is known as social conflict. In the present report
the factors responsible for family conflicts, personal and relevant experience will be discussed in
detail. The recommendations to improve the policies of government challenges faced by the
families will be explained.
Factors that affects family life in our society.
The conflicts can happen in a family when every member have different views or beliefs
that clash. Sometimes the conflicts occurs with the misunderstanding between people which
leads them to jump in a wrong conclusion. The conflicts turn into the issues that cannot be
resolved peacefully and can lead to arguments. Communication in a positive way can help to
reduce or resolve the conflict. Sometimes the strong emotions or the power imbalances that are
present in relationship can make it difficult to resolve the issues. There are many factors that
have direct impact on the family life these are- Changes in family structure- Change in family structure plays vital role in influencing
family life and relationship. When one individual men and women get married it becomes
necessary to restructure family. Each and every member has to follow that process. This
process have direct impact on all members but to greater influence it has impact on small
children in families as they face difficulty in adjusting in new environment and
sometimes small members in families fails to adjust, the result of that is they have to lose
their relationship with such child (Wouters, Masquillier and le Roux Booysen, 2014). In
order to avoid such consequence's family should ensure proper communication fir
findings new ways. Finance- Money come from job so the changes in employment status may have affect
family. Finance us very important for fulfilling basic needs and its is also important for
meeting needs and demand of families. Failure in meeting the demand of individual may
cause conflicts. The pressure from society can even change the dynamic. Small activities
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conducted by family together like having dinner together, family discussion may get
affected by employment status.
 Individual thinking and issues- These factors may have direct effect on relationships. If
one member in family is short temper and aggressive then it also has influence on other
member as well. Due to one person in family have power to convert minor issues into
major one (Eynon and Helsper, 2015). The major issues may include use of abusive
language, which may further lead to addiction of drugs or alcohol etc. the has direct
effect reputation of family in society as well as it has impact on family culture and
beliefs. This all issues may lead to strain in family relationship.
It is well recognised that some stages in a family goes through and causes conflicts. Some
common causes of family conflicts are as follows :
 Learning to live as a new couple
 Birth of a baby
 A child going to school
 A child becoming young person
 Young person becoming adult.
Changes in the family situation can also contribute to conflict which includes :
 Separation or divorce
 Moving to new house or country
 Change in financial circumstances
 Travelling long distances to work
 Commuting interstate for work.
 The different opinions, values and needs of each parent can be different which may cause
problem in being compatible for longer time (Chun, Neta and Kim, 2014).
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Discuss and consider the various aspects of relationships within a typical family
A family is place where an individual can feel that they belong. On biological and marital
connection mostly families are based. There are different aspects of relationship within a typical
family which is important to follow so that conflicts can be avoided and strong relationship can
be maintained. There are some aspects which are as follows:
 Good communication: In a typical family it is important that families get engage in
positive and meaningful communication. It is important that family member listen each to
each other and care what they are saying (Dierckx, Motmans & T’sjoen, 2016). For
example, situation which is encounter in real is as follows. Johnson who was 33 year old
married man was completely unhappy with his married life. He state that he feels his self-
esteem has been step by step getting worsen from the time when he was married. After 4
year he became father but unable to cope up with his life . The reason behind his
unhappiness is lack of communication between him and his wife. Her wife share feeling
with her mother instead of Johnson which create a barrier between their happy life.
 Balance of work and family: It is important for an individual who work in an
organisation to manage both its personal and professional life. It is important for an
individual to give time to its family member otherwise it leads to increase stress and
conflicts among family member (Smith, J., Greenberg & Lukens, 2016). For example,
real situation which I encounter in my life is that, a working women Eliza was not able to
give proper time to her children. Due to this reason, her child started feeling alone and
started smoking.
The possible challenges or difficulties that such a family may face
There are many issues that a family face in their life. Some issues are discussed below: Separation : Separation often leads to breakdown between members of the family. It is
the step taken to improve the relationship when a couple is finding it difficult to meet
each others demand. It is also the first step towards breakup or divorce. Divorce : It is the worst feeling as it may lead the children to feel anxious, depressed
within himself. As these feelings leave themselves as anger, poor performance and they
might feel shameful in front of their friends. It is the most painful experience for the
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children and they are left all alone. These moments put bad impact on them and they try
to run away from the society and be try to keep it to themselves. Increase in emotions like
hatred from any relationship. Communication issue : Communication gap between the family members makes it
impossible for them to understand each other. They do not accept their feelings and every
word spoken is filled with dried emotions (Dierckx, Motmans & T’sjoen, 2016). If this
problem is solved it can return their hope, elevation in lives, increase in confidence,
healing in hearts. Alcoholic addiction : Addiction to alcohol or drugs in parents or children makes other
sad or anxious. If any of them are struggling with these problems, it is possible that they
would not care about another and will not be able to give much attention to other. For
example, it's a true incident a friend of mine had to deal with the issue as he was leaving
with his dad and that person was alcoholic and drug addicted and did not give much
attention to his son (Guralnick, 2017). This made him free and he too went to be a drug
addict and was arrested in the same. This effected his career and was in jail and shifted to
rehabilitation centre. Suicide : This is the issue faced by many parents as they are left alone without children
with whom they could have solved the problems. This issue has been in children most
often. It arises as the parents are not taking an interest in their lives due to their heavy
work load. Because of this many children are left alone and nobody to discuss there
problem with and this makes them to take stupid steps.
