Dynamics of a Family

A family is a group of people who are related by blood or marriage. Usually a family consists of a father, mother, and children. However, many families are not like the Leave It to Beaver family of classic television. Today, there are single-parent families and blended families.

The purpose of this article is to discuss how members of a family behave and relate to one another. It emphasizes how family members take on certain roles and operate according to the characteristics of those roles.

Roles of Family Members

Family members have roles based on their personality, gifts, and talents. The roles are not assigned to them. Instead, they are self-imposed roles. Most of the time, other members of the family go along with the self-imposed roles. Sometimes the roles are resented and cause friction within the family.

Because the family is made up of many members, it is not unusual for there to be differences of opinions about minor and major things that go on in the household. That's why some teenager say, "I can't wait until I leave home so I can do what I want to do."

The Bossy Sibling

Among the siblings, there is always one that bosses the others. The strange thing about this concept is that the bossy child is almost never the oldest one. It could be a middle child or even the youngest child.

You can tell the bossy child by the way he is always the one to decide what movie to watch on television or which restaurant to go to celebrate a special occasion. The bossy child is the one telling the other children and even his parents what to do while not respecting their opinions.

The Quiet Child

There is always a quiet child in the bunch. He stays in his room reading or journaling just to avoid confrontations. He is the one who stays quiet because he feels that his opinions don't matter much any way. Secretly, he wants to leave home as soon as he graduates from high school. However, he is too timid to say it because he doesn't want to start an argument.

The Absentee Child

Tha absentee child is the one who wants to stay away from home as much as possible. She spends time with her friends just so she doesn't have to go home. Nobody objects to the child being away from home a lot. It does pose a problem when the rest of the family doesn't know where the child is especially around meal times when there is an empty place at the dinner table.

The Parliamentarian Child

Just as there is someone to keep order in every group, there is a family member who has made himself the parliamentarian of the family. He wants everyone to follow every rule in the book. He gets upsets when others break those rules. His speech includes a lot of "do's and don'ts" and "shoulds and should nots."

The parliamentarian child gets very upset when general and special rules are not followed. Whenever he himself breaks a rule, he makes up a reason why it was a good decision.

The Decision-Making Child

Most families can identify the child who makes decisions for the entire family. That child often does not get brownie points for making decisions on her own without consulting the rest of the group. The child might invite her teacher to dinner without telling her parents. She puts the family in an embarrassing situation when the teacher shows up and the meal consists of only leftovers from the night before.

Every time someone dies in the neighborhood, the decision-making sibling orders expensive flowers from the florist for the funeral. The other family members find out about that decision only when she presents them with their share of the bill.

The decision-making child is the one who books vacations, cruises, and other major events for family members without telling them until everything has been confirmed. Some of the family members feel obligated to go since everything has been arranged. This puts others in a bind because they have to rearrange their schedule to go on the date that was decided for them without their input.

The Know-It-All Child

There is at least one child in every family who thinks he knows everything about everything. The unfortunate thing about this description is that he actually knows very little.

The know-it-all child monopolizes group discussion and gives his viewpoints about movies he has never seen, news reports he hasn't heard and other things he knows little about. When he is corrected, he gets louder and becomes more emphatic. Sometimes people start disappearing from the group because they get tired of what the know-it-all child has to say.

No Particular Family

The above information is something that happens in almost every family. The details might not be exact, but they are quite similar to what happens in a number of family units.

If you recognize yourself in any of the examples, perhaps it is time for you to make a change.