Structural: Families are seen primarily as social or demographic structures that contain and connect particular individuals.
Le poire (2006): biological ties, legal definitions and sociological definitions.
Nuclear family: Parents plus their genetically related children
Extended family: Centered around a nuclear family, but also includes grandparents, aunts, cousins, and all other living forms of blood relatives.
Family of origin: The parent who you are born to (and spend most of your life with)
Family of descent: Historical family tree from which you are descended, both living and dead.
Family of generatively: Self-started family where you are one of the parents of at least one child.
Family of choice: Family without genetic connection (adoption, pets or friends)
Blended family: When parents adopt non-genetic offspring, divorce, or remarry other partners
Binuclear family: Two families based on the nuclear form (e.g. the children’s father, their stepmother and her children etc.)
Single-parent family: Family where there are children but only one parent caregiver
System-based: Families are made up of parts but operate as a whole system that can achieve functions that individuals alone cannot, think jenga ( = system theory by Bertalanûy (1950)). Systems are goal-orientated and self-regulating.
Nonsummative wholeness: Within a system several components work together to produce something more than the sum of its parts
Discourse dependency: a family must frame and represent themselves to one another and to the outside world through their communication
Transactional: Families can be viewed as performances, created through transaction Norms: The habitual rules for conducting any family activity
Rituals: Particularly formalized ways for handling situations, say, the routines of mealtimes or birthday gift giving in a family
Bidirectionally hypothesis: The idea that power can work in two directions. Authority does not come from the fixed status of the family members, but from specific circumstances.
Kin keeping: The act of serving as a reservoir for information about members of the family who passed along to the other members of the network. This is a way of family storytelling
Confict: Real or perceived incompatibilities of processes, understandings, and viewpoints between people
→ Conflict as opportunity: Conflict is a normal, useful process. All issues are subject to change through negotiation Direct confrontation and conciliation are valued.
→ Conflict as destructive: Conflict is a destructive disturbance of the peace. The social system should not be adjusted to meet the needs of individual members, but members should adapt to established values