Systems Theory According to Two Term Paper

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Systems Theory makes several assumptions that are useful for understanding the 14-year-old's behavior:

The state or condition of a system, at any one point in time, is a function of the interaction between it and the environment in which it operates." (Longres, 1999, p. 19)

Change and conflict are always evident in a system. Individuals both influence their environments and are influenced by them. Processes of mutual influence generate change and development." (Longres, 1990, p. 19)

Each person in a family is part of the whole system. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." (Longres, 1990, p. 266)

These assumptions make us understand that the responsibility for the acts of the 14-year-old rest not with the child himself, but with the relationships and interactions in his family. More than anything else, the real issue is a family boundary problem where the hierarchical subsystem had not had a chance to teach the boy appropriate responses to a new environment. Unfortunately, the hierarchical system was unavailable to monitor the behavior of the boy the night the boy murdered the sister.

Status refers to the position and implies rank in a social hierarchy, "role refers to the more dynamic aspects of the position, it is more to do with what the people in various positions do or are expected to do...

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In the family, individuals only exist within the context of the roles and statuses they occupy." (Longres, 1990, p. 322) The 14-year-old boy was still a child and, as such, should be expected to do only what his hierarchical subsystem had taught him to do. His sisters had lived with their mother while he had lived with his grandmother. With the sisters having just been brought to the home, he had little time to learn to interact with them. Further, the boy lives in a world full of objects and symbols of sexuality and he is in a stage of life where adolescents are frequently confused about sexuality. Living with grandparents might have limited his access to education regarding sexuality more so than if he'd been with his actual parents. The article suggests that the father was not in the boy's life at all to provide any form of counseling. Combine a boy's lack of understanding on how to deal with a younger female sibling with confusion on how he is expected to behave sexually and you have a recipe for disaster. And, that's exactly what happened during the complete absence of adult supervision; a 14-year-old boy sexually assaulted and murdered his 5-year-old sister.

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