Handout 4:
Family Responsibilities

Overview
Families have many responsibilities. The priority families assign to each responsibility varies and is greatly influenced by culture, tradition, and environment. Most families assume responsibility for the following:

• Economic Support

  Meeting life-sustaining needs is a critical family responsibility. The family must be able to provide food, clothing, shelter, and many other necessities for its members.

• Health Care and Wellness

  Meeting the basic health care needs of children and other family members and caring for sick, mentally or physically disabled, and aged relatives are other family responsibilities. Families also have the responsibility to protect their members from emotional, physical, and sexual abuse and social violence.

  Education and Socialization
   
  The family is the primary educator of its children and is responsible for transmitting social and cultural values. Social values are transmitted through setting, teaching, and enforcing rules, norms, and appropriate behaviors. Cultural socialization involves reinforcing ethnic, and religious values and traditions within the family.
   
  Family Maintenance
   
  Families are the main providers of the emotional nurturance, intimacy, understanding, and support that sustains
  them.
  
  
  
  

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