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ISMAEL NACINO CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SAN MARCOS NURS480
The Griffin family is a traditional nuclear family. Their family consists of the married couple, Peter and Lois, their children, Meg, Chris, and Stewie, and their talking dog, Brian. They are a middle class family living in a two-story home in the suburban town of Quahog, Rhode Island. Peter is the primary breadwinner as he works at the shipping department at the local brewery. Lois is a stay-at-home mother who takes care of Stewie and occasionally teaches piano lessons. Meg and Chris are both high school students at James Woods Regional High School. Brian is an aspiring author who has not published his book. Stewie is an infant who goes on miscellaneous adventures with Brian.
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The Griffins are generally a dysfunctional family who tend to argue and fight with each other often. Peter often neglects the needs of his family due to his child-like personality and ridiculous antics. Lois has shown to be the voice of reason for her family, but her patience is gradually diminishing as she has become more nonchalant about her family's problems. Meg is treated poorly and bullied regularly by the entire family. Her and Chris fight often as Chris is openly favored by the family. Brian spends a lot of time taking care of Stewie and taking him on his daily outings. The Griffins tend to eventually overcome these conflicts. They show care, support, and compassion for one another when facing struggles and problems outside of the family.
The Griffins maintain close relationships between individual members within the family. Despite Peter’s antics, Lois still loves him unconditionally and helps him recover from his mistakes. Chris and Meg often fight, but Chris shows he care for his sister as he threatened to quit his job after his boss previously fired Meg. Stewie often presents himself as abusive to Brian, but experiences the greatest degree of sadness within the family when Brian was involved a neardeath car accident. Though Peter and Lois often seem neglectful of their children, they express care and support when it matters most. Peter shows interest in Chris’ artistic ability and Lois addresses Meg’s social insecurities.
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Age: 44 Occupation: Shipping department at Pawtucket Brewery Peter is the husband of Lois, father of Meg, Chris, & Stewie, and best friend of Brian. He is obese, has an extremely low intelligence & attention span, and is described as very childlike. He is an alcoholic who spends his free time at the local bar, The Drunken Clam, with his friends Glenn, Joe, & Cleveland. He is very protective of Lois, treats Meg with very little respect, & has a playful fatherson relationship with both Chris & Stewie. (5)
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Age: 42 Occupation: Housewife and Part-time Piano teacher Lois is the wife of Peter and mother of Meg, Chris, & Stewie. She comes from a wealthy family who she refuses to accept money from because of their resentment of Peter. She is the voice of reason for her family, especially Peter. She is a kleptomaniac and has a gambling addiction. She is neglectful of Meg and has told her she was an accident. She cares for her family but presents herself as nonchalant at the dysfunctionality of their interrelationships.
Age: 8 (56 in dog years) Occupation: Aspiring Author Brian is a talking dog with human-like characteristics including bipedalism, intelligent speech, and ability to drive a car. He was taken in as a stray by Peter and lives with the family. He is Peter’s best friend and has a close relationship with Stewie. He is an alcoholic, smoker, and former cocaine addict. He is highly intelligent and has strong interest in opera and jazz. He faces insecurities in himself as he is unable to find success as a writer as well as maintain a stable relationship.
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Age: 18 Occupation: High School Senior Meg is the oldest child & only daughter of Peter & Lois. She is often openly ridiculed and disrespected by the rest of her family. However, she accepts this treatment as it a source of bringing her dysfunctional family together. She experiences depression as she has trouble fitting in with peers as well as self-esteem issues regarding her appearance. She is emotionally fragile as shown by dangerous behavior such as self-harm via cutting as well as bulimia.
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Age: 14 Occupation: High School Freshman. Convenience Store Cashier. Chris is the middle child and eldest son of Peter & Lois. He looks up highly to Peter and mimics his personality and actions. He attempts to gain Peter’s approval through activities such as sports and boy scouts, but fails and finds his talent in drawing. He is obese, simple minded, and is socially awkward among peers. He is generally favored by his family over his sister, Meg. He often fights with Meg and they have a sibling rivalry relationship. He helps to care and look our for his little brother, Stewie.
