Family typology in the psychological aspect. Family as an institution of socialization and personal development

From the existing set of family typologies (psychological, pedagogical, sociological), the following complex typology meets the tasks of the activities of a social teacher and social worker, which provides for the identification of four categories of families, differing in the level of social adaptation from high to medium, low and extremely low: prosperous families, families risk groups, dysfunctional families, asocial families.

Prosperous families successfully cope with their functions, practically do not need the support of a social teacher and a social worker, since due to adaptive abilities, which are based on material, psychological and other internal resources, they quickly adapt to the needs of their child, and successfully solve the problems of his upbringing and development. If problems arise, they only need one-time, one-time assistance within short-term work models.

Families at risk are characterized by the presence of some deviation from the norm, which does not allow them to be defined as prosperous, for example, an incomplete family, a low-income family, etc., and which reduces the adaptive abilities of these families. They manifest themselves with the tasks of raising a child with great effort, so the social teacher and social worker need to monitor the state of the family, the disruptive factors present in it, monitor how they are compensated by other positive characteristics, and, if necessary, offer timely help.

Dysfunctional families, having a low social status in any of the spheres of life or in several at the same time, they cannot cope with the functions assigned to them, their adaptive abilities are significantly reduced, the process of family education of a child proceeds with great difficulties, slowly, and with little results. This type of family requires active and usually long-term support from a social educator and social worker. Depending on the nature of the problems, the specialist provides such families with educational, psychological, and mediation assistance within the framework of long-term forms of work.

Antisocial families- those with whom interaction is most labor-intensive and whose condition requires fundamental changes. In a family where parents lead an immoral, illegal lifestyle and where living conditions do not meet basic sanitary and hygienic requirements, and, as a rule, no one is involved in raising children, children find themselves neglected, half-starved, lagging behind in development, and become victims of violence as on the part of parents and other citizens of the same social class. The work of a social teacher and social worker with these families should be carried out in close contact with law enforcement agencies, as well as guardianship and trusteeship authorities.

The family raises a new person together with the school and the wider community. This is a huge, responsible and honorable task for the family.

There are still families in which the painful, ugly environment has a serious impact on the children. We are referring primarily to the abnormal relationships that exist in some families between members of the same family, in particular between spouses. These relationships often lead to divorce, and at the same time to discord in the family. If in such a family the husband and wife manage to maintain the appearance of family relations, then their internal alienation, hostility towards each other, constant quarrels and reproaches make the life of children in this unfriendly, tense environment extremely difficult and usually distort the normal development of the child.

The relationship between a man and a woman, being completely free and voluntary, develops differently. We are not going to campaign against divorce in general. But we want to force parents to think about how painfully problems in the family affect their children, how children who are deprived of home comfort and home warmth suffer. And vice versa, we want to show that a child can receive proper upbringing only in a good, friendly family.

Observing the life of the family, the child is faced with the fact that in the morning all the elders go to work. ...He sees how everyone is in a hurry to get to work on time, how sometimes tired, but at the same time happy they gather at home in the evening. Gradually, the child begins to understand that all the adults are doing something very important somewhere “out there,” behind the doors of their apartment, and that when he, the baby, grows up, he will definitely work too.

Parents should in every possible way encourage the desire to work in their children, while instilling in them special respect for study, which should precede independent work. It is wrong to associate a child’s idea of ​​work only with the need to earn money, with money. The need for work should be shown to the child, first of all, as an honorable social duty of every person.

However, one should not hide the economic side of family life from schoolchildren: father, mother, and elders, when working, receive money for their work, that is, their means of subsistence.

A child of senior preschool, and even more so school age, should know that every thing that is purchased in the family: new minced meat, a radio, boots, a bicycle or anything else, as well as entertainment, trips out of town, organizing a holiday, Christmas trees - all this costs money, earned by the hard work of adults.

The child should also know well that the family has some limited amount of these funds and that if now, for example, they bought a bicycle for their older brother, then they have to wait until they get a radio. This teaches children to value the things they receive and teaches them to limit their desires, subordinating them to the general interests and needs of the family.

The awareness of the need to contribute one's feasible work into the life of the family should be instilled from early childhood, so that at school age a teenager does not even have questions about his work responsibilities in the family. If the assigned work was not completed brilliantly by the child, but he really put his effort into it, the mother or father will quietly finish cleaning the table or fixing the stool. It is important that children strive to take on part of the housework.

Of course, parents should not burden their child with excessive work. You should also not take your child away from reading, playing, or studying to carry out non-urgent tasks. Children need to know their work responsibilities to the family, but fulfilling them should not come at the expense of health, activities, or recreation.

One of the main mistakes that parents make with their children is the mistake of “favorites”. “Favorites” are well aware of their advantage and openly use it, treating their brothers and sisters with contempt. A pet until he is almost fifteen years old is considered “little”, he is exempted from household chores, he is exempted from household chores, he is forgiven for what others are punished for, he is protected from diseases, because he is “weak”, and therefore he is dressed and wrapped up with special care . Fearing overwork, they try to free him from school work, allow him to skip lessons, and most importantly, demand that everyone else also see him as a child, always give in to him in everything and give up their habits and desires for him.

It is quite obvious that other than anger, envy and frustration, such inequality in treatment of children brings nothing. At the same time, “unloved” children often strive to use the privileged position of a favorite to achieve those goals that they can directly achieve. Pet stories have a number of variations. So, we know families where the father has one favorite child, the mother another. Unequal treatment of children grossly violates the most basic principles of education. No less harmful is the difference in the views and demands of the father and mother. The father wants to raise the child in strictness and submission; the mother, on the contrary, overindulges the child.

No less evil is the excessive spoiling of children, which leads to promiscuity and selfishness. Most often, we also encounter this phenomenon in families with an only child. It becomes more and more difficult to satisfy the little master, satiated with pleasures, every day, and the child begins to seek solace in unhealthy entertainment and amusements. He tortures animals, plays mischief, but most of all he practices bullying his family.

