Essay #1
Janell R Roelke
Liberty University

Essay #1 The definition of a family has changed throughout society yet still plays an important role in the physical, mental, and emotional development. Throughout a lifespan, the relationship between a healthy development and family systems can be molded together by factors such as effective parenting, structure, love, and support of one another. The development of a human being is not constrained by stopping at a certain age, however, continues to develop throughout an entire lifespan. The functionality of a family can cause both positive and negative long-term effects on a child's development. The word “Family” has changed dramatically throughout history with things such as divorce and sexual intercourse before marriage becoming more frequent in the United States (Whitten & Weaver, 2010). When a child is brought up in a healthy family lifestyle, it teaches them stability, love, and ways to overcome obstacles in life.
A healthy family system can be identified by simply taking a look at the dynamics and how they function with each other as a whole. Determining factors in a healthy family system include effective parenting, moral values, and consistency of family roles. Effective parenting is not being perfect, but being an involved parent emotionally, mentally, and physically to help in encouraging healthy development (Feldman, 2014). Although many exceptions factor in, the type of parenting that surrounds a family can have a long lasting effect on the developmental process. According to Feldman (2014), “ Moral Development refers to a change in people's sense of justice and what is right and wrong, and in their behavior related moral issues” (p.259). When a family has moral values, a child is given more options in the ways they react to things such as making decisions ranging from taking money from parents or deciding to stay out past curfew. Proverbs 22:6 states “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it”. A family is a single unit working together, so when something in a unit goes wrong it can through off the balance of the equation causing harmful effects on development. In a family, there are certain roles each play and in some cases one parent may take on both roles of mother and father. On the other hand, some family systems only involve children and a single parent who puts more strain on making sure the role of a sibling is not confused for a parent. Families come in many shapes, sizes, colors, and with the increase of divorce rates multiple parents are involved can cause inconsistency and stress. Parenting a child takes different forms such as the way interactions, discipline, and emotional stimulus are conveyed upon the child (Feldman, 2014). The way a parent reacts to situations will be different depending on which style a parent uses. Authoritarian parenting is more controlling than others, and whatever rules are made, no