Family Integration: What It Is And Why It Is Necessary
The family is one of the most important elements and with the greatest weight in the development of the human being. Our fathers, mothers and siblings are going to be the first beings with whom we come into contact, and from them we are going to go. learning different skills, habits, values and ways of seeing and acting in the world.
However, we live in a complex society that often means that there are different types of difficulties (from discordant work schedules to divorces or separations, through the need to emigrate for one of the parents or the lack of understanding of the needs of a new family member) so that members of the same family can share their time productively. This is why it is often necessary to develop different policies and mechanisms to facilitate family integration a concept that we are going to talk about throughout this article.
Family integration is understood to be the degree of health, harmony and balance existing in the relationships maintained within the members of a family including and valuing the person and their role within the family nucleus.
Maintaining it requires efforts, activities and actions carried out that allow a strong, structured and coherent relationship and bond between each and every member of a family nucleus. in such a way that the family functions in an organized and functional manner and generate well-being for each of its members. The aim is to achieve a healthy family environment that allows the development of the family as a whole, with special interest in generating harmony and relationships of trust and union between its components.
Generally, when we talk about family integration we are referring to efforts to maintain a strong and respectful union and bond within the family in which adults can get involved in the lives of their children, allowing all family members to maintain a quality bond and act as reference figures.
Good family integration allows us to promote positive values and guarantee quality education by dedicating and having enough time and effort to carry out joint activities and promote good relationships between family members, as well as their involvement in the family. life of its members. For this it is necessary that members of the family group share quality time as well as that there is communication and fears, doubts, emotions, joys and values are expressed.
Another aspect that may be important is not only how the family behaves internally but also how it is linked to the rest of society and the environment, including work, friends or leisure activities.
Likewise, the relationship must be good not only with the youngest members of the family, but also between the rest of its members, including the couple’s relationship (if there is one). A good relationship is not only good for fostering unity between them but also has an effect on the rest of the family (especially children). This does not mean that a bad couple should stay together even though they do not want to, but it does mean that their interaction is respectful enough so that the rest of the environment and especially the children are not harmed by it or feel guilty for their behavior. bad relationship.
Family integration is not something that is carried out just because. It has been shown that those families in which there are dynamics that allow this connection allow the healthy evolutionary development of all its components and especially of the children, who can develop strong self-esteem and a series of positive values that allow coexistence with others.
Communication is also encouraged and the search for and application of coherent limits becomes easier, and these are also more easily understood by minors. It can also make it difficult to present antisocial values, tending towards aggressiveness or the search for unequal power relations. In the same way, the possible search for ways to escape from reality (such as drugs) is also difficult. a more active search for solutions to the problems that arise is encouraged
It has also been observed that the absence of good family integration favors concentration problems, lower productivity, tendency to discomfort and sadness, lower ability to cope with stressful situations or lower capacity for socialization.
What can make family integration difficult?
As we have said, maintaining family integration is very important to achieve generate a positive environment and climate among family members and that it develops normally. But the truth is that there are a large number of factors that can harm said integration.
One of them and probably the most common is the difficulty in reconciling family and work, especially if the schedules or type of employment mean that the minors spend a lot of time alone or that one of the parents barely spends time with them. In this sense, it is advisable to look for moments to spend together and intervene through various games and activities.
The existence of inequalities in couple relationships, undervaluation of the needs of some of the members of the family environment or the presence of problems such as crime, substance addiction or domestic violence are also causes of family disintegration problems. also generating a negative model for the development of the minor
Situations of continued unemployment, social exclusion and/or extreme poverty can also generate difficulties in maintaining said integration. Another possible difficulty of special importance is the lack of perception of the needs of family members, both at the level of the couple and children. This could be seen for example in some children with special educational needs as could be the case of minors with intellectual disabilities, autism, cerebral palsy or mental disorders.
If the presence of difficulties in maintaining a normative union and bond is detected, it may be useful to go to some type of family therapy, mediation or family counseling in order to find solutions to the problems that may arise. In this case, you can turn to family members, such as grandparents, or professional caregivers, but in this sense, the development of social policies by the administration and the business sector is necessary to allow real conciliation to exist.
