parent-teenconflictinanativefamily(whiteworker).docVIP

Parent-Teen Conflict in a Native Family (White Worker): Mediating Family Conflict In the following example, a 15-year-old Native teenager is in conflict with her mother and stepfather. The family included eight children, and the clients natural father had been sent to prison two years before. Recently, she had outbursts of uncontrollable aggressive and destructive behavior that had led to her being committed to the psychiatric department of a large urban hospital. The social worker, in this setting, worked with the patient and her family in trying to identify family issues and prepare the family for the patients return home. In separate interviews, first with the teenager and then her parents, the worker started to develop a working relationship and tuned in to the issues for both. In his work with the teenager, it became clear she missed her natural father and consistently made negative comparisons with her new dad. In contrast with the previous example, the worker here does not acknowledge the fact that he is white and the family is Native. While some very sensitive work of intra-family communication takes place, the lack of attention to socioeconomic issues is also evident. In the session with the parents, the worker described how the mother, Mrs. Smith, continually interrupted and answered for her husband. An example from the first interview follows: My first session with Janets parents contributed even more to my understanding of the problems they faced. My purpose for seeing them was partially upon the doctors request for a social history, but I also wanted to give them a chance to talk about the concerns they had about Janet. During this meeting they shared their fears of not knowing how to handle their daughter without making her angry, the feeling that they were always walking on eggshells around her and that they were losing total control of her. Mrs. Smith was definitely the dominant personality. Mr. Smith, on the other hand, seemed content with taking