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Age: 1 Stewie is the youngest child & son of Peter & Lois. He is of small stature and a large football-shaped head. He constantly has inner thoughts plotting for world domination and how he will kill his mother, Lois. He has a high level of thought process and vocabulary, though is only verbally understood by Brian and Chris. He has a very close relationship with Brian, who he cares most about within the family. He has a close affixation with his teddy bear named Rupert.
Duvall’s Stages of Family Development follows the principle that interactions and relationships between family members change and develop based on shifting structure, function (roles), and processes within the family (Kaakinen, Coehlo, Steele, Tabacco, & Hanson, 2015). Experiences relative of different stages in life can be used as predictors for various developmental tasks within families. The Griffin family is described by the Family Life Cycle stage of Families with adolescents as both Meg and Chris are developing through adolescence (Kaakinen et al., 2015). While Chris and Meg are still members of the family, they are working to establish their own identities as they emerge through adolescence. As an outcast of the family and her peers, she experiments with different outlooks to establish herself including promiscuous behavior, lesbianism, and cosmetic surgery. Chris follows his fathers behavior, but learns to establish himself as an artist. Both Meg and Chris look towards their future as Meg is looking into applying for community college and Chris works at the local convenience store. Meg and Chris both gain increasing roles within the family as Meg learns to cook from her mother and Chris helps out with chores. Both Meg and Chris help out by helping to take care of Stewie.
Peter
Generativity vs. Stagnation. Peter is in the generativity stage. From working in the shipping department at the brewery, he has learned to value working hard to earn a promotion to be better able to support his family.
Lois
Generativity vs. Stagnation. Lois is in the generativity stage. Though she is a housewife, she works to support her family’s development through proper guidance as the voice of reason.
Brian
Generativity vs. Stagnation. Brian is in the stagnation stage. He does not have children, nor has a legacy to pass onto the next generation. He is stagnant in settling, rather than progress his work as an author.
Meg
Identity vs. Role Confusion. Meg is in the role confusion stage. As a social outcast amongst her peers, she looks towards establishing an identity for herself, sometimes using destructive outlooks such as bulimia or promiscuity.
Chris
Identity vs. Role Confusion. Chris is in the role confusion stage. He constant works to win the approval. In doing so, he mimics his father’s behavior, including poor characteristics, rather than establishing an identity of his own.
Stewie
Trust vs. Mistrust. Stewie is in the trust stage. He is provided adequate care by his mother as she stays at home to attend to his needs. He is also given sufficient attention by Brian, who serves as a parent and friend to rely on.
Alcoholism is the most abused substance in the United States (Townsend, 2014). It can be viewed as progression through four stages, the prealcoholic, early alcoholic, crucial, and chronic phases. This addiction progressively worsens from drinking to deal with everyday stressors of life to emotional and physical disintegration with and full alcohol dependence (Townsend, 2014). Alcohol intoxication can result in aggressiveness, impaired judgment and attention, irritability, euphoria, depression, emotional lability, slurred speech, incoordination, unsteady gait, nystagmus, and flushed face (Townsend, 2014). Withdrawal symptoms include tremors, increased blood pressure, anxiety, depression, irritability, hallucinations, insomnia, and seizures (Townsend, 2014).
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Both Peter and Brian suffer to alcoholism. Peter drinks regularly with his friends at the Drunken Clam as a form of escaping his family and work. Brian drinks as an outlook and coping mechanism for his personal struggles regarding relationships and success. Peter and Brian have both become a burden to their family due to their alcoholic tendencies. Peter blacks out regularly is often found drunk by Lois, who ends up rectifying and doing damage control for his actions. Brian expresses strong emotions of depression and anger with his life, especially when he is drinking. He is regularly found belligerent at the local bar and is looked over by Stewie who generally consoles him through listening and understanding of Brian’s emotions. Both Peter and Brian are generally in denial to their family that this is a problem, resulting in their general aggression and anger when their family addresses this issue. Despite the destructive behavior of both Peter and Brian, the family tends to ignore this concern as no progress has Peter and Brian fail to accept their problem.
