Family integration: what is it and why is it necessary?

The family is a fundamental context in which to live, relate and be educated.

The family is one of the most important and important elements in the development of the human being. Our fathers, mothers and brothers and sisters will be the first people with whom we come into contact, and from them we will learn different skills, habits and values. different skills, habits, values and ways of seeing and acting and ways of seeing and acting in the world.

However, we live in a complex society that often causes different types of difficulties (from conflicting work schedules to divorces or separations, from the need for one parent to emigrate or the lack of understanding of the needs of a new family member) for the members of the same family to share their time productively. This is why it is often necessary to work out different policies and mechanisms to facilitate family integrationa concept that we are going to talk about in this article.

The concept of family integration

Family integration is understood as the degree of health, harmony and existing balance in the relations maintained within the members of a family, including and valuing the person who is part of it.including and valuing the person and his/her role within the family nucleus.

Maintaining it requires efforts, activities and actions carried out that allow a strong, structured and coherent relationship and bonding of each and every one of the members of a family nucleus, so that the family functions in an organized and functional way and generates wellbeing and generates well-being for each of its members. The aim is to achieve a healthy family environment that allows the development of the family as a whole, with special interest in generating harmony and relationships of trust and union among its components.

Generally, when we talk about family integration, we are referring to efforts to and respectful union and bonding within the family in the within the family in which adults can be involved in the lives of their children, allowing all family members to maintain a quality bond and act as reference figures.

Good family integration makes it possible to promote positive values and guarantee a quality education by dedicating and having enough time and effort to carry out joint activities and promote good relationships between family members, as well as the involvement of the family in the lives of its members. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to that the members of the family group share quality time, as well as communicationThere is communication and the expression of fears, doubts, emotions, joys and values.

Another aspect that may be important is not only how the family behaves internally but also how it relates to the rest of society and the environment, including work, friendships or leisure activities.

Likewise, the relationship must be good not only with the younger members of the family, but also between the rest of its members, including the couple relationship (if there is one). A good interrelationship is not only good for fostering bonding between them but also has an effect on the rest of the family (especially the children). This does not mean that a mismatched couple should stay together even if they do not want to, but it does mean that their interaction should be respectful enough so that the rest of the environment and especially the children are not harmed by it or feel guilty for their bad relationship.

The relevance of favoring it

Family integration is not something that is carried out just for the sake of it. It has been demonstrated that those families in which there are dynamics that allow this bonding allow the healthy evolutionary development of all its components and especially of the children, which can develop a strong self-esteem and a series of positive values that allow them to coexist that allow coexistence with others.

It also favors communication and makes it easier to find and apply coherent limits, which are more easily understood by the children. It can also make it more difficult to present antisocial values, tending towards aggressiveness or the search for unequal power relationships. In the same way, it also hinders the possible search for ways to escape from reality (such as drugs) and favors a more active search for ways of escape. a more active search for solutions to the problems that arise is favored..

It has also been observed that the absence of a good family integration favors concentration problems, lower productivity, tendency to malaise and sadness, less ability to cope with stressful situations or less ability to socialize.

What can hinder family integration?

As we have said, maintaining family integration is very important in order to generate a positive environment and climate among family members. to generate a positive environment and climate among the members of a family, so that the family and for it to develop normally. But the truth is that there are a great number of factors that can harm this integration.

One of them, and probably the most common, is the difficulty in reconciling family and work, especially if the schedules or type of employment means that the children spend a lot of time alone or that one of the parents hardly spends any time with them. In this sense, it is advisable to look for moments to spend together and intervene through various games and activities.

The existence of inequalities in couple relationships, underestimation of the needs of any of the members of the family environment or the presence of problems such as criminality, substance addiction or domestic violence are also causes of family disintegration problems, generating a negative model for the child's development..

Situations of continued unemployment, social exclusion and/or extreme poverty can also generate difficulties in maintaining such integration. Another possible difficulty of particular importance is the lack of perception of the needs of family members, both at the level of the couple and the children. This could be seen for example in some children with special educational needssuch as children with intellectual disabilities, autism, cerebral palsy or mental disorders.

If difficulties in maintaining a normative union and bond are detected, it may be useful to seek some type of family therapy, mediation or family counseling in order to find solutions to the problems that may arise. In this case, family members, such as grandparents, or professional caregivers can be used, but in this sense it is necessary to develop social policies on the part of the administration and the business sector to allow for a real reconciliation.