Lesson 2 The Family and Culture
Lesson 2 The Family and Culture
Topic Outline
Learning Objective
Introduction
Activating Prior Knowledge
Discussion of Key Concepts
Key Concepts
A. The Family Structures, Functions and Roles
a. Family Structures
b. Family Functions and Roles
c. Major Family Functions
d. Five (5) Most Primary Functions of a Family
Learning Objectives
After studying this guide, you will be able to:
1. Identify common family structures, functions, and roles of families and use critical
thinking to analyze ways these are changing in modern society.
2. Explain family dynamics and how family dynamics contributes in accomplishing family
functions.
3. Apply Nursing process (assessing, diagnosing, planning, implementing, and
evaluating) in the plan of care taking into considerations the family cultural
diversities, and includes the six competencies of Quality & Safety Education for
Nurses (QSEN) to help improve maternal and child nursing care.
4. Integrate knowledge of families with the interplay of nursing process, six
competencies of Quality & Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN), Family Nursing to
promote quality maternal and child nursing care.
Introduction
Maintaining a healthy family life is important to the health and welfare of the nation. Because
the family has an influence on the individual, nursing care that considers the family, not the individual
(FAMILY NURSING)-a focus of the modern nursing practice. Maternal and Child Health Nursing
practice is a family and community-centered, nurses considers the strengths, vulnerabilities and
patterns of family and community function to support families during childbirth and childrearing and
to encourage healthy coping mechanisms in families facing crisis.
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Activating Prior Knowledge
Key Terms
What is Family?
• Family defined by the U.S. Census Bureau (2005) as “a group of people related by
blood
• marriage, or adoption living together.
• Allender and Spradley (2004) defined family in a much broader context as “two or
more people who live in the same household (usually), share a common emotional
bond, and perform certain interrelated social tasks.
a. Family Structures
Two Basic Family Type
1. Family of Orientation (the family one is born into; or oneself, mother, father, and
siblings, if any).
2. Family of Procreation (a family one establishes, or oneself, spouse, or significant
other, and children, if any).
Description of family type depend on how many members are present, people’s roles,
generational issues, means of family support, and sociocultural influence.
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▪ Refers to single young adults who live together in shared apartments or
dormitories for companionship and financial security while completing
school or beginning a career.
▪ Viewed as temporary arrangements, but could extend into a lifelong
arrangement.
Positive Aspects: Many people for child care and member support.
Possible Negative Aspects: Resources may be stretched thin because of
few wage earner.
6. The Single-Parent Family
▪ Plays a large role in childrearing.
▪ Have difficulty working full time plus taking total care of young children.
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▪ A divorced or widowed person with children marries someone who also has
children.
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Moreover, the roles family members view as appropriate for themselves are usually
ones they saw their own parents fulfilling. As each new generation takes on the values of
the previous generation, family traditions and culture pass to the next generation. Though
family, roles tend to be more flexible and often not as well defined as in the past, an
important part of a family assessment is to identify what roles family members have
assumed.
B. Family Task
Duvall and Miller Eight Family Tasks. These tasks are perform to survive as a healthy
unit; however, these tasks differ in degree from family to family and depend on the growth
stage of the family, but they usually present some extent in all families. Thus, assessing
families characteristics is helpful to help establish the extent of stress on a family as well as
to empower the family to move toward heathier family behaviors.
a. Physical maintenance. A healthy family provides food, shelter, clothing, and health
care for its members. Being certain a family has enough resources to provide for a
new or ill member is an important assessment.
b. Socialization of family members. This task includes being certain that children
feel part of the family and learning appropriate ways to interact with people outside
the family such as teachers, neighbors, or police. It means the family has an open
communication system among family members and outward to the community.
c. Allocation of resources. This involves determining which family needs will be met
and their order of priority, including not only material goods but also affection and
space. In healthy families, there is justification, consistency, and fairness in the
distribution. In many families, resources are limited, so for example, no one has new
shoes. A danger sign would be a family in which one child is barefoot while the other
wear $100 sneakers.