Seeing a child constantly dissatisfied and capricious, adults look for the cause of his nervousness in fatigue. They want to relieve him of unnecessary burdens and sometimes go so far as to carry out the lessons assigned to him at school for the child. Under any pretext they are allowed to skip classes and not go to school. Such unreasonable care leads to even greater promiscuity of the child. It destroys the authority of the school and destroys all the foundations of discipline.

Is such a child grateful to adults for their work, care and attention, does he value and respect his family? No, he doesn’t appreciate her, just like he doesn’t appreciate expensive toys. Adults only fulfill their responsibility - this is how he evaluates the concerns of his relatives. And when this boy, having developed mentally, looks soberly at his family, he will even less be able to respect and love her. If he does not realize the ugliness of the home education he received, then he will remain a “little son” whom no one likes at school and who cannot make friends with any of his comrades. As a result, a person may grow up isolated from society, deprived of friends and comrades, lonely in life, with a joyless childhood without any aspirations and ideals in his youth, tired and disappointed with life at 16-18 years old, a callous egoist and skeptic.

Fortunately, the school, with its healthy camaraderie, with its vibrant academic and social life, most often sharply shakes up such a spoiled child and cultivates other qualities in him. However, in this case, the child experiences a sharp change in his relationships with loved ones; the difference between school and home becomes even more pronounced, from which he begins to move away the sooner the sooner he gets used to school.

In many families, the child is usually left to his own devices after school. Short meetings between parents and children usually involve affection and games. The entire educational value of a family leading a varied work and social life is reduced to nothing. Such parents usually explain their lack of attention to their children by being overly busy with work and social life. The child is left to himself or to a neighbor - “she will look after him.” And what he does is of little concern to parents. They are sure that the child is busy with something, playing with someone, probably reading something and walking somewhere. No reference to being busy with industrial or social work can justify parents’ inattention to raising their children.

Under any conditions, parents together (or in turns) are obliged to allocate at least one hour every day for their children. This one hour is of great importance, and parents must find it, despite all their busyness. This is their sacred duty. Then connections are established and strengthened, which are the key to future great friendship between children and parents, so necessary for both, which over time will be needed more by parents than by children.

Often the cause of a tense atmosphere in the family is unhealthy relationships between adults, especially between parents.

It should be absolutely clear to everyone that children are especially sensitive to any, even minor, disagreements between their parents. There are many things children do not understand. This ignorance of the true reasons for parental quarrels often makes children feel even more painfully that one of the parents did something bad, but what exactly is unclear; another rudely reproaches him - maybe he himself is to blame? Lost in conjecture, children do not know who is right, feel tension in relationships, see gloomy, saddened faces, hear irritated, offensive words and have a hard time with quarrels between loved ones and relatives.

Of course, in the life of a family, in the life of adults, there are difficulties, there are disputes, questions arise, both very intimate and very disturbing. But be that as it may, children should be spared the role of witnesses and observers of those conflicts that adults sometimes have to experience. Despite all the difficulties of living conditions, parents do not have the right to resolve their disputes in the presence of their children, much less with their participation. Children who witness such scenes gradually lose respect for their parents, do not believe their love for each other, and therefore question all their comments. Usually in such families, children ironically treat any calls for culture, restraint, politeness and other good rules.

Among family conflicts that painfully affect children, divorce occupies a very special place. In order to understand the depth of bitterness, and sometimes the real drama that a child experiences when his family is destroyed, it is necessary to remember that for the child his father, mother, brothers, sisters seem inextricably linked. From the stories, the child knows that once upon a time, when he was not yet alive, his mother and father lived in different places and were not married. We got married, which means we started living together. Now there are children; and now the whole family - these three - four - five people - in the child’s mind represent one strong whole.

It is known how difficult it is for children to experience the death of loved ones. But in these cases, taking from adults their attitude towards the misfortune that has befallen the family, children look at death as a grief that has befallen them, for which none of those around them is to blame.

The death of a loved one, no matter how hard it is experienced, is still a natural phenomenon and gradually smoothes out in the child’s memory. Children hear how the deceased is remembered and, as usual, speak well of him.

This is not at all what happens when a father or mother leaves the family themselves. For the first time, the child faces the fact that one whole, which seemed indestructible to him, suddenly fell apart. Father or mother, it turns out, are random people, like any strangers living in an apartment. A father or mother can leave the family in the same way as a housekeeper or a school teacher, or change the family in the same way as they change their place of residence. This in itself is a great discovery that makes the child look at people and family in a new way. The child does not dare to ask anyone, because, not yet thoroughly understanding what is going on, he feels some kind of great awkwardness, and sometimes shame, which does not allow him, along with other children, to be proud of his father (mother), his work, merit - all that until now remained an object of children's pride.

There is a huge work of thought going on, hidden from adults, on an unsolvable problem: why did this happen? There is no inevitable reason here, it is not some illness or accident that took away the father (mother). No, they are alive, healthy, with all such close features, so deeply their own, and now they suddenly turn out to be strangers. There is a reassessment of the personality of the father (mother), there is a struggle between feelings for the father and mother. This work, which is too much for the child’s psyche, the feeling of embarrassment for a loved one, some vague feeling of something bad happening to the family, the consciousness that everything around is fragile and unstable, the feeling of losing a loved one, a close person, dramatically changes the whole appearance of the child, disrupts his ordinary and calm life, disrupts his appetite and sleep, and changes his treatment of his comrades. The child becomes absent-minded, sad, very hot-tempered, gets into fights for no apparent reason or bursts into tears, becomes thoughtful and gloomy. But, what’s even harder, he often changes his attitude towards the remaining parent.

It is important for us to highlight only the elements that are most significant from a pedagogical point of view, which would give us the opportunity to understand what is happening in this educational organ and to outline ways of solving this issue in life.

First of all, we must note in the concept of family the nature of a collective, albeit a relatively small collective. This collective was created on the natural basis of a vital connection and is united primarily by the main goal of a joint struggle for existence. This goal, of course, is not the only one, but it - especially for the mass family - is the subsoil on which other goals grow. This is the first aspect of the family, which is significant from a pedagogical point of view. There is no society without the individual, but the individual as a human personality is generally conceivable only in society and on the basis of communication. Living in a group, which opens up the possibility of normal communication with others, is not only a phenomenon arising from the instinct of a social animal, but also an integral condition of any education. Education involves communication and interaction of at least two individuals, the teacher and the student. Since society is the main means of education, it is quite natural that in the history of mankind, wherever it is possible to talk about education, this mission was carried out by a minimal social unit, the family.

