Family Social Norm

Rooted in how family is defined are precepts about what is considered a social norm, or acceptable behaviour. It tells people what’s perceived as a family and what is not. Within the word family are individual inherited social, historical and cultural values.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a family as the servants of a house, or the household or everyone who lives in a house or under one head and finally as a "group of persons consisting of the parents and their children, whether actually living together or not".
The family evolves and changes as the society in which we live changes. Does the “traditional”, heterosexual family still exist as the norm? There has been a decline in marriage, increase in cohabitation and children born into single parent families. There has also been an increase in divorce, incline of compound families and recognition of same sex relationships, marriages and parenting. The multiplicity in human relationships
Much research centred on mother-child interactions with few studies of father-child interactions (O’Brien 2005). Traditional research centred on the shortcomings and problems within the family structure, such as incest and eating disorders (Cawson et al., 2000) and looks for origins of breakdowns between members of the family. Traditional research viewed the individuals as being separate from society and unaffected by it or as over socialised beings and as such was found to be constrictive in its use. “Families and close personal relationships give us a vital framework through which we come to make sense of ourselves and the world” (Helen Lucey 2007 pg 66 cited in Social Psychology Matters). From birth the family generally is the main source of influence in the development of physical, social and emotional well being and as such is worthy of further research and