Critiquing Internet Sources of Family Relations and Dynamics Essay

On this paper, I will be critiquing internet sources of family relations and dynamics via blogs, videos & podcasts. Today, the Internet is equipped to handle an unsubstantial amount of information by way of blogs, videos, and podcasts. I will research and critique one blog, one video, and one podcast, which provide information that, addresses the topic of Family Relations and Dynamics for my final research paper. The conversation will start with the information captured on each item, and then I will discuss the authors take and bias on their position, along with two scholarly sources. There are some interesting dynamics that happen in a family when children enter their teen years. Sometimes as a parent it can be difficult to accept those changes but they are really just a part of our children beginning to grow up. For instance, when my daughter was younger she was a daddy’s girl. If she could pick between me and her father, she would have chosen him hands down. I think she act ually had him wrapped around her little finger. When she began to enter her preteen years it started to shift a bit. By the time she turned 12 everything shifted from dad to mom. Suddenly our relationship became more important. Now that isn’t to say that dad isn’t needed. But she is just at that age where she knows that I can relate to a lot of what she is facing and going through, so she feels that connection with me. When my oldest son  was younger we were very close. He was what some may call a â€Å"momma’s boy.† He was very dependent on me, even into his middle school years. It wasn’t until he hit high school that things began to shift with us (Romero, Stephanie, 2011, Relationship Dynamics) The blog above that I wanted for my research on family relationships and dynamics is a very basic example of the dynamics of a â€Å"normal† family. The reason why I chose to do this is because the roles of each family is what I wanted to define and make clear before starting my paper. In this blog, it mentions how in a family a mother and father are being chosen by their children through their different stages of the kids life. For example, the girl was more close to the father, from a younger age, then after the age of 12, the girl shifted her attention to a female perspective being the mother. Also, the boys were more inclined to hang around with the mother, making them ‘mommas boys’, there are many cases like this in a ‘normal’ family upbringing. The boys then grew up, just like the girl leaned more to their gender parent for help and guidance on their life endeavors. I believe that there are no biases in this blog being identified, and in all actuality, this blog gives us in inside take of a family, which has kids, which later chose to switch their parent role preference to someone close to their gender similarity. This happens in real families today in our world, because it is just real life experiences, and the kids simply identify themselves with their parents in life stages. The present study examined whether discrepancies between adolescent and parent ratings of family dynamics predict adolescent well-being over time. Self-report data from 972 adolescent-parent dyads collected at two time points separated by one year were analyzed. Both adolescents and parents rated a variety of family dynamics (e.g., cohesion), and adolescents reported on their levels of well-being (confidence, purpose in life, and positive relations with others). Significant discrepancies between adolescents and parents’ perceptions of family functioning were found for all positive family dynamics, but not for family conflict. Furthermore, discrepancies increased over time and larger discrepancies were noted for older adolescents. Results from the residualized path model showed that discrepancies were bidirectionally related to adolescent well-being. In addition, age was found to moderate the predictive model. Specifically, 14-15 year olds (year 10) were found to be more stable in their well-being  over time than younger adolescents. Also, results indicate that well-being is a significantly stronger negative predictor of discrepancies over time for the 14-15 year olds (year 10) than the for 10-11 year olds (year 6). The authors suggest that future research would benefit from investigations of the relationship between divergent perspectives of family members and adjustment outcomes of adolescents (Stuart, J., 2012). Draw a small circle in the middle of a piece of paper. Draw a second circle around it, and another, and another. Keep drawing larger and larger circles until you have 6 circles. In the middle of the smallest circle draw a smiley face, which is you. If you think about all the relationships you have with people, you can label each of the 5 remaining circles. For example; the largest might have the postman, grocery store cashier and the mechanic, while the one closest to you, your spouse. Take some time to think of all the people in your life (friends, family, acquaintances), and place them on the circle that feels right for them. Once you are finished step back and take a good look. You might find where you have placed various people interesting. In case you haven’t realized, the people closest to your smiley face are those you naturally wish to be closest with, while each circle outwards represents more distance. The people in the largest circle are relatively easy, they don’t know your name or anything about you, and because they are at this safe distance you don’t have to worry about them as much. As you progress inwards, the people in each circle come closer to knowing the real you, which means they have the opportunity to judge who and what you are, and to hurt you (Greens Release, 2011) Above is a podcasts take on family relations and dynamics, in this podcast it was revealed the functions of having family, friends, acquaintances and other people around you, and how they can affect the dynamics of your relationships. The reason why I chose this podcast, as an emphasis in my final research paper is how it demonstrates the truth of family and relationship dynamics can affect your inner circle of close people. I used this podcast on my own self and it was as if I was able to look at the full picture of my friends, family, acquaintances, or coworkers. This revelation was astonishing because I was able to see that there are some bad choice of family and friends that I have to keep far from me. The reason why I need to  make these changes is simply that those people closest to me are able to see me ‘naked’ in other words, as for who I am. The people that are close to me can see my fears, weaknesses, flaws, and more of the things that I hold sacred and perso nal. The podcast author’s ideas are not subject to being bias, because the key information in how to measure your family, friends and acquaintances level of closeness to one self is being generalized for everyone to use this as a guide. The applicability of this podcast guideline to measuring the dynamics of family and relationships is useful