Listen to thisChild and Youth Care practitioners who work in family homes have to be well versed in theory as well as creative and concretely helpful to families. The worker must think systemically, have a clear grasp of Family Life Cycle dynamics, understand developmental issues for each person and be able to support healthy growth by using the life space of the family. Counseling and office-based rules about boundaries often are not transferable to life space work. Talking about how you would feel if I brought a loaf of bread to a hungry mom is less useful than actually bringing the bread.
We had a discussion the other day about a family where the teenage daughter became a mother while still in high school, no father in the picture, living at home with her parents, who had already successfully launched two older adult children. In the family life cycle, the parents/grandparents should be starting to re-discover themselves as a couple, be letting go of the obligations of parenthood, and focusing on their own hopes and dreams for the near future. The daughter should be clarifying her identity, starting to become an independent adult ready to leave home, not mothering an infant.
If the grandfather welcomed the opportunity to remain a parent/breadwinner, and urged his wife to continue being a parent/mother, they risk getting stuck developmentally. If the daughter stops her identity search and settles into the role of mother too easily, she may suffer in the long run. Yet in the short term, this would look like a workable plan.
Some ideas from the discussion included having the worker send the grandparents on a date, while attending to the daughter and baby, so that they can be a couple again and the daughter can practice mothering. Arranging for the grandparents to schedule regular baby time, thus allowing the daughter to get together with friends and be a teenager, not only a mother. My favorite idea – a worker bringing materials to make collages to the home and having all three sit together with her and build pictures of “Where each of you want to be in five years”.
Theoretical information and practical strategies are not simple or obvious. Competent family support workers create useful, safe ways for family systems to absorb some of life’s struggles.
