Writing Homework Help

Write a three-page reflection describing your experience developing and creating your family genogram. Address three issues in this narrative:

1. Begin by defining what the term “family” means to you and describing how your definition of family influenced the content of your genogram.
2. Explain how your use of symbols, placement of family members, connecting lines, and boundaries represent the members of your family and particularly the relationships within the family. You should also discuss your reasons for excluding family members that it may have been logical to include.
3. Be sure to classify your family as open-type, closed-type, extended, nuclear, or binuclear, etc. type (based on information in your text). It is essential that you provide specific examples to explain why you classified your family as one of these three types or to explain why your family does not fit into one of these three classifications.

The goal of the Family Genogram Project is for you to develop a genogram diagram of your family and their emotional relationships. The emphasis on the emotional relationships between family members is what makes the genogram different from a family tree. The term family broadly defined includes parents, siblings, your children, extended family members, and even non-family members who you consider part of your family. Using a diagram, you will represent your view of your family and characterize the relationships between members of your family. You can represent your family as it currently exists or at another point in your development (e.g., when you were a child, when you were a teenager). The deliverable for this assignment is your family genogram and a short reflection.

1. Decide who represents your family. You can include multiple sets of parents, siblings, your children, and extended family members.
2. Include as many generations as you consider relevant or interesting. However, genograms usually cover three generations. Typically, they involve the person creating the genogram, his/her siblings, and his/her children and parents, or his/her parents and grandparents. Use symbols such as squares, triangles, and circles to represent family members. You can also use colors on your genogram. There are no restrictions on whom you include or how you symbolize them, but you must explain your use of symbols in a legend or key and in your narrative.
3. Provide basic data for each person on the genogram. The information should include the following: Name, current age or age at death (or date at birth and date at death), cause of death, occupation, marital/relationship status and history of the same (i.e. include years of marriage, and divorce and remarriage information where relevant on your diagram), conflicted, enmeshed and distant relationships. You can also add non-relatives (besides a spouse or significant other) or others who have played an integral role in your family life. One example might be a live-in caretaker for an elderly grandfather, both of whom live with the patient. Remember, the purpose of the genogram is to help you organize your thoughts, detect patterns, and provide you with reflection on your family.
4. Arrange family members on your genogram in a way that symbolizes their emotional relationship with you and with each other. For example, place the symbols for family members who are emotionally distant farther away than those for family members who are emotionally close. You should use connecting lines and circles (around groups of symbols) to represent the nature of relationships between individual family members and groups of family members who are particularly close or who are left out of family interactions. Be sure to include a legend or key explaining connecting lines, circles, and other symbols on your diagram.
5. Generate your diagram using whatever software you choose. You can also write your genogram on paper and then scan it into a PDF file.
6. Use your resources! Question, interview, and talk to parents, siblings, grandparents, or individuals about your family members, history, and relationships. Previous SOCI 300 students have found this to be very beneficial and helpful in developing their genograms.

Before you begin, view these videos that explain how to create a genogram: