Purpose

Students are starting the process of developing a genogram of their family of origin. Through this initial process, they will learn about dysfunctional and functional family roles in families as well as in their own. The ultimate goal is for students to learn the reasons for family dynamics and how these dynamics are passed down from one generation to the next.

Due Date:

9/13/20 by midnight

Grading Criteria

Following Instructions: 1 point (Did you complete all the required tasks in the instructions)
First Post to prompt: 2 points (Completely answer the prompt and provided any required examples)
Respond to Two Peers' Posts: 2 points (Did you reply to two different peers' post and did you share support and/or how you relate to the post)
- Two separate peers' post

Information:

When you think about your family or a particular family member, you’ve likely thought, “____ always or never does ____”. This is one example of a family role. Family roles shape how we interact with each other in the family system. At times, these roles function to create and maintain a balance in the family system. Family roles have positive and negative aspects to them. The key is understanding how well these roles work for the family and how they help or hurt family members in their effort to establish deep, meaningful, and safe relationships. These roles may be the result of family dynamics. The way that people behave and interact in their roles may not be a result of conscious choice. Some of the more common roles that young people take on in a family include:

Hero
Rescuer
Mediator
Scapegoat/Target
Switchboard
Power broker
Lost Child
Clown
Cheerleader
Nurturer
Thinker
Truthteller

Characteristics of The Family Hero

This is the “good” and “responsible” child. This person is a high achiever, carries the pride of the family, and he/she overcompensates to avoid looking or feeling inadequate. He/she is often a good leader and organizer and is goal-oriented and self-disciplined. Sometimes the hero lacks the ability to play, relax, follow others, or allow others to be right. The children who take on the family hero role often do extremely well at whatever they take on, and are successful in the eyes of the world. They often become professionals; doctors or other healing professions are common. They often manage money well, and have very high standards for themselves and their own families. They are often intolerant of their own emotions, and this is their Achilles heel. They need to be perfect, and they need their lives to be perfect to “undo” the imperfections they had to tolerate from early on.

Characteristics of The Rescuer

The rescuer takes care of others’ needs and emotions and problem-solves for others in the family. The rescuer might have difficulty with conflict. He/she takes on the role of rescuer in the name of helping others, though it is often to meet his/her own needs, such as relieving anxiety. This person doesn’t realize that sometimes helping hurts. He/she also lives with a lot of guilt and finds it challenging to focus on him/herself. This role is like the Family Hero, but without the visible success. The Rescuer finds those in need, lets them move in or marries them or finds a job for them while supplying other needs and is very understanding of the frequent betrayals. The rescuer has can have a deep-seated self-hate that drives them to their role as a savior, because they know that anyone not already at the bottom of the barrel would have nothing to do with them. They tend to feel inadequate in their giving and unable to accept help for their own needs.

Characteristics of The Mediator

The mediator can be a rescuer-type although he/she works to keep peace in the family system. This person does the emotional work of the family to avoid conflict. He/she acts as a buffer, and does it in the name of helping others, although it may be for his/her needs. This can be a healthy role depending on how the person mediates.

Characteristics of The Scapegoat

This is the person the other family members feel needs the most help. Usually this is the family member in need of treatment or in treatment. The Scapegoat is the “problem child” or the “trouble maker”. This family member always seems defiant, hostile and angry. The Scapegoat is the truth teller of the family and will often verbalize or act out the "problem" which the family is attempting to cover up or deny. This person often shows the obvious symptoms of the family being unable to work through problems. The person may have strengths such as a sense of humor, a greater level of honesty, and the willingness to be close to his/her feelings. Yet there can also be an inappropriate expression of feelings, and the person may experience social or emotional problems. This individual’s behavior warrants negative attention and is a great distraction for everyone from the real issues at hand. The Scapegoat usually has trouble in school because they get attention the only way they know how - which is negatively. They can be very clever, may develop social skills within his or her circle of peers, and become leaders in their own peer groups. But often the groups that they choose to associate with are groups that do not present healthy relationships. The relationships he or she experiences tend to be shallow and inauthentic.

Characteristics of The Switchboard

This person is the central information center in the family. He/she keeps track of what’s going on by being aware of who is doing what and when. This person has strength in being the central person to go to and understanding how the family is doing. However, this person focuses on everyone else’s issues rather than his/her own.

