Genogram: Information About Person’s Family

The Genogram is used for gathering information about a young person’s family. It can be used for assessment and interventions in the social work field. In this genogram, I see myself at the Independence stage of life because I left my country and came to Canada for my career and personality development. I am learning time management skills, additional academic skills, and how to interact with college tutors, professors and friends out of my family.

I am struggling hard now working along with my college studies.

I am also preparing myself to face challenges all by myself without a family support system. Moving further, immediate family is defined as the close family relationships such as parents, siblings, grandparents and in-laws family. In my immediate family, I have my mother, maternal aunt, husband, mother-in-law, father-in-law and sister-in-law. My mother is 59 years old while maternal aunt is 65 years old. My maternal aunt is my mother’s biological sister who is a retired schoolteacher and her husband died at the age of 56 with throat cancer.

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My father-in-law is 52 years old while mother-in-law is 48 years old. My father-in-law is a retired military man while mother-in-law is the caretaker who takes care of the home and family. My sister-in-law is 25 years old who works in an immigration office as a counsellor. My husband is living with me in Canada and we both are struggling with finances and job stress. In my family, everyone has certain values like respecting everybody, trusting each other, honesty, punctuality, and being polite to everyone and, goals are like graduating from Canadian college and then settling down permanent in Canada with my family.

We also have dreams like a big house of our own and a successful social service worker in Canada with a high paid job. We also practice beliefs in our family like trusting each other, belief in God, getting up early morning before sunrise, organizing and cleaning house on a regular basis etc. Furthermore, I am a student and a worker as well. I work along with my studies to earn money for tuition and college fees. I am the third generation and only child of my parents and my roles are different depending upon my relationships like a daughter to my mother, daughter-in-law to in-law’s family, a wife and an elder sister to my sister-in-law too. Besides this, my mother and maternal aunt raised me, and various traditions were followed when I was born like a religious ceremony was held and my name was chosen by the priest of the temple. There was a gathering held at our home where all neighbours and close relatives were invited to a party for celebrating my birth. Also, a tradition was there for my mother to follow. She was not allowed to move out of the house and do any household work for around 40 days which is a kind of ritual followed in my family.

Moreover, I have faced many difficulties as a single parent child like emotional and physical stress, depression, anxiety and loneliness. Now as an adult I would like to address people in my community about what it looks like when you have the only child and a single parent who raises that child and what kind of challenges does a child faces while he r brought up in such an environment. In addition to the above statements, I would like to share a few important years of my life. First, in 2010 when I passed 12th grade and decided to go for higher studies in college. second, the year 2012 when I got my first job in a hospital and I kept continuing studying along with my job which was a challenging situation for me. Third, the year 2013 when I finally graduated from college with first division. Fourth, 2016 when I joined another hospital where I met my partner. Fifth, the year 2017 when I got married and last the year 2018 when I came to Canada leaving my family and country which was an overwhelming and depressing situation for me and my family. Moreover, the communication process in my family is open, clear, direct, honest and positive. Each person in both families interacts constructively by coordinating in various important tasks. Even if there is something that our family is not able to decide and fighting on different ideas and thoughts, they will put those ideas in front of each other, talk openly and have arguments rather than keeping everything to oneself and not talking to one another. Furthermore, talking about the decision-making power which stays with the oldest person who is my maternal aunt in my family and father-in-law in my in-law’s family. Father-in-law has the authority to decide what is right or wrong for the family because our society is a men-driven society where males are dominant and have more power than females. There have been several times when my mother-in-law and my husband agreed on one point and my father-in-law with the different point but in the end, the power lies with father to make decisions. Similarly, the maternal aunt who is elder to my mother is dominating and decides right or wrong.

As per adaptation patterns in my family, both families adapt easily in various in different situations by using various coping skills like healthy communication, stress management, cultural beliefs, respecting values and supporting one another with appropriate resources. Also, our informal supports like neighbourhoods, friends and colleagues from work as well as formal supports like my childhood teachers, college professors and family doctor of both families provide positive direction to my family which further affects adaptation positively. Although conflict exists in both families, yet they adapt themselves by providing valuable support to each other. In addition to the adaptation patterns, both families have different roles like providing valuable resources to each other like money, food items, clothing, shelter; Providing care and respect; and providing emotional, physical and psychological support. Furthermore, we also have certain rules and boundaries in our families to follow like respecting all whether younger or older person, never interrupting while elders are talking, less usage of cell phones when sitting with elder family members, no jumping on beds or furniture, no screaming in the house, no smoking or drinking alcohol, treat other family members with dignity, no anti-social conduct etc. Also, cohesion within my families is very strong because all the members share thoughts and conflicting ideas openly; my mother and mother-in-law move out together for shopping and do activities like knitting and cooking together which gives them more time and space to communicate; my maternal family and in-laws family go out for shopping and recreational activities which increases their emotional bonds. Thus, emotional bonds between both families lead to strong cohesion within my families. Moving further, in both families, members play a significant role which shapes the lives of each other in a structured way. Like my father-in-law is the provider and authority figure of the family, mother and mother-in-law as a caretaker responsible for emotional bonding between the family members and my husband, sister-in-law and myself follow whatever our parents want us to do. My mother and mother-in-law both support each other and help in keeping family organized and together. Our father-in-law is the decision-maker but while making decisions he always places forward his frame of reference and asks each family member about his or her opinion and then take final decisions relevant to all members of the family. Furthermore, I would discuss my mother who raised me. My mother has been supporting me physically, emotionally and psychologically so far. She raised me awith good quality education, healthy eating habits, cultural values, beliefs and various ethical standards. My mother already had a plan for shaping my career growth after schooling. She sent me to her sister’s hometown after my 12th grade where I received a college education.

My maternal aunt is very supportive, caring and who is like a mother to me. We have a strong emotional bond which is growing stronger as the days are passing. I would proudly say that my mother sacrificed everything in her life to make my life better. She taught me to believe in myself and asked me to keep on trying without making any excuses for the failures. She always taught me to be polite and respectful with every person even though I don’t like that person and I feel proud to be her daughter today. To mention, there are three kinds of family needs according to Abraham Maslow: basic needs, psychological needs and additional needs . My family needs are additional because I think each family member needs the freedom to live his life in a way he or she wants. Since our father-in-law is the authority in my in-law’s family and each member must obey his commands. Even though we disagree with his words, yet we don’t have the freedom to say ‘No’ to him because it is considered disrespectful in our family.

Additionally, health standards in my family are not very good. My mother-in-law and father-in-law are diabetic with hypertension. Also, my mother and in-law’s family feel overwhelmed sometimes with emotions like depression, eating disorders, family issues and behavioural difficulties. Hence, my family needs an informal support system that can help them during sickness and coping with their emotions. Reference Simplified, L. (n.d.). Needs of Family. Retrieved from https://kullabs.com/classes/subjects/units/lessons/notes/note-detail/394. Spindel, P. (2015). Working with families: a guide for health and human services professionals. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press.