Family & Marital Guidance

In our country there has been a long tradition of joint family system, which should be the envy of any civilized society.  Owing to industrialization and rapid urbanization the joint family system has broken or is fast breaking down.  There have been therefore significant family changes taking place in our country.  In our guidance the counsellor should keep in mind these changes in home and community life.

  In the olden days there was an intimate relationship among the members of the family.  Today this is not to be found.  The increased tempo of life has reduced, if not eliminated the time or the opportunities for such intimate relationships among the members of family.  Each member of the family is busy with his work and responsibilities and has little time to spare for other members of the family.  These changes have not come all of a sudden but the causes for the changes could be traced to the alien things that have invaded our society and successfully jettisoned our traditional values.  These are industrialization and urbanization.

  In a joint family system the youngsters were always taken care of and keenly watched in their development by other members of the family especially grand parents, uncles and aunts.  Today, we have unit families and in a significant number of them both the parents may be working parents.  So the children have no responsible adult member to guide and help.  If there is any free time left, the parent may use it for social activities like social visits, meeting friends, going to movies, etc.  They have little time left for their children.

  There are the stresses and strains of modern urban and metropolitan life and these are accentuated by mothers taking to jobs to augment the meager resources of the family.  In these conditions of the family children are becoming more self-dependent and sometimes this greater independence may be harmful to them.  They may spend their time in the company of undesirable members and in ways inimical to social order; they may develop undesirable attitudes, behaviour and ways of life.  The most common example of this is juvenile delinquency.  Therefore, it has become increasingly necessary for the guidance to take more interest in the family members, which means that the guidance worker or counsellor has to help the family members to develop into healthy and normal responsible citizens.

  Standards of conduct are also changing along our ideas of virtue, industry, thrift, honesty are not looked upon as valuable as they were considered in the days of vogue.  We find that men who worked long and have been honest, upright and straightforward have nothing to look back upon when they retire from service while those who are crafty, unscrupulous and are capable of cheating pass off as very successful person.  This explains the changing standards of conduct.  The Guidance has to inculcate some of the virtues in the light of the contemporary conditions of life.  The guidance counsellor has to play a great role conveying to the members of family the need for some of the abilities virtues, moral and good conduct.

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Spa Psycho Center, 42, Third Cross, Thilagar Nagar, Pondicherry - 605009. India.