During the first year and in general in the first years of life, child care is one of the most important aspects of... upbringing. The most powerful engine for the development of feelings during this period is imitation. The best educational environment for a child is gradual communication with his mother, if the mother remains a nurse and nanny for him.

In the development of such a feeling, two points are of greatest importance, the analysis of which is equally important for our purpose. First of all, a child who is breastfed by his mother and enjoys her maternal care and care establishes a strong association between the image of the mother and the pleasant feelings that he experiences when satisfying hunger or getting rid of many other unpleasant sensations thanks to her care. The whole act of feeding a child with its accessories, with maternal affection constitutes one of the highest sources of childhood pleasure and one of the strongest stimuli in the development of the incipient higher feelings... from this physiological source of closeness between a mother and her child, future feelings of human solidarity and altruism grow. But there is another, much more important side to maternal care for a child. As is known, motherhood, even in animals, awakens altruistic feelings that animals do not show at all at other times. In a human being, motherhood excites all mental and moral aspects and calls to life all the highest qualities with which a given person is endowed. In terms of the strength of feelings, of the two parents, the woman takes first place, because she is distinguished by an unconditionally higher development of feelings than in men. This difference becomes even more noticeable during motherhood; At this time, a woman’s philanthropy and selflessness rise to a height barely accessible to a man. And if only the mother remains the nurse and nanny of her child, then his mental and moral development is most ensured in constant communication with such a high example.

Many volitional movements of a child are imitative movements... In the development of feelings, imitation plays the most important role and, perhaps, constitutes the only external source of moral development. If for intellectual development a child organizes games for himself, then for the development of complex forms of feeling nothing like this exists. All this shows the truly important significance of the presence at the child’s cradle of a being who is captured by the highest human impulses and impulses and therefore can serve as the best instrument for the development of the child’s feelings. Thus, the mother's task is much higher than it is usually understood. If we take into account the importance and significance of feeling in the mental progress of a person, then only then will the role of the mother and the role of the woman as a representative of motherhood be presented in the proper light.

In modern psychological and pedagogical literature there are various typologies of families, but they are all characterized by the following features:

by number of children: childless or infertile family, small family, large family;

by composition: incomplete, separate, simple or nuclear, complex (family of several generations), large, maternal, remarried family;

by structure: with one married couple with or without children, with one of the parents of the spouses and other relatives, with two or more married couples with or without children, with a mother (father) with children, with one of the parents and other relatives, other families;

according to the structure of leadership in the family: egalitarian (democratic) and traditional (authoritarian);

according to family life, family structure: a family is an “outlet”, a child-centric family, a family such as a sports team or a discussion club and a family that puts comfort, health, order first;

according to the homogeneity of the social composition depending on the nation, level of education, profession, etc.: socially homogeneous (homogeneous) and heterogeneous (heterogeneous);

by family experience: newlyweds, young family, family expecting a child, family of middle married age, older married age, elderly couple;

according to the quality of relationships and atmosphere in the family: prosperous, stable, dysfunctional, pedagogically weak, unstable, disorganized;

by geography: urban, rural, remote family (living in hard-to-reach areas);

by type of consumer behavior: family with a “physiological” type of consumption, family with an “intellectual” type of consumption, family with an intermediate type of consumption;

according to special conditions of family life: student, “distant”, “extramarital”;

by the nature of leisure activities: open and closed (focused on indoor leisure);

by social mobility: reactive, medium active and active family;

according to the degree of cooperation of joint activities: traditional, collectivist and individualistic;

according to mental health: healthy family, neurotic, victimogenic.

Let's take a closer look at some types of families:

A young family is a family at the initial stage of its development, at the stage of implementing marital choice. It reveals the usual phenomenon of discovering another person and “grinding in” of characters, i.e. changing your entire lifestyle. There are three main types of young families:

The first type is traditional. Families of this type are characterized by the spouses’ orientation exclusively towards family values, towards a two-child family. The leader in the family, at least formally, is the husband. However, leadership in the family is largely determined by leadership in the economic and everyday sphere of its activities (finance, housing arrangement). The circle of friends of spouses, as a rule, is common and quite limited, perhaps even temporarily withdrawing into family matters. Leisure is often shared and private.

The second type - spouses are focused primarily on personal development and have a focus on a small family. Social-role balance is observed (if possible, the help of the spouses' parents is used). A family can be both open and closed to the microenvironment. The type of leadership is democratic: joint or separate according to the spheres of the family’s life.

The third type - young spouses are focused primarily on entertainment. At the same time, the husband and wife have both common friends and each their own, as a rule, from their previous circle. Reproductive attitudes for a childless or small family. Leadership in the family can be either authoritarian or democratic.

Family of middle married age. It is a kind of team, the relationships in which can be defined as the education of educators. Most parents are convinced from their own experience that they educate not only words, but also lifestyle and actions. If parents want to develop any quality in a child, they must first of all possess it themselves. One of the problems of middle-aged families is monotony, boredom, and the routine of family life. By this period, many previously difficult issues of family life have already been resolved, the spouses feel calm, and their activity has decreased. The spouses themselves can (and should) increase it by setting new, increasingly complex goals and objectives for the family, highlighting the immediate and long-term prospects associated with them.

An elderly family is a mature married dyad living with their children or independently. This is the period when spouses retire. A number of objective conditions arise for solving certain problems in the life of a family, when it must adapt to new conditions (changes in lifestyle, social status, work hours and social environment, etc.). This period is typical for some families with increased work activity, both at home and in society (the appearance of grandchildren and participation in their upbringing, participation in public work), and for others - oblivion and self-realization in the newfound microenvironment, mainly from their old acquaintances and friends. During this period, many people experience health problems.

