Stress on the Family

In class this week on Friday we had a visual object lesson that really stood out to me and explained how stress affects the family. It mainly focused on how immigrant families have a hard time and struggle together especially as a unit. Brother Williams selected a few people and had them hold hands in a circle at the front of the classroom. He asked for five girls and one boy to make a family. As they linked hands in the circle Brother Williams went behind one of the family members and slowly pulled backwards on their shoulders. The rest of the family started falling in that direction and tried adjusting to the stress on one side. That symbolizes what happens when one family member has a hard time with individual difficulties like school, their personal life, friends, etc. Any individual problem in the family small or big affects everyone else no matter what.

In immigrant families, especially illegal immigrant families, dad has to cross the border to make money in America for his family. He gets disconnected out of the circle and everyone has to adjust without him, but that’s exactly what they do. They get use to him not being there and relationships are severed. When he comes back the family has already created strong bonds without him and he has a hard time being back in the family.

That also puts a lot of stress on the family, but my thoughts on this are that this can happen to any family. I had no idea how individual problems affected the family and in what way, but seeing this visual really showed how stress affects everyone.