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Literature Review

Kerr, Michael E. “One Family’s Story: A Primer on Bowen Theory.” The Bowen Center for the Study of the Family. (2000)

According to the Bowen theory (Bowen, 2000): “Families so profoundly affect their members’ thoughts, feelings, and actions that it often seems as if people are living under the same “emotional skin.” People solicit each other’s attention, approval, and support and react to each other’s needs, expectations, and upsets.”

The Bowen theory states that “The connectedness and reactivity make the functioning of family members interdependent. A change in one person’s functioning is predictably followed by reciprocal changes in the functioning of others. Families differ somewhat in the degree of interdependence, but it is always present to some degree.” Due to each family member’s emotional reliance on one another and the “reactivity” of the family, and hence develops some form of emotional dependence on the family, hence this theory is applicable to all families and encompasses every aspect of family life.

A family’s influence on its members is proven by this theory. Based on this theory, negative emotions will negatively affect the mental state of each individual member. On the other hand, a family which provides a conducive environment with open communication can positively influence its members and act as a pillar of support by being a source of encouragement and motivation for its members to continue doing their best even in the face of setbacks. This positively affects the psyche of the family members and is beneficial to them by enabling them to be better at dealing with challenges and coping with stress.

Negative interactions in a family will lead to heightened tensions which discourages further family interactions, leading to the isolation of individual members, which the theory describes as such: “When family members get anxious, the anxiety can escalate by spreading infectiously among them. As anxiety goes up, the emotional connectedness of family members becomes more stressful than comforting. Eventually, one or more members feels overwhelmed, isolated, or out of control.”. This shows how negative emotions and interactions in a family can result in strained relations insofar as family members may feel isolated from the rest, highlighting the importance of reducing such negative interactions within a family to maintain a comfortable and conducive environment, critical for a child’s mental growth.

This theory illustrates the importance of how having positive family interactions in turn helps family members bond, creating a more supportive family which helps the child to cope with stress.

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Bronfenbrenner's theory (1979)

“Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005) developed the Ecological Systems Theory to explain how everything in a child and the child's environment affects how a child grows and develops.”

“He labelled different aspects or levels of the environment that influence children's development, including the:

• Microsystem.

• Mesosystem.

• Exosystem.

• Macrosystem.”

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“The Microsystem is the small, immediate environment the child lives in. Children's Microsystems will include any immediate relationships or organizations they interact with, such as their immediate family, friends, peers or caregivers and their school or daycare.

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How these groups or organizations interact with the child will have an effect on how the child grows; the more encouraging and nurturing these relationships and places are, the better the child will be able to grow.”

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“Bronfenbrenner's next level, the Mesosystem, describes how the different parts of a child's Microsystem work together for the sake of the child.

For example, if a child's caregivers take an active role in a child's school, such as going to parent-teacher conferences and watching their child's soccer games, this will help ensure the child's overall growth. In contrast, if the child's two sets of caretakers, mom with step-dad and dad with step-mom, disagree how to best raise the child and give the child conflicting lessons when they see him, this will hinder the child's growth in different channels.”

This indicates that a child’s environment, especially the child’s familial environment has a great impact on the growth and development of the child. This indicates the importance of a supportive family to the development of the child, and also highlights the fact that having an unsupportive familial environment can have a pernicious effect on the child’s well-being and cause their ability to cope with various challenges to deteriorate.

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The Exosystem refers to a setting which does not involve the child directly as an active participant, but still has an effect on the child. For example, if the child’s parents get a promotion or lose their jobs, it will still affect the child, albeit the child has no influence on the matter. If the child’s parents are working overseas, and hence spend less time with them, the child may feel anxious and isolated in their parents’ absence, and hence have his performance at school affected.

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Lastly, the Macrosystem refers to the culture in which the child lives in or grows up in. It hosts a variety of factors such as socioeconomic status, ethnicity, etc. This has an impact on the child. The Macrosystem affects all other systems with a cascading influence. For example, in the Singaporean context, there is a ‘kiasu’ culture where parents have extremely demanding academic expectations of their children. Even though their own parents may not tell them to do so, children may still be influenced by this culture and feel pressured to do well because they are a part of the culture, and hence feel influenced by it.

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The theory shows how the child’s environment, represented by the 4 different levels, can affect the child so profoundly and how important family involvement in the child’s life is to his/her development. By having more involvement and interacting more as a family, each member is positively influenced, and the child’s overall growth is ensured.

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This reiterates the importance of having a well-bonded family that treasures their relationship and works together to help one another. By having more positive interactions, children will be able to achieve the proper mental growth and be able to deal with future problems better. Having healthy relationships in the family is key to the child’s learning and affects how they interact with the 4 different levels, in turn affecting their mental development.

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Key Issue

Real world implications

The objective of the project is to help Secondary 1-4s HCI students to understand the importance of effective communication with parents or loved ones.

Students in HCI have extremely demanding academic programmes and CCA requirements, and may find themselves over-committed, given their busy schedules and heavy workload. This is a leading cause of stress, which according to the Bowen theory, in turn affects their interaction with their families. As such, this will negatively impact their familial environment and ultimately lead to them being unable to cope with their stress as they lack their family’s support. Hence, they will look towards others for the support and affirmation they need, and in doing so, lose interest in family relations and instead prioritise friends over family. In the long run, this will cause them to isolate themselves from the family and alienate their parents, and will result in the family no longer being a source of support, but instead a source of stress.