The life activity of an elderly family from the point of view of its organization is quite complex. It is especially problematic if she lives separately after the children leave, with her characteristic protracted adaptation both to the microenvironment and to the social environment as a whole: pronounced polarization of moods and categorical judgments - from extremely decadent to egocentric. Among the many psychogenic deviations acquired by spouses in recent years of single life, the most pronounced is the “expansion of the sphere of parental feelings.”

A childless or infertile family is considered if there are no children within ten years of married life. In our country there are about 16% of such families (in the whole world there are no more than 30%). Usually, late marriages are childless. Only 1% of all families do not want to have children at all (even if they can have them).

Socio-psychological surveys show that the issue is often not the spouses’ reluctance to have children, but the inability to support them. Every third childless family (which in turn is also problematic) breaks up, most often on the initiative of the husband. However, among divorced people, only a small proportion of spouses cite childlessness as the reason for divorce. The main cause of divorce is relationship dissonance. These families more often live with the parents of one of the spouses. The moral and psychological atmosphere and living conditions of childless families are more conducive to self-expression, the manifestation of the abilities of the personal qualities of spouses and qualities that are not only positive.

Large family - this category includes families with 3, and in some regions of Russia - 4 children. These families are very close-knit. Divorces are quite rare in them and occur mainly due to the inability of husbands to raise children and their failure to fulfill other family and household responsibilities. In families, a group of children of different ages is formed, taking on many household chores and solving family problems of considerable complexity. In the relationships between members of a large family, respectful attitude towards elders and leadership of elders are especially significant.

However, in our conditions, as statistics show, the majority of large families are poor, and every fourth large family is disadvantaged.

A small family is a fairly common category of families, usually consisting of a husband, wife and two or most often one child. Families with one child are also noted as one-child families. In such families there is a favorable opportunity for the formation of socio-psychological qualities in children and parents (attachment, cohesion, leadership), but at the same time, experts note in a one-child family the negative side of socio-psychological properties associated with raising an only child. He has limited opportunities to communicate with peers, and therefore worse conditions for the development of emotional qualities.

A characteristic feature of life is the content of its substantive and practical activities, the basis of which is actions to realize the individual needs of family members. To a greater extent, this is expressed by the desire to establish themselves in the professional, educational (pedagogical) or educational spheres. Often the needs of one of the spouses are dominant, and the entire life of the family is subject to their implementation. The circle of communication, as a rule, is limited to relatives and professional colleagues, often the right people. The initiative for leadership in the family belongs to the spouse who has more to do with the child and household chores of the family. In recent years, the level of well-being of these families has decreased significantly.

A complex family is a family consisting of complete families of several generations, families of two or more married couples, i.e. from the parents of the spouses, the spouses themselves and their children. Currently, such families are becoming less and less, and their number is only 2-3%. The most common types are: one or both parents of one of the spouses, a married couple and a young family. Moreover, the proportion of young couples living in such families is 75-80%, and the number of middle-aged families in complex families does not exceed 20%. It should be noted that the duration of existence of a complex family is short, because over time, the young family or the older generation drop out of it for various reasons. The most important features of the life of a complex family are, as a rule, stable interpersonal relationships, a well-established life, the most favorable conditions for young spouses in raising children and realizing family goals and attitudes (there are grandparents). These families develop a unique moral and psychological atmosphere. However, in a complex family, not everything is so simple. Many different problems are fraught with intergenerational communication, choosing appropriate ways to raise a child, running a household, etc. Often, problems of this etiology spill over into the area of ​​marital relationships and create conditions for the disintegration of a young family.

Wealthy family. This category of families may include young, average, and elderly families. A childless, small or large family can be prosperous. The well-being of a family is not only material security, but also a socio-psychological component of life. From this point of view, a prosperous family is one in which spouses and other family members value each other highly and the husband’s authority in the family is high. There are practically no conflicts, and disagreements that arise can hardly be called quarrels: the spouses soon agree on how to do better to solve the problems that have arisen. All members of prosperous families are confident that others are always welcome to them, are confident in each other’s reciprocity, and are ready to help without waiting for a request. In such families, their own family traditions and rituals are formed and preserved, making family life more interesting. A prosperous family is characterized by a high level of psychological health. At the same time, even the most prosperous family cannot exist autonomously from society, but, on the contrary, is more often its active transformative force and is exposed, like any family, to many factors in modern society.

Dysfunctional family - these include those families that, for a certain time, are not able to withstand the effects of destabilizing factors outside the family and within the family. These include mixed (as a rule) and extramarital families, single-parent, problematic, conflict, crisis, neurotic, pedagogically weak, disorganized and other families.

The moral and psychological atmosphere of dysfunctional families gives rise to “difficult” children. Up to 90% of children from these families have behavioral deviations from the norm. The problems of dysfunctional families are very diverse. These are difficulties in marital relationships, contradictions in the relationship between parents and children, disagreements in views on raising children and the role of each parent in this, exaggerated needs of one or both spouses, etc. All this and much more creates conditions in which the family for a certain time balances on the subject of resolving the problem or turning it into a chronic one, preserving the family or its disintegration.

A mixed family or a remarriage family is a newly created family that unites parts of existing families that have broken up for various reasons. There are three types of such families:

A woman with children marries a man without children.

A man with children marries a woman without children.

Both the man and the woman, when married, have children from previous partners.

In the first case, a mixed family consists of a wife, the wife's children, the husband and the wife's ex-husband, i.e. these are three adults, including two men. In the second case, it includes the husband, the husband’s children, the wife and the husband’s ex-wife, i.e. - also three adults, but two of them are women. In the third case, the family consists of the wife, the wife's children, the wife's ex-husband, the husband, the husband's children and the husband's ex-wife, i.e. four adults, a man and a woman, building a new family, and a man and woman who are completely strangers to each other - free or who have also managed to start a family.

Although these people most likely cannot all live together under the same roof, they are present to one degree or another in each other's lives. A mixed family lives and develops prosperously, provided that each member is important and needed. Many people try to live as if others with whom they were previously involved do not exist. At the same time, all these people, to one degree or another, influence the life of the family.

Every year the number of citizens re-tying themselves into marital ties increases. The peculiarity of the new family is that each member of the new family had a past life, and much of what happens to him today has its roots in the past.

