Family as a Resource

This past year, the Family Service Center celebrated its 90th anniversary. Family Service Center began in 1913 when members of the Wilmette Women's Club and several Wilmette churches met to discuss how to help families in the community who were going through a difficult time.

Over the years ideas about the family have changes from the romanticized view of the harmonious family of the 1950's to a view of the "dysfunctional family" in the 1980's and 90's. During the past century the size and make-up of most families changed. But the fact remains, however, that family remains central to an individual's emotional, physical, and intellectual well being.

Our knowledge of the vital role family plays in health and illness has increased significantly in recent years as we learn more about how our brains, immune and hormonal systems develop. And the family remains vital not just during development, but from birth to death.

Family is central to how we develop how we learn, how we behave in relation to our spouses and children. How we respond to life's stressors and whether we seek out challenges or withdraw from them, is shaped in the family. Families can be our greatest buffer against life's challenges as well as one of our greatest sources of stress.

We are not, however, passive recipients of our family environment. As individuals we are active players in a living process that extends from the previous to the future generations. It is as inaccurate to blame our families for our trials and tribulations, as it is to assume full credit for our own and family's successes.

Over the years, it has been striking to see what a difference it makes, for both the individual and the family, when one can come to see the family not as the problem but as an important part of who one is. From such a vantage point our view of ourselves and of others begins to change.

It is a natural tendency to either avoid or to blame the family or individual members during troubled times. It is also a natural tendency for some to feel that they are responsible for solving the family's troubles. But something altogether different happens when one can come to know the family and to know one's own part in it. The person who becomes knowledgeable about the family, who can come to see the part they play in both its strengths and weaknesses, who can remain in viable contact during difficult times without dissolving in to the expectations of others, and who can define a responsible course for themselves, automatically improves in many other areas of life. That person not only becomes a resource to the family, but also becomes more capable of seeing their family as a resource.

The professional staff at Family Service Center is trained and dedicated to assist individuals experiencing emotional, relationship or stress-related symptoms in themselves or their family. Individuals can make a difference and can learn to not only be a resource to their families but can learn to effectively use their families as a resource in their own lives.