How Families Work

This week in class we learned about boundaries in a family. It was really interesting to learn about the different types of boundaries there are in family and to see how the effect each person. We learned about rigid boundaries, which would be like a brick wall.

with this kind of boundary your family or yourself, has a really hard time letting people in. They are very to themselves. People who want to try to come in won't be let in because when they try they'll be faced with a huge thick wall in the way. Another boundary would be an Open boundary. Now by the sound of that one you would think Oh yeah! That's they one we want. Well hold on. Open boundaries are like drawing a line in the sand.

 It doesn't last long at all and soon you are letting too much in and letting too much out. You are very open about your life and the things that go wrong. There could be some positives to this boundary though, within a relationship between a husband and wife it might be nice to have an open boundary. I think then you would always talk about everything together. The last boundary is more of the ideal boundary and that is a Clear one. An example of a clear boundary would be like a white picket fence between two houses.

It shows that there are defined boundaries between the two but it doesn't shut them totally out, they are usually short fences with a gate, meaning you are more likely to feel welcome into their home, or life, but you won't get bombarded with their whole life story and their mess of anything.

Now withing a family there can be these boundaries between the different siblings and even the parents. In class we were asked to map out the boundaries in our family and I think my family is pretty good with clear boundaries.

Another quick thing we talked about in class was our unspoken families rules. Rules in your family that you just do, your parents never really sat you down and told you flat out "Here are the things we will and will not do" For my family we have a few and it was really fun thinking of some of them, for my family some of them are:
*Never call Grandma anything besides Grandma or Grandmother
*Always check in when you get home
*Ritz and Salsa when you get home from church, while stealing sips of dads dr. pepper (oddly this really does only happen on sundays)
*Be quiet when Dads office door is closed
*Don't sit in someone spot at the dinner table other than your own
*Only church music on Sundays

What are some of your unspoken family Rules?