Extramarital family ("concubinate"). It is a long-term, legally unregistered marriage union between a man and a woman with or without children who do not intend to formalize the marriage. These can be premarital stable and long-term family relationships of young people, which can lead to marriage or the emergence of a maternal family, in this case an extramarital one.

Single-parent family - occurs when one of the members of a given family is absent. In such cases, the following incomplete families are formed:

The “maternal” family (family of a single mother) is a type of single-parent family, initially celibate. A parent is a woman who gives birth to a child out of wedlock. The main factors influencing the psychology of the family: the presence of a second parent and the nature of the relationship with him, the attitude of the woman’s parents towards an illegitimate child, the attitude of the mother towards the child.

An incomplete family as a result of divorce is a family that has broken up after a divorce, as a rule, it remains in this state for a long time. Divorce and breakup have a traumatic effect on the psyche of children, and the relationship between mother and child is often disrupted. The performance of such children at school is lower than that of children from two-parent families. They read relatively little, spend most of their time outside the home, are more independent and have more developed human qualities - understanding, responsiveness, emotionality, and enter the adult world earlier. About 50% of juvenile offenders lived in single-parent families. Along with this, it is important to remember that divorces affect the child as a future family man: a child raised in an incomplete family learns negative behavioral traits and manners of relating to the opposite sex.

An incomplete family resulting from widowhood is a family in which only one mother or father remains with the children. Widowhood at any stage of the life of an ordinary family is experienced as a very strong difficulty, which affects almost all of its functions, some of which reduce their former significance, and some of which lose all meaning. The loss of interest in life of a widow (widower) affects the children’s lifestyle and their socialization. The circle of communication is gradually limited to the microenvironment of the parent; its content consists mainly of mutual assistance in matters of raising children, home improvement, and housekeeping. The previous life is absolutized, the deceased spouse is deified, and all living ones pale in front of these stereotypes for a long time. Restoring the social activity of members of such a family on their own is quite difficult.

An incomplete family formed upon the official adoption of a child by a man or woman. A characteristic feature of such a family is an increased interest in life. This is a consequence of the altruistic orientation of the parent or a consequence of deep experiences due to various reasons (the death of their children, the inability to have their own children, etc.). In such cases, the parent is careful about the child’s life and tries not to interfere too much in his life. Among women who have been striving for a long time to have a child in this way, a number of psychogenic deviations such as “excessive care” or “phobia of losing” a child may develop, but with timely psychological correction, typical parental feelings are usually restored.

A distant family can be an ordinary family (childless, often small or large), in which life for the most part for each spouse is separate due to the specific profession of one or both marriage partners. These may include families: sailors, river workers, polar explorers, geologists, oil workers, astronauts, military personnel, artists, athletes, flight attendants on long-distance trains and representatives of many other professions. On average, the number of such families reaches 4 - 6% of the total.

Opinions about the stability of “distant” families are contradictory: some believe that the very specificity of these families makes them unstable. Others believe that such families are some of the strongest and most stable families. However, both admit that they have problems with the development and upbringing of children. One of the spouses (usually the mother) or the street plays a large role in their socialization. There are often disputes among spouses about methods of raising children and the reasons for their deviant behavior at the next gathering of the whole family.

Heterogeneous family (socially heterogeneous). In such a family, spouses have different levels of education and professional orientation. Actual “contraindications” for the well-being of the marital union are compensated over a certain period of time by “indications” of various characteristics of the entire family. The number of such families reaches 38%, and their number is currently growing. The stability of a marriage is largely determined by the positions of the spouses. The family is characterized by a lack of common interests, instability in maintaining the integrity of views, intentions, attitudes and prospects, and conflict. The main causes of conflicts are often jealousy and suspicion of deception (at almost any age, except perhaps with varying intensity of manifestation). Often the family does not notice these phenomena, because from the very beginning of its formation it is in a slightly elevated neuro-emotional state compared to the norm. And all family members accept this background value as the norm and from it they measure the socio-psychological phenomena occurring in the family, including conflicts.

Each of the spouses of a heterogeneous family has its own microenvironment, and their interests rarely intersect. The relationship between parents and young people is often strained. As a rule, the authoritarian communication style dominates. In almost all spheres of family life, one of the spouses is the leader.

An interethnic family is a family in which not only spouses are representatives of different nations, but also children who, upon reaching adulthood, represent the nation of one of their parents. Such families arise mainly in unusual circumstances from representatives of different nations. Their formation is significantly influenced by the ethnographic features of society.

The way of life of an interethnic family has practically the same features as the way of life of an ordinary Russian family. The main difference lies in the content of the moral and psychological atmosphere, reflecting the integration of national traditions, interpersonal relationships between parents and children, etc. Intrafamily relationships are quite strongly influenced by the national psychological characteristics of each spouse; temperament, character traits, habits, etc. The microenvironment of such a family is determined by the nature of maintaining ties between each spouse and their nationality.

Concluding the conversation about the typology of families, it should be noted that a family, in the course of its life, can change its place in the classification of families.

The range of types, forms and categories of the modern family is quite diverse. Different types (categories) of families function differently in certain areas of family relations. They react differently to the influence of various factors of modern life.

Family typologies are determined by different approaches to identifying the subject of study.