Characteristics of The Power Broker

This person works at maintaining a hierarchy in the family with him/herself at the top. His/her safety and security with life depends on feeling in control of the environment around him/her.

Characteristics of The Lost Child

The lost child is the subservient good child. He/she is obedient, passive, and hidden in the family trauma. He/she stays hidden to avoid being a problem. Generally, this person is flexible and easygoing. However, he/she lacks direction, is fearful in making decisions, and follows without questioning. In the family, they are often Ignored, quiet, invisible, loves animals, material possessions, artistic, sometimes has learning disabilities.

Characteristics of The Clown

The clown uses humor to offset the family conflict and to create a sense that things are okay. They provide the comic relief from the stress for the family. They learn that things get a little easier around the house when they act cute. They are often immature and are not taken seriously. The family regards them as fragile and in need of protection. Mascots discover that being cute or funny relieves tension around the house and helps them to get into the spotlight occasionally. They have repressed feelings of being crazy, being scared, high anxiety, hurt, loneliness, confusion, and pain. This person has a talent to readily lighten the moment, but he/she hides his/her true feelings.

Characteristics of The Cheerleader

The cheerleader provides support and encouragement to others. There is usually balance in taking care of his/her own needs while providing a positive influence on those around him/her.

Characteristics of The Nurturer

This person provides emotional support, creates safety, is available to others, and can be a mediator. He/she focuses on having and meeting emotional needs, usually in a balanced manner.

Characteristics of The Thinker

The thinker provides the objective, reasoning focus. His/her strength is being able to see situations in a logical, objective manner. However, he/she may find it difficult to connect emotionally with others.

Characteristics of The Truthteller

This person reflects the system as it is. At times the challenge is how that information is relayed. Other members in the family might be offended or avoid the truthteller because of the power of the truth he/she holds. Strength occurs when this person is coupled with another positive role, such as a nurturer or cheerleader.

In any given family the individual members fulfill and act out roles, yet there are differences between healthy and dysfunctional families as outlined below:

While in healthy, functional families these roles are generally fluid, change over time, in different circumstances, at events and are age and developmentally appropriate, in dysfunctional families the roles are much more rigid.
In a healthy family member are integrated and various parts may surface at different times at no threat to the family system. In functional families the roles are interdependent.
The various roles in a healthy family are parts of every person. Individual members, in particular children are allowed to grow, develop and integrate these roles in their personality to become a fully functional adult with a full set of skills to develop further during their own independent adult life.
Healthy families in general retain functionality when individual members ‘leave’ the family system through ‘moving out’, starting their own families or even death of an individual member.

By contrast,

In dysfunctional families the roles are almost a form of continuity or stability of the family system, stifling development of primarily the children, though one or more parents may be severely stifled as well.
Members must submerge parts of their personalities and take on a role so they are less of a threat to the family system that must be kept in place. In the case of a dysfunctional family all the roles are characterized as co-dependent.
In a dysfunctional family each member takes a role, and/or is assigned one, to make up the whole which is the family. Rather than a family of fully (yet age appropriate) persons, the family system gears to create just one: the family itself.
In dysfunctional family systems when an individual member leaves, this creates an (almost) irreparable hole in the existing system. When an individual member discards the taken or assigned role it threatens the family stability (such as it is) as there is no-one capable of fulfilling (or willing to fulfill) that role. This is why dysfunctional families are often so enmeshed. Enmeshed is an unhealthy and overwhelming level of attention and dependency on another person, which comes from imagining or believing one exists only within the context of that relationship. The system needs all members to function as a unit, not as a community.

Ideally adult individuals can fulfill all these roles for themselves and are not dependent on others for either of these though interdependent relationships will nourish self-sustenance capabilities.

Instructions:

Post 1: Identify the Roles in Your Family

Write down your role or roles in the family and the roles you see other family members exhibiting. Which roles do not benefit your family and which roles would you like to see more of?

Posts 2-3: Pick two different classmates' posts that you related to and reply to their posts in one or more of the following ways:

Relate how your family or your role in the family is similar to a peer's
Provide supportive statements regarding struggles a peer posted without giving advice
Relate to how your roles in the family have changed like a peer's post