Working as One

 The importance of systems within the family is something that I want to talk about today. Something important that I have learned involving family systems, is that the system is greater than the sum of its parts. So what does this mean in relation to families? A good way to think about this is through an analogy. Say you are baking a cake. For example you need ingredients like flour, eggs, vanilla, baking soda, etc to make this cake. Alone, those ingredients are useless; they are just plain old ingredients. But once all of the ingredients for a cake are combined together, then you have now created a cake. So in terms of the cake, the whole recipe is greater than the ingredients alone. So if we think about the system being greater than the sum of its parts directly related to family, it goes along the lines of this. There are many different individuals inside of a family. They are all different and they each have their own qualities, good or bad. Inside the family, if they all were to keep to themselves and never come together, then they will never be able to learn and to grow as one; as a family. The family would not be whole if the individuals didn't come together. I think in most cases it is common knowledge that "2 is better than 1" or in other words, working together will always result in a better outcome than working alone. 

A book titled "Family System Theory" by Suzanne R Smith, Raeann R Hamon, Bron B Ingoldsby, and J Elizabeth Miller, states "If a system represents a set of units that stand in some consistent relationship to one another, then we can infer that the system is organized around those relationships. Further, we can say that the parts or elements of the system interact with each other in a predictable, 'organized' fashion. Similarly, we can assume that the elements, once combined; produce an entity-a whole- that is greater than the sum of its parts. It follows that no system can be adequately understood or fully explained once it has been broken down into its component parts; and that no element within the system can ever be understood in isolation since it never functions independently" (Smith. Hamon, Ingoldsby, Miller). These statements can help to understand that a family needs to be organized and together as one to be able to function properly. My favorite part is the end where it says that no system can be understood by just looking at the individual parts, but to be able to understand, we must look at the family as a whole. Looking back on my family when I was young, I am able to acknowledge that my family didn't work together much because my mom and dad had a lot of tension, and that tension would bleed into the whole family, so a lot of the time we were more focused on individuality. But there were times when we would work together, and we would always do much better in the situation that we were in. 

Something that helps to bring organization to a family, and even helped my own family, is setting rules. This can bring great structure to the family. The purpose of these rules in a family is to help each individual in the family to learn what is allowed or expected of them. These rules will help to stabilize how and how well the family will be able to function as one. The setting of rules is something that helped me and my family to be structured when I was young. Looking back to when I was a child growing up, I am able to see how well establishing rules in the family can work. It helps to set boundaries in the family as well. Some of the rules helped me to be apart of the family, and to feel like I was giving benefit to it. Even as a young child I was aware of the rules in my home, even the unspoken rules. When my siblings and I would follow these rules, there would always be harmony in the home. After learning more about family systems, I am able to look back and see that although the rules might have felt annoying when I was young, they were to the benefit of my family. They helped to create structure in the home. 

Having structure and creating a sense of wholeness in the family is something that will provide many blessings. It can provide security, love, peace, and much more. If we work on even the little things at first, like providing rules, then we will be able to work more towards creating more wholeness and structure in the home. Working together as a family is a great concept that needs to be practiced and developed over time.