Is it a family of two generations or three? Are both parents alive and
functioning in the home? How are the parenting roles structured? Are
there other children or is family life organized around only one child?
What is the birth order of the children? What are the relationships
between the children? How close or distant are they in terms of age,
ability, interest or personality? How does the child’s personality
blend with the other members of the family?
(^) Sally and her husband came for counseling. They were newly
married and facing difficult adjustments. One of the hardest hurdles
for Sally to surmount was that her husband did not organize his life
around her. She’d been an only child. While her parents didn’t spoil
her by lavishing things on her, they did make her wants and needs a
priority. She now felt unloved because her husband did not structure
life around her wishes. Her family life as a child had profoundly
shaped her needs and her expectations of her husband.
Family Values
(^) Another arrow denotes family values. What is important to the
parents? What is worth a fuss and what passes without notice? Are
people more important than things? Do parents get more stressed over
a hole in the school pants or a fight between schoolmates? What
philosophies and ideas has the child heard? Are children to be seen
and not heard in this home? What are the spoken and unspoken rules
of family life? Where does God fit into family life? Is life organized
around knowing and loving God or is the family in a different orbit
than that? “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and
deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the
basic principles of this world rather than on Christ” (Colossians 2:8).
The question you must ask is this: Are the values of your home based
on human tradition and the basic principles of this world or on Christ?
(^) I recently asked a young lad of ten what would get him into the
most trouble, breaking a valuable vase or disobeying his parents’