Understanding the Dynamics of the Filipino Family

 Your family serves as a basic unit of society. Your membership in the family is
acquired either by blood marriage or adoption.
 Your family is your source of security, belongingness, emotional and economic
growth.
 Your family is your child’s immediate environment and serves as the foundation
of their physical, social, mental, emotional and moral well-being.
 The main function of your family is to provide total care of the children; prepare
them for adult roles; provide discipline and order; and maintain high moral and
strong motivation.

Family Tree is a diagram that gives information about;

 Family lineage
 Family relationships
 Important events
It should contain the following:

 Names and ages of all family members

 Birth, marriage, separation, divorce, death and other significant events
 Information on two or more generations
It is used to look for the following:
 Social History
 Strengths – coping mechanisms, problem-solving skills
 Significant personalities and events
 Vulnerabilities- trauma, failure, loss, weakness
1. What is your birth position in the family?

2. How do you feel about your birth position?

3. What was your father like as a father and as a husband?

4. What did you like about your father? How does this affect your relationship now?

5. What was your mother like as a mother and as a wife?

6. What did you like about your mother? How does this affect your relationship
now?

7. Are you closer to your father or to your mother?

8. Who has the authority in your family?

9. How is your spouse similar or different from your father or mother?

10. What are the rules in your family concerning:

A. Expressing anger
B. Expressing affection
C. Getting work/ maintaining career
D. Division of labor in the household
E. Roles of husband and wife
F. Handling finances
G. Visiting grandparent
11. In your family, how did you handle the following:
A. Affection/ success/ achievement
B. Hostility / resentment
C. Conflicts/ failures

12. What were the role expectations in your family of origin for the following:
A. From the males
B. From the females
13. How did these affect your relationship with spouse?
Test 2
A. What are the problems that confront the Filipino family today?
B. Are these threats and challenges similar to those existing in your
community?
C. How can you minimize these threats and challenges to prevent the
increasing statistics on family breakdown?
D. How does media affect you and your children?
E. What should your family do to face today’s threats and challenges?
 Characteristics of Filipino family

 Nuclear and extended

 Monogamous
 Patterns of interaction-close, distant
 Headship-paternal
 Intimacy level

 Four basic rules for family is the high sense of responsibility to perform the
roles and obligations of each of the members of the family, e.g. parents’
moral obligation to nurture and care for their children and for the siblings
to respect the older sibling and become obedient to parents.

 Giving importance to the family is invariably describe as the highest value

in Filipino culture and most important variable in the development of
personalities of its members.

 Values are transmitted to the Filipino child during the process of

socialization in the family.

 It is developed through familial socialization, peer influence, life/family

struggles, family shared histories and educational background.

Filipino families’ value the following:

 Strong and close family ties
 Hospitality
 Social Acceptance
 High respect and regards for others
 The Family as a System

 A body or group of items regularly interacting and/or interdependent with

one another under the influence of related force and forming a unified
whole.
 A functional unit.
 Family systems consist of interdependent component part in interaction
with each and their environment, the whole being greater than the sum of
its parts
 The family constitutes a complex and ever changing patterns of
interactions and relationship.
 It conceptualizes family interaction and relationships as constituting a
ecosystem of interdependent parts and wholes
 Each person in the family is seen as influence the other and their
responses in turn influence the first person, whose response influence the
other family members and so on.
 It sees and interprets the causes of maladjustment, conflict, oppression,
and destruction.
 It does not recognize any family phenomena with in a family to be found in
individual family members. Rather , they are contained in the family
system of relationship.
 It emphasize the importance of internal relationship within the family and
personality of individual members as factors in maintaining system
stability and adaptability.
 It emphasize the dynamic relationships between family members as they
interact with and adjust to one another.
 The many functions of the family include
 Physical maintenance and care (emotional needs)- provision of
food & health care
 Procreation and adoption- bear children
 Socialization of children for adult roles- communication, relating
with others, establishing role in the family
 Social control- behavior control, discipline, maintenance of order
with the family
 Social placement
  Maintenance of family morale and motivation- keeping family
belief, values & ambitions
 Production and consumption of goods- capacity to work and earn
for the family
 Every family life stage, functions of the family and the roles and responsibilities of
family members vary and may change.
 Hence, when the family member particularly the parents, are not prepared, the
family system is affected and can cause instability and stress.
 To strengthen the family, you need to strengthen the different factors the affect
the system of the family.
 Factors include clarity and effective performance of roles of family members
particularly the parents, enhanced affective responsiveness and involvement,
open communication, commitment and achievement of family mission and goal,
and maintenance and development of family values to promote family growth
and stability.