d. Maintenance of order. This task includes establishing family values, establishing
rules about expected family responsibilities and roles, and enforcing common
regulation for family members such as using “time out” for toddlers. In healthy
families, members know the family rules and respect and follow them; in
dysfunctional families, you may see a flagrant disregard of rules.
e. Division of labor. Healthy families not only evenly divide the workload among
members but are also flexible enough to interchange workloads as needed.
f. Reproduction, recruitment, and release of family members. Often not a great
deal of thought is given to who lives in a family, membership often happens more by
changing circumstances than by true choice. Having to accept a new infant into an
already crowded household may make a pregnancy a less-than-welcome event;
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allowing a young adult to move to a college dorm may be viewed as abandonment by
a close-knit family.
g. Placement of members into the large society. Healthy families realize they do
not have to operate alone but can reach out to other families or their community for
help as needed. They are able to select community resources, such as schools,
affiliations, a place to worship, a birth setting, a hospital, hospice, or a political
group, that correlates with the family’s belief and values. A family that lives
correlates with the family’s beliefs and values. A family that lives in a community
with a culture or values different from its own may find this a difficult task.
h. Maintenance of motivation and morale. Healthy families are able to maintain a
sense of unity and pride in their family. When this is present, it helps members
defend the family against threats as well as allows them to support each other
during a crisis. It means parents are growing with and through the experience of
their children the same as children grow through contact with their parents.
Assessing whether a feeling of loyalty to other family members is present tells you a
lot about overall health of a family
Stage 1: Marriage
Duval refers to this stage as marriage, what occurs during it is also applicable
to couple forming cohabitation, lesbian or guy, or dyad alliances. As such married
couples/beginning families begin with marriage and end with the birth or adoption of
the first child. During this first stage of family developmental tasks:
▪ Establish a mutually satisfying relationship
▪ Learn to relate well to their families of orientation
▪ If applicable, engage in reproductive life planning
Hence, merging of values, adjustment of routine such as sleeping, eating,
housecleaning) as well as sexual and economic aspects. Shaky stage with high rate of
separation or divorce; relationships, illness of family member ( unplanned pregnancy
can cause problems with family because of lack of support.
Stage 2: The Early Childbearing Family
The birth or adoption of a first baby begins this stage; families exist from the
birth of the first child until that child is 30-months-old. Important tasks of this stage
include:
• Integration of the new member into the family
• Maintaining a satisfying marital relationships
• Expanding relationships with extended family (parents, grandparents, etc).
• Making whenever financial and social adjustments are necessary to meet
the needs of the new member while continuing to meet of the parents.
An important nursing role during this period is providing health education
about well-child care, family integration to the newborn. Educating family on how
adopt with the change of tasks as new parents and the responsibilities during
childrearing .
Stage 3: The Family with Preschool Child
A family at this stage is a busy one because preschool children have such as
active imagination and they demand a great deal of supervision. It exist from the
first child’s 21/2 years birthday until the child is 6-years-old. Important tasks to
parents include:
• Preventing unintentional injuries (accidents) such as poisoning or falls
• Beginning socialization through play dates, child care, or nursery school
settings
• Integrating new child member into the family, while still meeting needs of
older children.
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•
Maintaining healthy relationships with marital partner, children, extended
family and community members
If a child returns home for further care after a hospitalization, a family in this
stage may need continued support and help (and clear and concise discharge
instructions) to provide necessary health care in light of all other responsibilities.
Stage 4: The Family with a School- Age Child
Parents of school-age children have the important responsibility of preparing
their children to function in a world more complex that the one they experienced
during their school-years, while at the same time trying to meet technologic
challenges of the adult this stage include:
• Families with children exist from the first child’s sixth birthday until that
child is 13-years-old.
• Promoting children’s health through immunization, dental care and routine
health assessment
• Promoting child safety related to home and automobiles
• Encouraging socialization experiences outside the home such as sports
participation, music lessons, or hobby activities
What is Culture?
