A Brief Description of the Diverse Family Selected
For this assignment, I chose to work with a family with a difference in sexual orientation. Heterosexual sexual parents tend to experience difficulty when accepting or dealing with children who are either lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. Some children face rejection from their parents while others gain acceptance as time goes by. Regardless, such families are likely to encounter conflicts due to the differences in beliefs concerning diversity in sexual orientation.
Barriers and Challenges Related to this family
Admittedly, such a family experiences challenges. One of them is homophobia, which can be defined as the irrational fear of gay people (Krist-Ashman & Hull, 2018). The parents may feel like society would judge them harshly, and thus, they may encourage children to keep their sexual orientation a secret. Besides, there may be communication problems due to excessive criticism towards the LGBT members.
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Evidence from Scholarly Resource
At times, the family members may consider them as attention seekers, undecided, promiscuous, and manipulative (Goldenberg et al., 2017). As a result, some LGBT members may face rejection and alienation after disclosure of their sexual orientation.
Ways That a Social Worker Can Address this Problem
A social worker can address this problem on a family level through reframing. This strategy involves changing the family members’ view of the problem (Krist-Ashman & Hull, 2018). In most cases, homophobia originates from the members’ preexisting beliefs on the subject. Thus, some family members may consider it a violation of religious principles. However, reframing will teach the members the significance of being emotionally sensitive to the needs of the people around them. Reframing also encourages LGBT members to see the perceptions of their parents and try to understand them while resolving this issue. Time is a critical factor in uniting the LGBT members with their parents. With time, parents may receive social support from parents who share similar predicaments, LGBT friends, and social workers (Huebner et al., 2019). Eventually, such parents will research materials to find out more about LGBT.
Evidence from Scholarly Resource
Parents who are willing to seek new information are likely to change their political, moral, and spiritual beliefs concerning homosexuality and may even become supporters of LGBT rights (Huebner et al., 2019). When family members learn the perspectives of LGBT children, they will develop positive attitudes, compassion, and sensitivity and thereby improve family relationships.
References
Goldberg, A. E., Allen, K. R., Ellawala, T., & Ross, L. E. (2017). Male‐partnered bisexual women’s perceptions of disclosing sexual orientation to family across the transition to parenthood: Intensifying heteronormativity or queering family? Journal of Marital and Family Therapy , 44 (1), 150-164. https://doi.org/10.1111/jmft.12242
Huebner, D. M., Roche, K. M., & Rith, K. A. (2019). Effects of family demographics and the passage of time on parents’ difficulty with their lesbian, gay, or bisexual youth’s sexual orientation. Archives of Sexual Behavior , 48 (5), 1581-1588. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-019-1430-9
Kirst-Ashman, K. K., & Hull, G. H., Jr. (2018). Understanding generalist practice (8th ed.). Cengage Learning