and it can be helpful. During the 50’s, the economy was at its highest peak, so families were more functionally defined by the role each family member contributed. In the 50’s era, both parents made sure they influenced their children with positivity reinforcement, which allowed for the children to be more receptive to their parents thoughts and respect, because they children at that time had the ability to experience true parenting. Nowadays, parents are no longer providing their children with 100% attention, due to them focusing more on their careers than anything else. Parents who are career focused are more prone to sacrifice their families over their careers due to money, but money leads to no real love being giving to their families, which then cause a divorce and family tarring apart. There are also many single mothers out there, which have no real male figures in their boys’ upbringing, so this can hinder the boy to develop feminine characteristics. In addition, singe parenting can have kids raised in a single household looking up to famous rappers, or simple looking for every male they meet as a role model, which can lead to danger (SchoolTube, Inc., 2013). The above video demonstrated that the dynamics of family and relationships are not like they used to be. It mentions how as strong American families that we once were, we are becoming more susceptible to breaking apart after careers, family, kids, friends and daily life affect those many households. Now, days, boys are becoming more feminized due not having a father figure when growing up. When I was growing up, I had my father, mother, brother and sister, but my family was never there for one another. I chose to be that person who wanted to part of a family, and help my siblings or parents when needed, but this wasn’t the case because the male figure in my family chose the easy way out. This easy way out was to just let us pretty much be on our  own with no kind words, guidance, emotional connection, I mean my parents’ house was chaotic. I believe that the video above wasn’t biased in any shape or form, because everything that was mentioned in video was pure f acts and we can all see how different we as families are evolving into more of a distant household. I believe that this video can relate to millions of families and single parents out there. Understanding the dynamics of contemporary, postmodern families and how these relate to health is critically important to nurses and other health care providers throughout the world. Much can be learned by studying not only one’s own culture but also other countries. Thus, the purpose of this study was to compare family dynamics of families in the United States, Finland and Iceland. To date relatively little has been published related to families in these Nordic countries. Six family dimensions in Barnhill’s Family Health Cycle served as the theoretical framework. Adult respondents (n = 567) purposively selected from varied community groups, completed the Family Dynamics Measure II (FDM II) and a sociodemographic questionnaire. Main findings from the three countries were positive family dynamics, with mutuality contributing the strongest factor to partially confirm the theoretical propositions in Barnhill’s Family Health Cycle. Respondents from all countries reported (1) clear communication and flexibility that contribute to mutuality; (2) younger age of respondents and increased education that were associated with more positive family dynamics; and (3) larger families associated with more negative dynamics. Mixed reports occurred according to gender, with Nordic men tending to perceive some negative dimensions. Marriage was important for more positive family dynamics only in the United States. Families in the United States and in Iceland had in common more negative family dynamics during illnesses. Problems and changes affected mostly families in the United States. In general, families in Finland and Iceland had greater strengths than in the United States. This benchmark study offers information for health practitioners to assist families, as well as contribute to the improvement of family social policies, especially in the United States (White, M. A., Elder, 2010) The influence of web-based information on global citizenship and multicultural understanding is aligned to the educating the world about our  different cultures, ethnicities, religions, politics, etc. Whatever information is needed vie web-based has revolutionized to a press of a button and keywords, the internet has become diversified as we have evolved as humans. The multicultural aspect, now defines our web-based realm in ways that scholars continue to study our differences in what has made us become closer each day by the power of the internet. Three factors I believe should be considered when evaluating Internet sources for use in researching information are: first, making sure the right keywords are placed in the Google search engine section in order to get the best results. Second, making sure the sources are credible, like can they be proven in a real life experience, scientific data or where researched methods used to analyze source. Third sources, can be taking into account via video, podcast, and blogs, but how are they relevant to your research topic. And are they able to persuade your audience with source information. I have concluded, that after researching and critiquing internet sources of family relations and dynamics via blogs, videos & podcasts they are all pretty much life experiences. Today, the Internet is equipped to handle an unsubstantial amount of information by way of blogs, videos, and podcasts. After researching and critiquing one blog, one video, and one podcast, the conversation about family relations and dynamics are all pretty similar to one another. The conversations on family relations and dynamics via blog, video and podcast relate to the discussion of real life experiences and amplified understanding of the topic at hand. The author’s bias in each social media is based on generalized information, so pulling up credible sources is a unique way to compare researched/scientific data, which can add some credibility to my Final Research Paper. References: Greens Release, 2011, Podcast: Relationship Dynamics. Retrieved from http://greenesrelease.com/portfolio/relationship-dynamics/ Ramos, Stephanie, February 10, 2011, Relationship Dynamics Retrieved from http://www.families.com/blog/relationship-dynamics Stuart, J., & Jose, P. E. (2012). The Influence of Discrepancies Between Adolescent and Parent Ratings of Family Dynamics on the Well-Being of Adolescents. Journal Of Family Psychology, 26(6), 858-868. doi:10.1037/a0030056 SchoolTube, Inc., 2013 Retrieved from http://www.schooltube.com/video/53bad6719111adc1f08f/Family%20Dynamics White, M. A., Elder, J. H., Paavilainen, E., Joronen, K., Helgadà ³ttir, H. L., & Seidl, A. (2010). Family dynamics in the United States, Finland and Iceland. Scandinavian Journal Of Caring Sciences, 24(1), 84-93. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6712.2009.00689.x