Project 9 of 12 toward building high-nurturance family relationships
	Use Structural Maps to Understand and Strengthen Your Family - p. 1 of 5 Basic Premises and Mapping Symbols By Peter K. Gerlach, MSW Member, NSRC Experts Council

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The Web address of this article is http://sfhelp.org/09/map-str1.htm

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        This is one of over 150 articles focused on healing psychological wounds,  building high-nurtur-ance family relationships, breaking the [wounds + unawareness] cycle, and preventing divorce. This introduction describes the Web site's purpose and the best ways to use its resources. Each article is part of a mosaic of ideas, so the more you read, the more sense they'll all make.

        These articles augment, vs. replace, other qualified professional help. The "/" in re/marriage and re/divorce notes that it may be a stepparent's first union. "Co-parents" means both bioparents, or any of the three or more related stepparents and bioparents co-managing a multi-home nuclear stepfamily. 

        Before continuing, reflect: why are you reading this - what do you need?

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        This five-page article introduces and illustrates a powerful tool for understanding how your step-family is "built" - "structural mapping." It may look complicated at first, but if you experiment with it, you'll find that it's easy to use. This tool can help you answer questions like...

• "Who has the power in our home and family, including dead people?"

• "Who's in charge of each of our homes?"

• "Who is aligned and who is conflicted?"

• "Is anyone excluded from full family membership? By Whom? Why?"

• "Do we have major communication blocks in and between our several homes?"

• "How do the structures of our homes change in situations like child visitations, major conflicts, and celebrations?"

  Contents

This page explains "family structure," provides 13 relevant premises, and describes sam-ple structural-mapping symbols;

Page 2 illustrates maps of different baseline biofamily and high-nurturance (ideal) stepfami-ly structures;

Page 3 (a) illustrates sample low-nurturance stepfamily structures, and (b) starts to outline six steps for making your own structural family map.

Page 4 (a) concludes the six steps; and (b) shows how to map four special situations: child-visitations, child-support times, common stepfamily conflicts, and celebrations. It concludes with suggestions for using your structural maps.

Page 5 (a) provides some questions your stepfamily adults and older kids can discuss and answer using your structural map/s; and (b) recaps the whole article.

        Tho this article focuses on typical multi-home stepfdamilies, the principles and benefits apply to any family.

  About Family Structure

        In this article, a "family" means one or more related co-parents, and all the adults and kids (a) regularly living with them (b) or significantly affecting any of them psychologically. The latter can include dead and distant relatives, key friends and professional consultants, a Higher Power, neighbors, teachers, coaches, baby sitters, and (optionally) influential media figures (like Oprah Winfrey or Kermit the Frog).

        One way to see how any family "works" is to diagram its structure. Structure refers to:

• Who's included and excluded from the family;

• Who's in charge of each home, if anyone. Whose needs and behaviors cause the main decisions in calm and troubled times?

• Relationship boundaries, or lack of them;

• The roles and rules that govern how members' needs get met (or don't);

• Family-member alliances and antagonisms; and ...

• Communication blocks in and between people and homes.

Structural mapping is a relatively quick, win/win diagnostic tool. It can help you identify and validate what's strong about your stepfamily, and identifies structural problems that lower your nurturance level.

        Tailor the mapping conventions below to fit your unique beliefs and situation. Then try mapping your multi-home nuclear stepfamily (a) before and (b) during child visitations. Note any significant structural changes that visitations cause in your sending and receiving homes. Then discuss your observations and feelings with your co-parenting partners.

        Invite the kids in your family to try mapping too. Another option is to map your stepfamily homes before and after your (or someone’s) re/marriage. Stay aware: like genograms (family- membership maps), structural mapping is an awareness tool, not a contest or a weapon!

        Recall that "co-parents" include all related stepparents and custodial and noncustodial bioparents. In a typical post-divorce nuclear stepfamily, there can be three or more co-parents telling various minor kids what to do, in two or three related homes - ours, your ex mate’s, and my ex mate’s. In stepfamilies following a bioparent's death, there can be two to four co-parents. In some homes, older siblings regularly share co-parenting responsibilities for younger kids.

        The structural mapping scheme outlined here is based on some basic ideas about stepfamily functioning and nurturance levels. See if you agree with each of these beliefs, and add your own:

 Premises

        1) A high-nurturance or functional family's key purpose is to fill all adults' and children's needs . A common key need is for a safe haven, where every member feels consistently accepted, valued, respected, supported, and encouraged to develop and use their unique talents.

        Families that don't fill all their members' key needs consistently can be called low nurturance or dysfunctional. The more of these factors exist, the higher the nurturance level. Levels vary over time and from membership changes.

        2) The main factors determining a home or family’s nurturance level ("functionality") are (a)  whether the resident adults are guided by their true Self or not and (b) how aware each adult is. In my clinical experience since 1981, typical divorced-family and stepfamily co-parents come from low-nurturance childhoods, and have significant false-self wounds. Most co-parents and their social and professional supporters aren't aware of this, and/or don't know what it means or what to do about it.

