Understanding Family dynamics
Hands up if you had the experience as an adult of returning to your childhood home, whether for the holiday season, for a family gathering or as a stopgap after university, and finding yourself slipping back into the role you played as a child. One day you’re washing your own clothes and managing a team of ten and the next you’re being grilled about what time you’ll be home from an evening out with friends and leaving a stack of cups in your untouched-since-the-age-of-sixteen bedroom.
It can be difficult to shake off an identity that developed in our most formative years. Family dynamics, the relationships, patterns and interactions we have with different members of our family, are complex and enduring.
Even if we weren’t aware of it at the time, we were all impacted to varying degrees by family dynamics. Here are some examples of family circumstances that lead to complex dynamics:
- the nature of our parent’s relationship, including the introduction of step-parents into the family
- a parent who was absent for a period of your life
- a mix of different family members, such as aunts, uncles or cousins, living under the same roof
- external events which affected the family such as severe illness, trauma, death, unemployment or homelessness
Our relationships with different members of the family will be determined by its makeup and its functionality. A household of two parents and a set of grandparents can offer children more sources of support and attention than one which is headed up by a single parent. However, the harmony experienced in the former home will play an important role when it comes to the quality of a child’s wellbeing. Less may well be more.
Having a family member who has a disability will inevitably influence the dynamics of a household. If the eldest child has learning disabilities, younger siblings will find themselves from an early age ‘looking out for’ their older brother or sister. They may feel a sense of responsibility beyond their years. The same can be true of a young carer whose parent is disabled. Roles are reversed, with the child doing the shopping, administering medication and generally taking responsibility for the running of the home.
The psychological and emotional development of younger members of the family can be affected by different personality types, such as:
- the authoritarian, where one person sets rules that must be followed at all costs
- the competitor, where one family member is motivated to be better than the other
- allies, where one group of family members joins forces against another to get what they want, and
- the uninvolved, where family members are neglected by parents who are absent, either physically or emotionally
Within families, members will play different roles – the peace maker, hero, scapegoat, clown, rescuer, golden child and font of all knowledge.
It’s difficult to see which role we play when we’re in a family situation: sometimes it takes an outsider to bring to our attention behaviours that may mark us out as rescuers or clowns. By the time we’re adults, our view of the world and ourselves may be set according to the roles that were assigned to us or those we unwittingly adopted. We may spend our lives trying to rescue work colleagues, or we become the comedian within our friendship group. Shaking off those roles takes conscious and consistent effort.
It’s nigh on impossible for children to reject the role they’ve been given within a family set up, and it is the adult’s job to ensure children grow up free from the restrictions that can be placed on them as a result of circumstances outside of their control. When a child is referred to NOPA for support, we don’t just work with the child. They come to us because they have presented with concerning behaviour, either at home, in school or both. Their underperformance in the classroom or arguments with friends may be the result of an opinion they hold that comes from how they are treated at home. If they are the one who’s relied upon to make others laugh, they may derive their sense of worth from messing around. If comedic behaviour follows them into the classroom, the result will be detrimental to their growth.
In 2009, NOPA developed a holistic creative therapy service which had a huge impact on the children we worked with, their families and the school. We know that whatever’s happening politically and socially will have an impact on the family dynamic. The mental health emergency and the effects of twelve years of austerity have resulted in more families coming under pressure. NOPA understands this and we make it our business to deliver the kind of support that helps families improve their relationships and cope positively with life events.