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Part right, part wrong

When I read through the teacher's description of a dysfunctional family, I thought she was partly off. Some of the things she describes about males being expected to "suck it up" and not express emotions, except for anger, and females being expected to just act nice, I think are just cultural, and are not part of dysfunctional family dynamics. She was part right in saying that dysfunctional families don't talk about problems, especially to others. Everyone is expected to keep up a nice front, because they're ashamed of anyone thinking they have problems. The teacher is also right in saying that in dysfunctional families the children are never allowed to make up their own minds or make their own decisions--part of learning responsibility. Instead they are treated as passive blank slates who are "written upon" by their parents. I don't think she meant that parents shouldn't be respected, though it kind of came out that way.

The main characteristics of dysfunctional families is that no one is allowed to be themselves, within appropriate limits. Further, there's no concept of personal boundaries. As a consequence the environment becomes about power, and a pecking order, not about growing up and developing a healthy sense of self, and relating to others. In short, it's an anti-social environment, and it doesn't allow children to grow up emotionally as they mature physically and mentally.

I don't think it's necessarily bad for dysfunctional family dynamics to be broached, but I wonder where this health teacher would go with it. I know people who grew up in dysfunctional families and spent years going through psychological therapy to "reprogram" themselves so they felt comfortable in their own skin. I don't know. I just wonder if it's appropriate for a high school teacher, whose students are still under their parents' care, to bring up this subject. Once they're identified as being in a dysfunctional family, what are the students expected to do about it? In reality they can't do much of anything until they get out on their own.

I agree it's apparent the teacher has a liberal bias. She apparently thinks that traditional ways for males and females to act in this country are "dysfunctional".