Every family is dysfunctional to some degree

[Thinktank]

Agree?

Disagree?

Discuss

[MAPearce]

I tend to agree..

No one is perfect.

[Barney Google]

Oh no...not my family!

My family is perfectly perfect in every way...

it's all ya alls that are total whacked out nut jobs!!!



LOL

[spooker]

It's the dysfunctionality that makes it fun ... competing to be the black sheep ... your family will love you no matter what, it's just human nature to test that axiom ... but sometimes it breaks, then we lean on each other to find the functional dysfunction again ...

[TylerM4]

As MAPearce points out - nobody is perfect. And since a family is a collection of bodies, we can safely assume that no family is perfect either.

[Grandan]

It's the dysfunctionality that makes it fun ... competing to be the black sheep ... your family will love you no matter what, it's just human nature to test that axiom ... but sometimes it breaks, then we lean on each other to find the functional dysfunction again ...

Define dysfunctional when applied to families? Every person is different. They all have different needs. They all grew up differently even within the family, subject to birth order. My wife was 1 of 9, I was 1 of 8 kids. We had a pretty good idea of how families worked. We were both middle children so had the benefit of both older and younger children around us.
Dysfunction suggests to me that the family does not act together and creates problems for each other which may also mean absent father or mother, troubled kids or pets.
Does it mean that everyone is lovey-dovey all the time? Not likely but if they can recover from each and every downturn then they are not dysfuntional.

[Bleach]

This is my take. It's very close to how my family is.

[CoffeeCanuck]

Having grown up in the 60's/70's I believed I grew up in a 'normal' functional family. To me, dysfunctional families had substance abuse problems, mental health problems, constant conflict within the family unit, conflict with the police, that sort of thing. It wasn't until probably my late 20's that I would say no matter how good a family looks on the outside, there is ALWAYS some sort of dysfunction within. Some are just better at hiding it. The last few years, I've come to believe that while it's still true there is 'some' dysfunction in all families, there really are families that are completely functional.

Giving thought to what it means to be functional vs dysfunctional I did some reading. I found this list to be bang on to what makes a family functional. When I read through the lists meanings I acknowledge that my childhood did not meet a number of the points. On the other hand, with the exception of 'Parents Work as a Co-Parenting Team' (I am a single Mom)and 'Encourages Siblings to Work Together' (my son is an only child), I hit every point on this list raising my son. He and I had a little chat about this list of points and I asked him what his viewpoint was on them and his childhood. He said," I agree with them and I had a great childhood." https://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/ ... unctional/

Functional families encourage and provide:

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
An Emotionally Safe Environment
A Resilient Foundation
Privacy
Accountability
An Apology
Allow Reasonable Expression of Emotions
Gentle on Teasing and Sarcasm
Allows People to Change and Grow
Parents Work as a Co-Parenting Team
Encourages Siblings to Work Together
Provides Clear Boundaries
Has Each Others’ Backs
Eat Meals Together
Follow The Golden Rule. It’s golden for a reason. “Treat each other as we wish to be treated in turn.” It was true way back when and it’s still true now.

[Silverstarqueen]

I grew up in what looked like a normal family. And we probably were a lot better than many, so not drug or alcohol problems, everyone working fairly hard, no divorce, food on the table, family vacations.
But as I grew up I realized there were a number of problems in the family that took me quite a while to work out. Now, I don't know if my own family is better, but it is different. More real about our feelings, more accepting of each other, more relaxed. Still everyone is working hard, no divorce, food on the table, maybe not a lot of family vacations, but short vacations here and there. I think society is maybe more accepting of the less than perfectly appearing family. And that is a good thing.

[Fancy]

A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often child neglect or abuse on the part of individual parents occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions.

Wikipedia
NOW discuss.