Our project highlights the different stresses that a student will face in their Secondary School life, stress from school and from parents themselves. More importantly, our project sheds light on how a positive and healthy family environment will help buffer stress for the child, hence stressing the importance of tapping on this resource to allow students to better cope with their stresses. In doing so, our target audience is encouraged to forge stronger bonds with his/her parents or loved ones.

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Table of factors pertaining the effect of the familial environment on the child:

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Outlining the problem

According to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2690709/

“The parent-child relationship is one of the most long-lasting and emotionally intense social ties. Although often positive and supportive, this tie also includes feelings of irritation, tension, and ambivalence.” (Luescher & Pillemer, 1998)

Luescher K, Pillemer K. Intergenerational ambivalence: A new approach to the study of parent-child relations in later life. Journal of Marriage and the Family. 1998;60:413–425.

These feelings of irritation can still exist in a supportive relationship -- although on good terms, some disagreements between family members can still cause fissures in the relationship. It is hence important for compromise to exist and for both parties to try their best to see eye to eye so as not to affect their relationship in the long run. This can ensure that positive family interactions are maintained.

“It is important for parents and their children to maintain good relationships across the lifespan for a number of reasons. For example, the quality of the relationship is associated with well-being and health (Fingerman et al., in press; Lowenstein, 2007; Silverstein & Bengtson, 1991)

Fingerman KL, Pitzer L, Lefkowitz ES, Birditt KS, Mroczek D. Ambivalent relationship qualities between adults and their parents: Implications for both parties' well-being. Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences. in press

Lowenstein A. Solidarity-conflict and ambivalence: Testing two conceptual frameworks and their impact on quality of life for older family members. The Journals of Gerontology: Social Sciences. 2007;62:S100–S107

Silverstein M, Bengtson VL. Do close parent-child relationships reduce the mortality risk of older parents? Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 1991;32:382–395

and the parent-child relationship is an important source of support and assistance for both parents and children (Silverstein & Bengtson, 1997; Shaw et al., 2004).”

Silverstein M, Bengtson VL. Intergenerational solidarity and the structure of adult child-parent relationships in American families. American Journal of Sociology. 1997

Shaw BA, Krause N, Chatters LM, Connell CM, Ingersoll-Dayton B. Emotional support from parents early in life, aging, and health. Psychology and Aging. 2004;19:4–12

“The present study examined the topics that generate tensions for parents and their adult children to ... assess associations between tension intensity, solidarity, and ambivalence.”

“more intense relationship tensions predicted less affective solidarity. More intense individual tensions also predicted lower solidarity”

Affective solidarity: “Expresses concern, care and a wish to assist the survival of others” (Titmuss, 1976)

Titmuss, R. M. (1976). Commitment to Welfare. London: Allen and Unwin.

“The models predicting ambivalence revealed that more intense relationship and individual tensions predicted greater ambivalence”

To sum it up, when parent-child relationships are more intense, meaning that there are more disagreements and conflicts, the quality of the relationship deteriorates and leads to the isolation of family members as they care less and less about one another.

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This process is shown in the flowchart below to provide better illustration of the chain of events taking place leading to “greater ambivalence” and hence retarding the child’s mental growth:

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Analysis and evaluation

The study shows that tensions in relationships cause ambivalence and causes family members to have more disagreements.

Intense relationships hence cause family relations to deteriorate and cause the family environment to become less supportive as family members no longer care or look out for one another as much, as described by the data in the study predicting lower affective solidarity in relationships which were more intense.

As such, it is imperative for relationships between family members to be positive and foster more positive interactions between family members. This encourages family members to show more concern for one another and hence have more affective solidarity in their relationships. This allows the family to become a pillar of support instead of a source of stress. In turn, such positive family interactions buffer stress for the child.

Final Product

Films are able to engage the audience, draw their attention and appeal to their emotions. Films give the audience an insight into the lives of different characters portrayed, how their perspective differs and how they can handle certain situations, hence acting as a platform to suggest to the audience what they can do in a similar situation. Therefore, we chose films are a medium for us to convey our message.

Bowen theory is presented in the film through the interactions between the protagonist and his father. Their emotions are seemingly connected, the protagonist shows frustration and anger when his father is unreasonable and angry. On the other hand, both characters show patience and love when it is reciprocated between each other.

All four of these systems are reflected in our film. For example, the Microsystem consists of the protagonist's’ Father, Mr Tan, his friends and his teacher which all affect his emotions and behaviours. The interaction of impact of these individuals on the protagonist make up the Mesosystem. An example of the Exosystem is how the protagonist’s mother is constantly overseas and this has an inevitable impact on the protagonist. Lastly, the stresses that are part of the culture of Singapore is presented in the film, representing the Macrosystem.

Conclusion

Our project is able to help families understand the importance of such positive family interactions through our film and hence allows the family to provide a more conducive environment for their child. At the same time, our project enables more families to become a source of support instead of stress in a child’s life, effectively helping the child cope with stress better. Therefore, by affirming the importance of positive family interactions, our project helps to encourage such behaviour, and as a result buffers stress for the child.