Chapter 7 Critical Thinking Questions
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Chapter 7 Critical Thinking Questions
Critical Thinking Questions 7.1
Where have you gotten your ideas about what it means to be family? Have those ideas changed over time? If so, what influenced those changes? What beliefs do you have about appropriate gender relationships, child-rearing practices, and appropriate marriage partners? How might those beliefs affect your ability to work with different types of families and families facing different types of challenges?
I've gotten my ideas about what it means to be family, like most people, from my family, but also
media depictions of family. My family is non-traditional, with my father being adopted and my siblings having a different father than me. Family is less about actual blood ties with me. If I love
this person, I automatically consider them family. I have had this view my entire life, though it has expanded to friends I feel to be family in recent years. The influence of this change was that I
started depending more on my friends. So, I began to associate my relationship with them with my relationship with my siblings. Anyone can get married and have children. I don't believe that there are any inappropriate gender relationship or child-rearing practices. As long as both parties’
consent and are of the legal age to consent, they should be allowed to build a family of their own.
My beliefs are on the open-minded side of things, where it either won't affect my ability to work with different types of families or will make it easier for me.
Critical Thinking Questions 7.2
Which one of the preceding theoretical perspectives on families do you find most useful for thinking about the multigenerational Sharpe family? Which perspective do you think offers the least insight into this family? Which of the perspectives do you find most useful for thinking about your own family? The least useful? Explain your answers.
The family systems perspective is most helpful in thinking about the multigenerational Sharpe family because it describes a family as a complex unit working together and influencing each other's behavior. I believe that the feminist perspective on families offers the least insight, with the family having no shown patterns of dominance or oppression with both the women and men working to help the family. The most helpful perspective for my own family would be the symbolic interaction perspective since, as described in 7.1, my family is not the typical definition. It is rather defined based on the meaning of our interactions. The least useful would be the exchange and choice perspective because my family does not focus on exchanges but more on our interactions.
Critical Thinking Questions 7.3
Which, if any, of the family structures discussed did you grow up in? What do you see as the major strength of this type of family structure? The major challenge? Which, if any, of these
family structures are you living in now? If this is different from the type of family structure you grew up in, what do you consider to be its major strength and major challenge?
I mainly grew up in a lone-parent family, with my dad raising me and only seeing my mom and siblings a few days out of the month. The major strength of this type of family is that less needed
to be paid for since it was just me and him. The major challenge would be a part of that strength where, since it was just him and me, he was the sole contributor to the household and was forced to pay for childcare since there was no one to watch me. At the same time, he had to clock in overtime just for us to make ends meet. I am now living in a stepfamily with my dad and stepmom being a cohabiting opposite-sex couple. The major strength of this is that it is now easier to get help for things with so many people. We work together, but a significant challenge is
that our costs are way higher because five people are living together now.
Critical Thinking Questions 7.4
Think of the economic and cultural locations of your family of origin and your current family. What experiences have you had with family economic and cultural diversity that will be helpful to you in your social work career? What are the limitations in your experience with family economic and cultural diversity? What can you do to build your understanding and skills in this area?
Experiences I have had with family economic and cultural diversity that will be helpful to me in my social work career would be that I know what it is like to have your family struggle economically. Although I do not have much of a cultural background these will help me to be more open-minded when helping families in hard times. Limitations would definitely be my lack
of cultural diversity. My entire family subtract my brother is white all from long lines of white and so we do not have diversity and even with my brother who is mixed he was raised by our white mother and does not have a connection with his father's culture. In order to build my understanding and skills in this area I can do research as well as expand my field of interaction. Getting to know people outside my circle that would have their own economic and cultural diversity that I could learn from.
Critical Thinking Questions 7.5
Three challenges to family life are discussed in the previous section: family violence, divorce and relationship dissolution, and substance abuse. If you were to be my coauthor on this chapter for the fourth edition of the book, what advice would you give me about the most important challenges facing families today? Are family violence, divorce, and substance abuse new or enduring challenges for families in the United States? Do these challenges appear to occur across
cultural lines?
The advice I would give about the most important challenges facing families today would be that
all of those struggles are only temporary if you let them. I have grown up with and around others
going through these struggles and although they can be terrible in the moment, it is how you let them affect you that really matters. If it is a struggle on your own, then get therapy to talk about your childhood struggles but it is only temporary, and you can get through it. Divorce, family violence, and substance abuse are not new in any sense of the word. Divorce is not new although there has been a surge in recent years, but people have always been adulterers. Family violence has been around since the family structure and substance abuse is often tied with it. New substances are being abused but whether it is alcohol, opioids, or any other hard substance it is all an addiction at the end of the day. I really can't say if all of these are as prominent across cultural lines as they are in the United States, but I am leaning more towards that they are. No matter what culture you are raised in and are a part of there are still going to be people who get divorced or cheat, there will be those abusive families, and there will be people who abuse substances. It shouldn't matter where you are from because human nature tends to be the same no
matter where you are.
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