Systematic Families

I love to eat cherry tomatoes. My first semester of college, I would eat 2 or more packages of cherry tomatoes a week! This freedom of eating all the tomatoes I wanted was something I didn't have growing up. I learned the hard way that I had to ask my mom if she was going to use the tomatoes for dinner before I ate them. This was one of the simpler rules we had in my family. I hadn’t really thought about how rules, relationships, and boundaries of my childhood shaped me into the person I am today until this week.

There are many different types of rules, both said and those unsaid. Rules characterize, regulate, and help set up how the family functions as a unit. Our family rules express our values held deep within our beings. There are 2 main types of rules: Descriptive which are usually metaphors that describe patterns of change, and Prescriptive which dictate what can and cannot happen between family members. Some of these prescriptive rules are obviously stated, like mom and dad are in charge of setting bed times, and using sharp knives. There are other rules that are drawn observations from repetition, like where we sit at the dinner table. 

We can see how these rules affect our family systems. It is important to know that individuals in the family are not independent in their actions. The actions of one family member has some sort of effect on all the other people (or parts) of the family. Here’s a personal example to help visualize. If I poked my sister, my sister would get sad/mad, which would then make mom mad, mom would yell, then the whole family is at attention because mom isn’t happy. By simply poking my sister, the whole family is affected in less than a minute. 

This is feedback that can help me learn to not poke my sister, when mom is around. Feedback does one of two things, positive or negative feedback. Now, this is where it gets a little bit confusing. Negative feedback is not bad. We usually see a decrease in behavior when negative feedback is received. Positive feedback encourages the behavior to continue, if not increase in frequency. For example, a child seeking attention may act out in anger. When they receive attention from mom or dad (even if it’s negative attention) they are more likely to continue because they got the attention they desired.

Feedback usually happens with subsystems of the whole family system. The most relevant subsystems in my family are the Marital System (Mom and Dad), Executive System (Mom and Me, when dad was out of town on business), Mother-Daughter relationships, and Sister-to-Sister relationships. Mom and Dad would have date nights, and make decisions together. They usually had discussions in their bedroom. My sisters and I learned the unspoken rule to not bother our parents when they were having discussions. We learned this through a sort of trial and error. I was much younger and walked in to ask mom what was for dinner and their conversation immediately stopped. They sort of just… looked at me until I walked away. I learned to leave them alone and that new “rule” was passed onto my younger sisters via the subsystem relationships we had. 

Like I said in the beginning of this post, I had never really thought about just how much relationships affects family systems as a whole. I knew how much relationships mattered, but I now see how even the slightest change in one person’s actions can affect they whole family. I’m glad I’m learning this now, and have time to practice (for lack of a better word) with my roommates while in college before starting my own family. Seeing how different families handled their rules, relationships, and boundaries. I’d love to hear your thoughts down below!