According to Thomas (2001) cultures is a unified set of values, ideas, beliefs and
standards of behavior shared by a group of people; it is the way a person accepts, orders,
interprets, and understands experiences throughout the life course. Culture includes values,
beliefs and practices that are acquired over a lifetime through interactions with others from
the culture. Culture gives meaning to what people do in their everyday lives. The political,
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social, and cultural experience and helps shape a person’s interpretation of every life
experiences.
What is Ethnicity?
Refers to a sense of community or belonging to a particular ethnic group. Ethnicity,
therefore, refers to membership, usually through birth, in a cultural group based on traits
such as religion, language, or racial characteristics (Spector, 1991). Culture is a basic
component of ethnic background and together these factors determine individual and family
values and belief systems.
Ethnocentrism – refers to the belief that the values and practices of one’s own culture are
superior to those of other cultural groups (Spector, 1991). There are more than 100 ethnic
groups currently residing in the United States.
The nursing family within its cultural context is a central concern in nursing especially
when the nurse is providing care to the childbearing family. A critical life experience, such as
childbearing, is often bound by traditional beliefs and practices. A culture’s beliefs and
practices regarding childbearing are embedded in its economic, religious, kinship, and political
structures. All cultures have behavioral norms and expectations for each stage of the perinatal
cycle. These norms and expect that their physiologic and psychologic health care needs will
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be met and their cultural beliefs will be respected. Cultural sensitivity, compassion, and a
critical awareness of family dynamics and social stressors that will affect health-related
decision making are critical components in developing an effective plan of care.
2. Ecomap- diagram use to assess family “fit” into their community relationship
or a family and community relationship. (Figure 2)
Remarks:
o Families who fit well into their community usually have many outside circles or
community contacts.
o The pattern is also a mark of an abusive or dysfunctional family if such family
deliberately keep outside people separate from them
o Constructing such map help nurses to assess the emotional support that will be
available to the family in a time of crisis.
o A family with few connecting liens between its members and community need
increased nursing contact and support.
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Course Code and Title
Table 1. Planning Nursing Care Based on Assessment
Figure 1. A genogram of the Hanovan family showing three generations. Males are shown by
squares, females by circles.
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Course Code and Title
Figure 2: An Ecomap of the Hanovan family’s relationship to its community. The family
members are shown in the center circle; the circles show community contacts.
Summary
• A family is a group of people who share a common emotional bond and perform certain
interrelated social tasks.
• Common types of families include nuclear, extended, single-parent, blended,
cohabitation, gay and lesbian, foster, and adopted families.
• Common family tasks are physical maintenance, socialization of family members,
allocation of resources, maintenance of orders, division of labor, reproduction,
recruitment and release of members, placement of members into larger society, and
maintenance of motivation and morale.
• Common life stages of families are marriage, early childbearing, families with preschool,
school-age, and adolescent children; launching stage; middle-years families, and the
family in retirement
• The reproductive beliefs and practices of a culture are embedded in its economic,
religious, kinship, and political structure.
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• To provide quality care to women in their childbearing years and beyond, nurses should
be aware of the cultural beliefs and practices important to individual families
• Changes in pattern of family life that are occurring include increased divorce rates,
decreased family size, increased dual-parent employment , and increase high level of
violence in family such as intimate partner violence.
• Considering a family as a unit (single client) helps in planning nursing care that not only
QSEN competencies but also best meet the family’s total needs.
• Because families exist within communities, assessment of the community and the
family’s place in the community yields further information on family functioning and
abilities.
Study Guide for Maternal and Child Nursing Care 5th Edition by Karen A. Piotrowski &
David Wilson
Ingalls & Salermo’s Maternal and Child Health Nursing 8th Edition Novak & Broom
Compiled by:
All information contained in this module are property of UCU and provided solely for educational purposes. Reproduction, storing in a retrieval system, distributing, uploading or posting online, or transmitting
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise of any part of this document, without the prior written permission of UCU, is strictly prohibited.
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