Reflection Of Understanding Families

The article “Understanding Families” by Linda Garris Christian expresses six characteristics that apply to Family Systems Theory and to the environment provided by early childhood educators. Boundaries are a characteristic that may set limits as well as emphasizes togetherness. The article states that for some families the behavior of the child is a reflection of the whole family, defining this behavior as enmeshed. As a provider and early childhood educator, my experience was with a family that I would describe as enmeshed. The child was strongly attached to the family land their merits and ethics. The family consisted of a mother and father and brother, age 5 and sister, age 10. The family had been in Rhode Island for two years, moving from India. The children were in my care for the summer only. Mom and Dad were both systems analyst at a nearby company and were extremely engaged in their culture. Field trips were planned each Friday for my school age program,

Julia would say, “I cleaned the bathroom and washed the floor”, she never mentioned play. As I began attending certain family events at Julia’s home, I noticed it seemed almost expected that she would do certain jobs in the family. Her parents would say she enjoys doing stuff around the household, as they beamed with pride. As a teacher and provider, I felt it was necessary to encourage Julia to play and enjoy herself, although she was always the one to volunteer to assist the teachers. We resolved this by allowing the other children to pick jobs and to share the responsibilities in the classroom. Julia was saddened by this, thinking she wasn’t doing a responsible job and was being replaced. On the contrary, we convinced her that she did such a great job and we wanted her to demonstrate to the other children how to do their task. She was thrilled to once again be