V.S. Torokhtiy, summarizing the results of previous studies, notes that modern families differ from each other in the following ways:

• 1) By the number of children:
  • - childless, or infertile, family;
  • - one-child;
  • - small child;
  • - having many children.
• 2) By composition:
  • - single-parent family;
  • - separate;
  • - simple or nuclear;
  • - complex (family of several generations);
  • - big family;
  • - maternal family;
  • - family of remarriage.
• 3) By structure:
  • - with one married couple with or without children;
  • - with one of the spouses’ parents and other relatives;
  • - with two or more married couples with or without children;
  • - with or without one of the spouses’ parents and other relatives;
  • - with mother (father) and children.
• 4) By type of leadership in the family:
  • - egalitarian families;
  • - authoritarian families.
• 5) According to family life, way of life:
  • - family is an “outlet”;
  • - family of child-centric type;
  • - a family such as a sports team or discussion club;
  • - a family that puts comfort, health and order first.
• 6) By homogeneity of social composition:
  • - socially homogeneous (homogeneous) families;
  • - heterogeneous (heterogeneous) families.
• 7) According to family experience:
  • - newlyweds;
  • - young family;
  • - a family expecting a child;
  • - family of middle marriage;
  • - family of older married age;
  • - elderly married couples.
• 8) By the quality of relationships and atmosphere in the family:
  • - prosperous;
  • - stable;
  • - pedagogically weak;
  • - unstable;
  • - disorganized.
• 9) Geographically:
  • - urban;
  • - rural;
  • - remote (regions of the Far North).
• 10) By type of consumer behavior:
  • - families with a “physiological” or “naive consumer” type of consumption (mainly food-oriented);
  • - families with an “intellectual type of consumption, i.e. with a high level of expenditure on the purchase of books, magazines, entertainment events, etc.;
  • - families with an intermediate type of consumption.
• 11) For special conditions of family life:
  • - student family;
  • - “distant” family;
  • - "illegitimate family."
• 12) By the nature of leisure time:
  • - open;
  • - closed.
• 13) On social mobility:
  • - reactive families;
  • - families of average activity;
  • - active families.
• 14) According to the degree of cooperation of joint activities:
  • - traditional;
  • - collectivist;
  • - individualistic.
• 15) For psychological health reasons:
  • - healthy family;
  • - neurotic family;
  • - victimogenic family.

Each of the categories of families is characterized by the socio-psychological phenomena and processes occurring in it, its inherent marital and family relations, including the psychological aspects of objective and practical activity, the circle of communication and its content, the characteristics of emotional contacts of family members, the socio-psychological goals of the family and individual psychological needs of its members.

To a large extent, the success of future family relationships is determined by the motives for marriage.

To date, various forms of marriage and family relations have developed, the most common of which are the following:

• 1) Marriage and family relations based on an honest contract system. Both spouses have a clear idea of ​​what they want from the marriage and expect certain material benefits. The terms of the contract themselves cement and help solve vital problems. Emotional attachment, which can hardly be called love, but which nevertheless exists in such a union, as a rule, intensifies over time (“they will live to see love,” as I. S. Turgenev puts it). Although, if the family exists only as an economic unit, the feeling of emotional takeoff is completely lost. People entering into such a marriage have the most powerful practical support from their partner in all practical endeavors - since both the wife and husband pursue their own economic gain. In such marital and family relations, the degree of freedom of each spouse is maximum, and personal involvement is minimal: fulfilled the terms of the contract - you are free to do what you want.
• 2) Marriage and family relations based on an unfair contract. A man and a woman try to extract one-sided benefits from marriage and thereby harm their partner. There is no need to talk about love here either, although often in this version of marriage and family relations it is one-sided (in the name of which the spouse, realizing that he is being deceived and exploited, endures everything).
• 3) Marriage and family relations under duress. One of the spouses somewhat “besieges” the other, and either due to certain life circumstances or out of pity, he finally agrees to a compromise. In such cases, it is also difficult to talk about deep feelings: even on the part of the “besieger,” ambition, the desire to possess the object of worship, and passion are more likely to prevail. When such a marriage finally takes place, the “besieger” begins to consider the spouse his property. The feeling of freedom necessary in marriage and family as a whole is absolutely excluded here. The psychological foundations of the existence of such a family are so deformed that the compromises that family life requires are impossible.
• 4) Marriage and family relations as a ritual fulfillment of social and normative guidelines. At a certain age, people come to the conclusion that everyone around them is married and that it is time to start a family. This is a marriage without love and without calculation, but only following certain social stereotypes. In such families, the prerequisites for a long family life are not often created. Most often, such marriage and family relationships develop by chance and just as accidentally fall apart, without leaving deep traces.
• 5) Marriage and family relationships, sanctified by love. Two people connect voluntarily because they cannot imagine their lives without each other. In a love marriage, the restrictions that the spouses accept are purely voluntary: they enjoy spending their free time together, with their family members, and they like to do something good for each other and for the rest of the family. Marriage and family relations in this version are the highest degree of unification of people, when children are born in love, when any of the spouses retains their independence and individuality - with the full support of the other. The paradox is that by voluntarily accepting such restrictions (“I am happy if you are happy”), people become freer... The marriage and family form of such relationships is built on trust, on greater respect for the person than for generally accepted norms.

Another classification calls marriage for love, “role-playing,” mixed, marriage based on complementarity as options for a stable family that are currently being formed.

A love marriage is the most promising and stable when the spouses enter family life with mutual love, and each of them is a mature person. But this marriage also faces many dangers: the very transition from the relatively free premarital period to a family situation with its restrictions and everyday life turns out to be a difficult test for a young family. A common reason for the disintegration of love marriages is the discrepancy between the ideal ideas of the husband and wife about the home life.

In a “role-playing” marriage, the style of family life is built on the basis of a formal agreement. Family in this case is a means to achieve something and, as a rule, for both spouses.

In a mixed marriage, one of the spouses loves the other, while the latter is more focused on the role-based structure of marriage. The style of family life is based on the fact that a loving spouse accepts the distribution of roles that his partner offers him.

In a marriage based on complementarity, each spouse receives from the other psychologically what he lacks, i.e. mutual decompensation occurs.

Family relationships have a number of psychological characteristics that are unique to them:

• - the presence of not one, but a number of family goals that can change in the process of family development;
• - partial differences in the interests and attitudes of family members;
• - the presence of a married couple, the relationship in which largely determines the nature of interaction in the family;
• - the inclusion of representatives of several generations and a long period of close acquaintance between its members;
• - versatility and significance of family relationships, and their interrelation;
• - special openness and vulnerability of family members.

Family relationships are influenced by external and internal factors. External factors include the totality of material and spiritual conditions existing in a given society. This determines interpersonal relationships in society, the workforce, and the family.

The action and manifestation of internal factors is observed at the level of interpersonal relationships through the implementation (or vice versa) of mutual expectations, their internal satisfaction with the relationship process.

