Different Aspects Of Family Life Education

What is Family Life Education? Family Life Education is crucial for families because it will help the family to strengthen their relationship. Defining Family Life Education can be difficult since so there are so many different dynamics that go into Family Life Education. FLE is to educate families on different topics. These topics include, but are not limited to, families and individuals in societal contexts, internal dynamics, human growth and development across the lifespan, human sexuality, interpersonal relationships, parenting education and guidance, family resource management, family law and public policy, professional ethics and practice, and family life education (Myers-Walls, Ballard, Anderson, Myers-Bowman, 2011).

Prevention is also a very important aspect to Family Life Education because it can help prevent issues from arising in the family or it can prevent more issues from occurring after a problem or an event has taken place. This presented to the families can help strengthen the family by educating them which can lead to a healthy and happy family relationship.

Family Life Education is backed by research in order to give the family the best possible information that is backed by actual evidence. This education is “rooted in research about individuals, families, and their environments; as such, FLE is the practice of family science and is, therefore translational” (Darling, Cassidy, Rehm, 2017). Family Educators want to help the families the best they can and therefore make sure that they are making sure the information they are giving their families is accurate. FLE is also more about the education aspect than the therapy aspect.

In Reconceptualizing the Domain and Boundaries of Family Life Education, it is said that "although we agree that psychological disorders and personality problems are outside the realm of FLE, we contend that education about couple and family relationships, in addition to education about parenting, is very appropriate within FLE” (Myers-Walls, Ballard, Anderson, Myers-Bowman, 2011). They want to give as much information to the families as possible in order to help them become resilient instead of therapy, where they can find support. As education is important, there are different subjects that coincide with Family Life Education with one including prevention.

Educating the family about certain aspects also can help the family prevent certain situations. It is also important for family educators to teach prevention so there will not be problems like substance abuse (Darling, Cassidy, Rehm, 2017). Trying to prevent a problem than to wait for a problem to arise can save the family a lot of stress and will also strengthen the family. With this said, if a problem arises, there are steps that can help prevent further damage. FLE deals with three types of prevention, which are primary prevention, secondary prevention, and tertiary prevention.

Primary prevention helps with educating for the problem before it occurs, while secondary prevention helps the family after a problem has occurred to stop or manage the problem and tertiary prevention is to help people with problems that are ongoing to help them with prevention and knowledge for the future (Darling, Cassidy, Rehm, 2017). Prevention is one of the many ways that Family Life Education can help families.

Family Life Education is a great way to help families with resilience and can also help with prevention and other topics that can be very hard for families. Different topics are taught by Family Life Educators to families to increase their knowledge. Prevention is a major part of FLE because it can help make the family resilient and more educated for their family. Family Life Education is very important because it will educate families to strengthen themselves and give them resources to thrive.

References:

Darling, C. A., Cassidy, D., & Rehm, M. (2017). Family Life Education: Translational Family Science in Action. Family Relations, 66(4), 741-752. doi:10.1111/fare.12286.

Judith A., M., Sharon M., B., Carol Anderson, D., & Karen S., M. (2011). Reconceptualizing the Domain and Boundaries of Family Life Education. Family Relations, (4), 357. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3729.2011.00659.