 Abusive parent : An abusive parent is more dangerous for any child as they have to
suffer many problems through this (Spiers, Smith & Drage, 2016). The negative increase
in their behaviour and problems like insecurity within the family makes the child suffer.
They are not able to communicate with anyone and are scared from inside to talk and
share with others.
Example – In a local group of students in my town there was a girl and she was a victim of
parental abuse. As her father has left them alone and gone which depressed her mother and she
was unconscious of whatever she was doing. Due to this she was continuously abusing the girl
for all the loss, this made the girl scared of everyone and was not able to talk to anyone. She was
always all alone to herself and had attempted suicide several time.
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 Criticism : This issue also give negative impact on the person who is being criticised in
the family. As the family members always do this to the one taking all this and being
judged for everything (Dierckx, Motmans & T’sjoen, 2016)). This increase the
difference between them and their relationship is affected due to this. Criticism is always
bad in the family as it will always bring negative thought among them.
Family can cope up with these challenges with the use of different strategies
In a family it is all family members can sit together and share there view and feelings
with each other. This lead to create strong relationship and also avoid negativity which appear
due to improper communication. Along with this, It is important for parents to spend time with
their children so that they may not started abusing alcohol because of loneliness (Tint & Weiss,
2016). Further, it is important to manage work life so that no situation of divorce taken place
between married couple. Systematic therapy is known as approach which work with families and
those who are in close relationship. This therapy can be adopted for addressing the problem
faced by an individual in a context of relationship with important people. This is one of the
effective way for dealing with distress, pain and misunderstanding. There are few problems
which can be avoided with the use of systematic thinking therapy such as alcohol and other
substance abuse, work related problem, promoting parenting skill etc. Along with this, it helps
family member in expressing their family and investigate different thoughts. Therefore, this are
the strategies which can be adopted to overcome the challenges in family.
Recommendation and government policies. Communication : There should be a clear communication between the employees and the
higher level to avoid arising situations of conflict. The ways to resolve the conflicts are as
follows :
a) Listen carefully and then speak : The boss should listen to employees issue first and most
important should take step to resolve conflict.
b) Gather the group : As a leader, the boss needs to manage or arrange the meetings with the
involved parties to discuss the issue. He should give an equal chance to everyone to come up
with the issues.
c) Impartial : the boss should be impartial, should not take anyone's side. In a leadership there
should not be any sort of opinion that favours one person over another.
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 Transparency : The employees conflicts can be very poisonous which can affect the
productivity, crush creativity and also squash the morale (Gianetti, Haji-Akbari and
Debenedetti, 2016). As often seen the personal conflicts causes costly projects and
important initiatives. The unresolved employee conflicts are bad enough and cause a
heavy loss to the projects which worth very high. The relationship conflicts at the
workplace often lead to lack of honesty. The most common reason why people often quit
their job is, they cannot get along with their bosses. Commitment to the family : The conflicts occurs when there are incompatible demands
between the work and families. The role of an individual that makes participation in both
role difficult and causes conflicts (Hofberger, Zhou and Schranz, 2014). Conflict between
work and family is important for the organisation and individual as it is linked to negative
consequences. Sometimes individual feels that changing workplace can reduce the work
family conflict and will keep everything scheduled. Work can conflict with one's home
and family life so, to avoid the conflicts one should manage his time and priorities at
once.
 Spending time with each other : The poor communicate often leads to misunderstanding
and conflicts among employees so, to avoid this the employees should have proper
communication between them as well as with their boss (Low and Espelage, 2013). The
boss should always take care not to shout on the employee in front his staff, should
always discuss things in personal and resolve the issues.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that, the factors affecting conflicts in family
life such as the structure of families, financial issues, individual thinking are discussed in detail.
The factors to avoid the conflict such as communication skills, balance in work life and family,
and challenges faced by family are separation, divorce, alcohol addiction etc is also explained in
detail. The measures to cope with the challenges such as spending time, setting priorities are
discussed in detail. The recommendation and the government polices such as commitment to the
family, transparency in the business, communication skills to avoid conflicts for the employees
at the workplaces are explained in detail.
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REFERENCES
Books & Journals
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Hofberger, J. A., Zhou, B. & Schranz, M. E. (2014). A novel approach for multi-domain and
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Spiers, J., Smith, J. A., & Drage, M. (2016). A longitudinal interpretative phenomenological
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relationships with their living donors. Journal of health psychology.21(11). 2600-2611.
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Guralnick, M. J. (2017). Early intervention for children with intellectual disabilities: An update.
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