Internal factors contributing to successful activity include the individual psychological characteristics of family partners: these are the intellectual, characterological and socio-psychological characteristics of the spouses.

The basic life orientations or life strategies of family partners acquire particular significance:

internal control - external control;

egoism - sociocentrism (altruism);

orientation towards social norms - towards oneself;

acceptance of contradictions - their rejection;

self-esteem - lack of self-confidence.

Other factors that stabilize family relationships include:

• - constant desire of partners to preserve the family;
• - desire and ability of partners to coordinate actions for the benefit of the family;
• - the initiative of each spouse in solving family problems and the real contribution of each to public affairs;
• - a reasonable combination of various personal goals and needs with general family affairs and needs;
• - the desire in difficult times for emotional unity and cohesion;
• - aesthetic appeal (appearance, demeanor, etc.);
• - the ability to emotionally warm a spouse, i.e. behave in such a way as to create an atmosphere of trust, ease, and cordiality.

To date, families have appeared whose description does not correspond to traditional ideas. American psychotherapist V. Satir calls such families non-traditional.

Nowadays, many children are not raised by the adults to whom they owe their birth. When a family has only one parent, it is called incomplete. There are three types of such families:

the first type is when one parent left and the remaining parent did not remarry;

the second type - a single person officially adopted a child;

the third type is an unmarried woman raising a son or daughter alone.

Most often, single-parent families consist of a woman mother and her children. When new families are created in such situations, V. Satir calls such newly created families called mixed. She identifies three types of such families: 1. A woman with children marries a man without children.

• 2. A man with children marries a woman without children.
• 3. Both the man and the woman have children from previous partners.

A family adopting a child is another form of a mixed family:

• - it can include only one adopted child;
• - one adopted child and several natural children;
• - one natural child and several adopted children.

Although mixed and single-parent families are quite unique and therefore different from others, nevertheless, they have a lot, according to V. Satir, that brings them closer to any other families. Each of them can be first-class if the spouses bring care and creativity to it. The type of family does not at all determine what happens in it. It only determines the problems that family members face, but it is the relationships between them that ultimately determine the well-being of the family: how successfully the adult members of the family develop individually and collectively, the children become creative and healthy people. According to V. Satir, in this sense, all families are the same.

In modern society, alternative forms of marriage and family relations are developing. What kind of relationships these are and what their essence is will be discussed in the next paragraph of the course work.

By number of marriage partners:
1) monogamous family - one husband and one wife;
2) polygamous family:

• polyandry - polyandry;
• polygyny - polygamy.

By number of generations:

1. simple (nuclear) family - consists of representatives of only two generations (parents and children);
2. complex (extended) family – consists of representatives of at least three generations (grandparents, parents, children).

According to the goals and nature of partnerships:

1. traditional family - characterized by a lack of awareness of relationships, lack of development, creativity, freedom, attachment to everyday life, and the presence of possessive instincts. The main goal of such a family is to continue the family line, maintain stability, and the desire not to stand out;
2. dependent family - also characterized by a lack of awareness of relationships, lack of development, attachment to everyday life, love illusion, the presence of all kinds of complexes, addictions, pathological attachments, etc. The main goal of such a family is to satisfy psychological needs, avoid the fear of loneliness, responsibility;
3. partner family - characterized by awareness, development, responsibility, participation in the affairs of the family of both all members, the desire for openness, an agreement on controversial issues, flexibility in relationships, mutual assistance, etc. The main goal of such a family is self-development, self-realization through the family, assistance in development partner.

According to the criterion of harmony:
1) harmonious family - characterized by openness, creative growth and personal development of all its members, warm emotional relationships between parents and children;
2) disharmonious psychological types of families:

• and an “outwardly calm family” is characterized by external balance, which hides the dissatisfaction accumulated over the years, the predominance of a sense of responsibility over the sincerity of feelings;
• “volcanic family” - characterized by unbalanced relationships: scandals and divorces alternate with declarations of eternal love and unification. Relationships are open, spontaneity and emotional instability dominate over the sense of responsibility. A child in such a family lives like on a powder keg, even when everything is fine, he feels danger, which leads to neuroticism;
• “sanatorium family” - characterized by increased anxiety for the life or health of one of the family members, which manifests itself in limiting the responsibilities of a “precious” family member and increasing the responsibilities of the rest. Such care takes the form of a cult. Leads to physical and nervous overload, neuroses;
• “family-fortress” - characterized by external stability, cohesion, against some danger coming from outside. An illusion of complete mutual understanding is created, an expressed “we-feeling”, behind which a spiritual emptiness or a violation of sexual relations is hidden. Family life is strictly regulated and subject to certain goals;
• “demonstrative family, theater family” - characterized by playing a performance in front of each other, which is designed to maintain the appearance of well-being and maintain the necessary close distance;
• “family is the third wheel” – characterized by concentrating attention on each other, while ignoring or hidden rejection of the child;
• “family with an idol” - characterized by overprotection of the child, which strengthens the marital relationship. Caring for a child turns into the only force capable of keeping parents together;
• “masquerade family” – characterized by inconsistency in the life goals and plans of the spouses, inconsistent upbringing, and unhealthy competition.

Family is the most important phenomenon that accompanies a person throughout his life. The significance of its influence on the individual, its complexity, versatility and problematic nature determine a large number of different approaches to the study of the family. Traditionally, the “nucleus” of a family is considered to be a married couple, with the addition of children, relatives, and spouses’ parents to the “core.”

However, there are several typological approaches to the family:

1) based on historical analysis of the development of the family and the continuity of its forms (matri-archal family, group, pair, patriarchal, monogamous);

2) based on an analysis of the family structure and the types of kinship represented in it (nuclear, extended, incomplete, mixed).

3) typology of S.I. Golod (1998), based on an analysis of the priority importance of the poles of two family axes (husband-wife; parents-children).

Let us consider the first family typology, based on a historical analysis of the development of the family and the continuity of its forms. The most ancient form of human social organization was the gens , which united all people descended from one foremother: her daughters, her daughters’ children, and so on ad infinitum. The family was matriarchal family, which included all descendants in the female line.