        Premise 3) A stepfamily co-parent may be a biological parent (who passes on genes), a psychological parent (like a stepparent, who chooses to do child-nurturing things), or both (a dual-role co-parent).

        4) A nuclear stepfamily includes all people regularly living in the one to three homes of all stepkids’ living bioparents. This means that (a) both divorced bioparents and (b) all their kids and current primary partners are members of the same multi-home stepfamily - even if some are currently uninvolved or rejecting. So a complete structural map of the whole nuclear stepfamily (excluding relatives) includes two or more co-parenting homes.

        5) Resident co-parents should consistently want to make the daily and major family decisions and rules, and set and enforce boundaries and consequences - co-manage their home. Alternatives are an aggressive (needy) child, relative, ex mate, outsider, or no one making family decisions.

        Premise 6) The primary relationship in a high-nurturance co-parenting home should consistently be between the cohabiting mates, vs. a co-parent and a child or another adult (e.g. an ex mate), or an with activity like work. The less this is true over time, (a) the lower the family's nurturance level, (b) the weaker the whole stepfamily, and (c) the higher the odds that minor kids will develop or amplify false-self wounds.

        7) In high-nurturance families and homes, all kids and adults including co-parenting ex mates, usually feel...

• included enough in key family decisions that affect them,
  

• respected by (a) other members and (b) themselves enough,
  

• safe enough, and...
  

• clearly heard when they have needs or opinions.
  

        8) Co-parents should generally share responsibility and authority for most individual and multi- home stepfamily decisions as co-equal teammates, with input from all relevant members where possible. In new step-homes, bioparents (ideally) should do most discipline of their kids until the stepparent earns appropriate respect and authority. Project 10 in this site is about building such caregiver teamwork.

        Premise 9) Generally, the emotional and physical boundaries separating all persons, couples, and homes comprising the stepfamily should be clear and pretty consistent. Boundaries are conscious and unconscious inner decisions and reactions (rules, or limits) which differentiate acceptable and unacceptable behaviors.

        Meaningful boundaries have related consequences that the boundary-setter enforces. An important class of boundaries define how emotionally and physically close an adult or child will allow others to get. Boundaries are set by words (e.g. "No, I won’t do that" and "Sure, glad to") and related actions.

        When two or more people are too emotionally entangled (have fuzzy identities and weak personal boundaries), they’re enmeshed and/or codependent. The opposite condition, significant emotional  distance between two or more family members, is called detachment or being cut off.  

        Enmeshment and significant detachment usually reduce family nurturance levels, and are signs of significant false-self wounds and unawareness. These are common in typical survivors of low-nurturance childhoods, until they choose to recover.

        In high-nurturance stepfamilies, co-parents (vs. kids, others, or no one) cooperatively set key boundaries within and between their related step-homes.

        10) Available co-grandparents and relatives should support, vs. control, ignore, or hinder, the co-parents' marriages, homes, and multi-home stepfamily bonding and growth.

       Premise 11) All co-parents in a divorcing family or nuclear stepfamily should consistently strive for a united front in filling their kids' needs. The less this happens, (a) the more stressed all members feel (specially the kids) and (b) the lower the multi-home family's nurturance level.

       12)  Unlike intact two-bioparent homes, most stepfamily homes with resident minor kids have two or more structural states: kids home and kids away (visitation). If both re/married mates have prior kids and living ex mates (a blended three-home stepfamily), the home "in the middle" may have three or more visitation structures or states, depending on how each divorced biofamily’s visitation schedule compares to the other’s. One home's structure may be functional (promoting member health and growth) and another very dysfunctional.

         13) If all three or more stepfamily co-parents are...

• clear on their respective beliefs about stepfamily health (like the above),

• able to effectively resolve any major belief-differences between them, and...

• act consistently on their beliefs together as a caregiving team,...

they’re more likely to build a high-nurturance multi-home stepfamily. Where all co-parents can’t do these, adults and kids feel confused and stressed, and the risk of eventual re/divorce rises.

        Spend some undistracted time reviewing these core beliefs with your co-parenting partners. Mull your reality on premise 13. Have you ever identified your own "family-health" beliefs? Learned your partners’ beliefs? Considered alternative beliefs? Be aware (and beware): if any of your co-parents’ key family-health beliefs are biofamily based, they may stress your stepfamily…

        Now we have a foundation on which to build some symbolic stepfamily homes - like yours…

  Structurally Mapping Stepfamily Homes: Symbols

        Special thanks to Mary Jo Barrett, LCSW, who taught me this helpful concept. Structural family maps use symbols to show how the members relate to each other. In this article, I’ll use the generic letters below. You can use these letters, your family-members’ names or initials, cartoon figures, faces, or any other meaningful symbols.

        Be creative: doing these maps can be fun, as well as instructive! Consider using colored markers or pens, too - whatever makes the diagrams clearer for everyone. Try to see the big picture and theme, to minimize getting boggled by all these symbols. Once you try them, they're surprisingly easy...