Family Roles: Parenting Children to Understand Family Roles

Family system theory states that a family, or any group for that matter, is greater than the sum of its parts. This realization was first written about by Dr. Murry Bowen, M.D., who was a psychiatrist. In his research, Dr. Bowen found that there is a strong energy field generated around a family. In the theory of family systems, there is a truth that states that whenever two people in a system have problems, one or both them will try to get a third family member involved. This is called triangulation. Problems between family members create a disturbance in the level of energy surrounding a family. Triangulation is a process humans use to restore balance to a family system.

Within families each member has a role to play to keep the family system in a state of stability. The family places very strong pressure on each member to maintain their role. When any member of a family gets out of role, the whole family system is sent into a state of tension and potential chaos.

According to family systems theory, the roles that family members acquire have to do with birth order. In general, the oldest child takes on the values and goals of the parents, the second child acquires the griefs of the parents, the third child acquires the unresolved conflicts that exist between the parents and the fourth child acquires the unresolved conflicts of the family system. If there are additional children, the fifth child will be similar to the first child and the sixth child will be like the second child. If there are more children the pattern continues.

Another way to look at roles in families is to consider that each family has 5 essential roles that need to be carried out or assigned in order for the family to function effectively. These roles are: 1) someone who will meet the physical needs for food, shelter, clothing, 2) someone who will nurture and support family members, 3) someone who will teach life skills related to emotions, physical capacity and health, education and social skills, 4) someone who will organize the day to day tasks of running a household, disciplining or sanctioning family members, making decisions and 5) a relationship where the sexual needs of partners are met.

When you think about your family, can you assign different family members to these roles? In times past, the delineation of roles was more straightforward. There were roles only men could fulfill and others that were appropriate only for women. In this day and age, gender boundaries are fuzzy.

It is important to think about the two models for allocating family roles discussed in this article - birth order and family needs -when you find your family in crisis or feeling out of balance. More than likely one of the family members has stopped maintaining their role, for one reason or another, and the system is spinning trying to regain its normal balance. When the change is temporary and of less magnitude, the family system may return to its former level of balance or it may find a "new" kind of balance without much disturbance.

In situations where the role a family member played is permanently changed, the family system will take much longer to find a new balance. In some cases, where the disruption is traumatic to the family, counseling may be needed to help the family system adjust to the change and to find a tolerable level of balance.

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