Hi, I'm Julie Tietz, and welcome to Conflict Resolution-- Putting the Pieces Together. Today, we're going to talk about family conflicts and really understand relationship patterns and specific issues that may be factoring into family conflict.
Let's first start out by defining families. So families are relationships that are long-term and intense between its members. And families can be people that are related to us by blood, or also people that may not be related to us by blood or genetics but we have adopted them into our family and consider them as members of our family.
And families has a system where we have members and we are directly and indirectly related to each other. So we're interconnected through each one of our family members. And we have shared assumptions and beliefs within our families. And these are developed upon our cultural norms and personal experiences through our family relationship.
So for example, we have maybe our own cultural family norms on how we communicate with each other. Maybe we don't communicate through text messages, or we choose only to use specific language with each other, so those types of things.
Another example could be cultural norms within our family about certain roles. So maybe we have our male dad figure in our family. And he's the one that works. Or maybe our mom is the one that holds that role. So we each have certain roles that we deem appropriate within our family culture. And these cultural norms help us define on how a family relationship should be and should look like.
So again, as I said, families are systems. And we create those in-groups within our families. And we are interconnected with each other. So our in-group is the group in which we are a member of. And so are in-group members are all connected to each other in some way or another through our system of the family.
And conflicts within our family can have a direct or indirect impact on the family. So if two people are in conflict in our family, it really can affect other members of our family. So if we are in conflict with our parent, it could affect the other parent or the other child within the family, what have you. And this is what we call a ripple effect, so when we have a conflict between two people that affects people that are not directly involved in the conflict.
So for example, how can this affect members? Well, we may be in a conflict with another sibling and we try and enlist allies and try and get a parent on our side. Or maybe parents are fighting, and this causes a lot of tension in the household, and the children are really feeling the effects of that.
And maybe we have some added stress because we feel like we have to mediate the conflict between our two family members. And it's really stressful for us because we want everybody to get along.
So also in family conflicts, we may have the conflict based upon a specific event or action. So let's say, for example, you're showing up late to a family dinner, and there's going to be an important announcement. So you should have been there on time, but you didn't. And this really creates a conflict between you and your aunt who, let's say, is hosting this important event.
So that conflict was based upon one event or actions. But also the family conflict can be about behavioral patterns. So let's say you have a history of showing up late. And you are late all the time. And so then this boils down to a behavioral pattern that is causing conflict over and over and really is making your other family members question how much you respect them.
So that is the real interest of the conflict here when we're having behavioral patterns. It's not necessarily you just showing up late. It's the issue of respect. And the cultural norm in your family, let's say, is to respect each other by respecting each other's time and space, or whatever the situation is.
So it could be just based on a specific issue or action. Or it can be based upon a series of long-term patterns of specific behaviors.
So let's look at our key points here on issues or patterns in family conflict. So families are long-term and intense relationships. And they operate as a system. So we're all interconnected with other family members in some way or another.
And when there is a issue or a conflict, it can create that ripple effect where maybe two people are in conflict in our family. But since we work as a system, it really affects everybody else involved in the family group.
And we also have these shared assumptions and beliefs which really guide our family on cultural norms on how we are supposed to behave and what is the right true and proper way that we are supposed to be within our family culture. And if we deviate from that, it can create a conflict, like, for example, our event with our aunt.
And it can be related to specific issues or events. Or the conflict could be over behavioral patterns that we see over a period of time.
That's all I have for you today. Here are your key terms. Feel free to pause and look at them a little closer.
Thank you so much for taking the time out. I really hope that you've learned something. And I can't wait to catch you again next time.