On Independence and Heterogeneity in Families

Balancing Togetherness with Individuation

Having the privilege to work with several different families at a time can sometimes give me the opportunity to compare and contrast what they each need to work on.

As we noted last year in What Does This Family Need, Now?, there’s a great deal of discernment involved in figuring out the best “next step” to suggest to a family, as we accompany them on their transition journey.

The families are all so different and their needs vary over the evolution of our work with them, and let’s not forget that they’re each composed of a variety of individuals.

See On Serving Families and Their Individual Human Members from a few weeks ago.

Occasionally, though, while considering what to propose to one family, I have an A-Ha moment regarding a different client.

Section 01

One Benefit of Teamwork: Sharing Info Aloud

As a colleague and I were debriefing with our client experience manager after a meeting with two parents, I was verbalizing a couple of conclusions we’d come to about that family.

Somehow the fact that my ears were hearing what I was saying made me think about another family I’ve been working with for a couple of years.

But up until now I always thought about how two consultants can bring five times the value to the family; the idea of including a client support person into it makes me realize it might be 1 + 1 + 1 = 10.

Section 02

Coming Back from My Digression

Back to the client situation, we concluded that for this family, at this time, trying to find more things for them to do together, to increase engagement, was not what we wanted to propose to the family.

Given the ages of the rising generation (18 to 27), we preferred to offer them individual support and coaching for now.

Getting back to the big word in the title, we thought that a heterogeneous path made much more sense.

So instead of suggesting a plan where the entire family participates in things together, we instead plan to offer support and resources to each of the younger family members on an individual basis.

Section 03

A Family Systems View on This

Looking at this with a family systems lens, each person must deal with their own struggle to balance the need to be part of the family with the need to truly become their own individual adult self.

As I peaked at my phone moments ago, I happened upon this question and answer:

Each of the offspring in a family has a natural desire to stray from the family, despite the potential risk of becoming the lion’s supper.

Section 04

The Need for Independence Before Interdependence

I love thinking about the families I work with as “interdependent”, because they ultimately need to learn to work together to manage the assets that they’ll someday own together.

See Interdependent Wealth.

But young children, who are naturally quite “dependent” on their parents, need to outgrow that dependence before they’re eventually independent enough to return to be part of a healthy interdependent family.

Too often, when people like me are invited into a family system to help them grow into their interdependence, we automatically rush to find ways for them to practice being together productively.

Working with this family made me realize that it can be a mistake to skip straight to that stage, before everyone has accumulated enough of their own independence first.

Section 05

Learning from One Family and Applying It to Another

As I contemplated our next steps for that family, another client situation came to mind.

Those rising generation family members are about a decade older and the work we are doing feels like it’s stalling in some ways.

As I am preparing to have my one-on-one calls with them next week, ahead of our regular quarterly family meetings, I plan to delve into this aspect with some of them, especially the younger ones.

Perhaps their lack of engagement in the family project has more to do with their own “unfinished business” as independent adults than a desire to be part of the family’s plan.