As defined by Huston and Ripke, a family system refers to a basic social unit that has continually evolved due to changes in people’s needs and demands. Family systems are therefore, critical to the development and maintenance of society. As its basic unit, they are instrumental to the growth of cultures and nations. For example, during the nomadic/gatherers’ age, an extended family was the basic social unit that later grew into large families with tribes. This essay seeks to discuss how family systems are interrelated with healthy development, analyzing their effects on physical, spiritual, social, and emotional aspects.
The Relationship between Healthy Development and Family Systems
Feldman argues that family systems can either have a negative, positive, indirect, or direct effect on a child’s development. Although some environmental influences play an important role in human life, the effect of the family structure or system is the most significant. It is because, inside the family, a child learns to interact and respond within society. Besides, the one learns how to think about various issues and behaviors by imitating grown-ups in the family. The child also gains knowledge of how to deal with different parenting styles, particularly the one used within the family. Consequently, some children encounter abuse, violence, or negligence that forces them to learn how to overcome problems and to be resilient.
Discerning a Healthy Family System
Broderick and Blewitt elucidate that eight features characterize a healthy family system. These dimensions are clear vs. unclear communication, mutuality vs. isolation, role reciprocity vs. unclear roles, stability vs. disorganization, individuation vs. enmeshment, flexibility vs. rigidity, clear vs. unclear perception, and clear vs. diffuse generational boundaries. These dimensions help to determine whether the offspring have a balanced and stable environment where they are supposed to grow and learn. Therefore, a child learns to interact with people both inside and outside the family when provided with strong, warm, and supportive environments.
Factors Distinguishing Healthy Family Systems
A healthy family system is one that provides a child with a warm and supportive environment to learn and grow. On the contrary, unhealthy families bring up children who feel insecure and struggle with mental and learning disabilities. Another feature that marks a healthy family system is involved parents, who have interest in children’s activities and lives. In an unhealthy family system, they are usually detached socially, spiritually, and emotionally. Factors distinguishing a healthy family system from an unhealthy one include child-rearing practices embraced by parents. The latter should adopt approaches typical of their culture.
Effects of an Unhealthy Family System on Individual’s Development
An unhealthy family system has various effects on children’s development. For example, when a family has poor communication and listening practices, children develop a sense of ignoring and accusing others. The reason is that they do not have the patience of working things out in life. Besides, since most unhealthy family systems lack family affirmation, children develop feelings of inadequacy. For example, most children who grow and learn from these environments lack respect, have mistrust issues, and do not know how to spend time with their families.
Effects of Family Systems on Emotional, Social, Spiritual, and Physical Development
Family systems affect the physical development of a child in various ways. For example, a healthy family system favors the physical growth of one since parents are always concerned about their children’s welfare, including their feeding habits and health. On the other hand, an unhealthy family system may result in the malnutrition of the child since parents are usually uninvolved. Healthy family systems influence emotional and spiritual development positively. It is because a child develops senses of trust and respect as compared to those children that grow in unhealthy family systems. Social development is also influenced by a family system since children learn how to interact within society. Therefore, healthy family systems help children to grow positively, while unhealthy ones restrict their social development since they do not learn how to interact with other people. In my opinion, differing viewpoints are usually analyzed, considered, and treated.
It is apparent that family systems are critical to the development and maintenance of society. Besides, they affect various developmental milestones of a child because inside the family, the one learns to interact and respond within the larger social context. To provide additional evidence to these statements, it is necessary to conduct further research and to analyze the behavior of different people and the type of family system they were raised to determine the relationship between these two aspects.

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