Group family relied on the marriage of several sisters with a group of men. Husbands, in turn, could be related, but they could also be unrelated. Kinship was considered through the female line, since paternity was not reliably established. Signs matrilineality, The origins and greater significance of maternal kinship are observed among some peoples who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (Golod S.I., 1998).

Couple family was based on the marriage of individual couples, but the relationship was not stable and could be interrupted at any time at the request of either party.

Patriarchal family was based on the marriage of one man with several women, it was polygamous for the man, and was accompanied by “the seclusion of the wives; formed during the period of the emergence of property. This type of family was determined by the dominance of the man in resolving all issues of family life and consolidated patrilineality(counting along the male line of kinship and male inheritance law).

Monogamous family- a family created by one man and one woman; their marriage is constant throughout their lives (from the ancient Greek Monos - one, only, gamos - marriage). This type of family developed approximately three thousand years ago (in the first millennium BC). Many family researchers in their judgments proceed from the idea that the patriarchal monogamous family of recent centuries in European life is a positive example, and deviations from it are phenomena that have a rather negative impact on human socialization.

If we talk about changes in the modern family, the most obvious can be considered the change in the social status of women - expressed in the desire to “establish themselves” professionally and make a career. From this follow subsequent changes affecting the family directly. Due to the economic independence that a woman gained in the 20th century, her status in the family changed, and the structure of the family became two or one-vertex, but the role of the head is occupied by the woman. Thus, the man loses his dominant functions in the field of providing resources, making decisions and introducing children to society.

A woman devotes less and less time to her family and raising a child; reproduction is placed in a subordinate position relative to career. It follows that the childbearing rates of modern families and the population of industrialized countries are steadily declining. The functions of education are gradually transferred to other persons - either the nanny and governess, or the state. If these functions are transferred to the state, as was the case in the Soviet period in Russia, instead of individual guardianship and the constant care of a loved one, children are raised in faceless relationships by government employees. This replacement of mother's guardianship with state guardianship most tragically affects the mental development of the child, causing irreversible symptoms of latent or obvious maternal derivation.

The following approach describes the structure of the family through the numerical composition of the family, the type of relationship and the roles played by family members. (Antonov A.I., Medkov V.M., 1996; Antonov A.I., 1998).

Nuclear (nuclear) family- consists of representatives of two generations - spouses and their children, numbering three or more people; is represented by 8 types of family roles: husband, wife (spouses for each other), father, mother (parents for their children), sons, daughters (children for their parents), brothers, sisters (for each other). From the presented set of roles it is clear that the role range of members of a nuclear family is quite extensive, which helps members of such a family and, especially, children, master significant life relationship skills from an early age.

extended family- the most typical family in agricultural cultures. Currently, the number of such families is decreasing, especially in cities. This family consists of three generations - the parents of one of the spouses, the spouses and their children. It presents 12 types of family roles (members of the grandparent couple perform 4 roles each: grandfather, husband, father, father-in-law; members of the parent couple - 3 roles each: father, husband, son; children - 3 roles each: son, brother, grandson), the fulfillment of which can create a certain tension and requires flexibility, since some family members must fulfill both child and parental roles at the same time (for example, when a man is a son to his parents and a father to his own children).

Single-parent family- a family, most often consisting of two people, in which at least one of the marital or child roles is not represented. In most cases, we are talking about a single parent and his child or a childless couple. The role range in such a family is impoverished, and interpersonal dependence is excessive, which also creates tension in relationships. A single parent may experience a derivation of the need for support, understanding, and intimacy. The personal development of a child from an incomplete family slows down due to the difficulties of the identification process. The financial resources of such a family are often also limited.

Blended family is a family consisting of “fragments” (parts) of previous families (Satir V., 1992), for example, a single woman and a widower with a child, a divorced man and woman with their children from previous marriages. The difficulties of such a family are that the members of the new family are connected by many relationship threads with other people outside of this one; they are connected with them by the family roles that they played in previous families.

The third typology of families is described by S.I. Hunger, identifying three types of monogamous families, which represent different family structures. In the works of S.I. Golod, the main attention was paid to the structure of the family, by which the author understood the relationship of consanguinity and property.

S.I. Golod identified three ideal types of family:

· traditional patriarchal family;

· modern child-centric family;

· married (mediocre) family.

All three types of family belong to Western European culture, but have different prevalence and representation in societies that differ in their characteristics and stages of development. The hidden basis of the family typology, according to S.I. Golod, was obviously the relationship of power (dominance-subordination). With the dominance of the father, the family is considered traditionally patriarchal, with the dominance of the whims and/or interests of the child - child-centric, with equality of spouses and the subordinate position of children - marital or egalitarian.

Patriarchal monogamous family- a family based on the dominance of the eldest man in the family, the dependent position of the wife on her husband, and the dependent position of children on their parents. In a patriarchal family, sons do not separate from their father’s family, but bring their wives into their father’s family clan, while daughters go to their husbands’ family clans and lose their surname. This is a family in which the name of the clan (surname), the account of kinship and the right of inheritance are carried out through the male line, and the types of work are divided between men and women. Men perform work primarily to provide the family with resources, women do domestic household work.

Child-centric monogamous family arose at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. In connection with the processes of emancipation and the establishment of social rights of the child. The childbearing rate decreases, the value of a child in the family increases. Along with a career, the child becomes the focus of the parents’ interests, and a significant part of the family’s budget is spent on meeting the child’s needs, on his upbringing and education. In connection with the new needs of the family, the industry of special baby food, children's clothing, children's games and toys, children's museums, children's literature, and cinema is developing.

A variety of educational centers and training programs are appearing, programs are specially developed to facilitate entry into professional activities (vocational counseling), the duration of childhood increases, and the child’s inclusion in the labor system is postponed to a later date. The child gets used to being in charge, to be at the center of the whole family, gets used to the fact that everything is done for him. This leads to an increase in children's egocentrism.

Married family arose in the 60s. XX century As a result of the joint action of emancipation movements - women's and children's. The main relationship line around which such a family is built is the relationship between two people - husband and wife. These relationships are built on the desire for maximum disclosure of one’s human nature on the basis of intimacy and autonomy.