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Peter is of Irish descent and Lois is of Jewish/German descent. Both Peter and Lois have made efforts to better explore their ancestry and be aware of their parent’s cultures. The Griffin family descent does not play a significant role in their family as they have incorporated American culture and tradition into their regular lives. Peter was raised by a strongly devout Catholic step father. Lois comes from a traditional Jewish heritage. However, the Griffin family is a Protestant Christian family, with the exception of Brian who is an Atheist. The Griffin family attends church every week, but religion does not significantly impact their lives.
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The Griffin family has poor communication practices overall. The majority of their time spent together is in their living room watching television. Though they eat dinner together daily, they tend to keep to themselves, only communicating when arguing or ridiculing Meg. Brian is able to express his emotions to Stewie as the rest of the family does not understand his inner issues. When angry, Brian also has the tendency to revert back to his dog-like behaviors of barking and growling at others. Brian is also viewed as the family member to vent to as he is understanding of other’s issues. Lois is generally nonchalant in terms of her family’s concerns. She tends to ignore them with a flat expression on her face.
• Strong individual relationships between family members (Brian & Stewie and Peter & Lois) provide a support system. • The family eats dinner together regularly and have time available to address concerns. • Peter is aware that he is impressionable on Chris and Stewie and does not want to set a poor example for his sons. • Brian cares about Stewie would not harm himself, knowing its effect on him.
• Peter and Brian are both in denial of their problem and express anger when confronted about the issue. • Peter and Brian and impressionable on Chris and Stewie, respectively, leading to the mimicking of poor behaviors. • The family as a whole has poor communication practices • Peter and Brian, as best friends, are bad influences on one another in promoting poor decisions.
The Family Health System Model (FHS) follows the principle value that family health is systemic, process based, and includes individual and family unit interactions (Denham, Eggenberger, Young, & Krumwiede, 2015). Under this model, individual family members and the family unit are assessed as a whole. Individual health cannot be separate from family health as lives within the family are deeply interconnected. The health of the individual affects the health of the family as a whole and changes needed to meet health demands require changes in family member roles, resource demands, and daily activity. This model explores family health using five processes of family health: 1. Interactive – relationships, communication, support, nature, and other roles 2. Developmental – family transitions, task completion, individual development 3. Coping – problem solving, resource use, handling of stress and crisis 4. Integrity – values, beliefs, identity, rituals, and spirituality 5. Health – beliefs and behaviors, illness stressors, caretaking (Denham et al, 2015). Overall, FHS approaches family health in relation to the health of each individual as well as the interconnected relationships between family members.
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According to FHS, the overall health of the Griffin family is strongly affected by Peter’s and Brian’s current state as alcoholics. In addition to the physical and mental effects alcohol has on their individual lives, alcoholism affects the family as a whole. Lois generally takes responsibility in resolving Peter’s destructive nature. She experiences depression and disappointment due to Peter’s continued alcohol abuse. Meg is often neglected by Peter, partially due to Peter’s alcoholic nature. Meg often assumes the role of picking up his drunk father and his friends from the Drunken Clam. She is regularly mistreated and insulted by her drunk father. Chris is affected by his father’s behavior as he sees him as a role model. In following all of Peter’s actions, Chris is essentially a mirror image of his father, potentially leading to the same dependence when he is older. Stewie generally has to watch over Brian when he is drinking. Brian directly places Stewie in harm as he sometimes drive him while intoxicated. Brian has made sexual advances on both Lois and Meg, which brought discomfort within the family. Peter’s and Brian’s behavior between themselves has also led to exponential worsening as they encourage drinking with one another.
Intervention: Peter and Brian should first be educated on the harmful effects of heavy drinking followed by an assessment of the severity of their problem using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) (Cloassick & Woodward, 2014). Rationale: Education is important to establish a sense of knowing that a problem exists and the effects it can have on themselves. An assessment can measure the severity of their condition as well as support its existence Outcome: Peter and Brian will learn of the destructive nature drinking has on the both of them individually. Knowing the harm this has will hopefully persuade them to want to reflect on their lifestyles and change their drinking habits. Intervention: The Griffin family should consult Peter and Brian about their drinking habits and express how their alcoholism has effected the family. They should be direct and truthful about how they feel about their habits (Latham, 2014). Rationale: Effective communication is essential in addressing concerns within families. Problems need to be addressed and made into realization before change can occur. Family is effected as a whole by an individual’s condition and can serve as a strong support system for change. Outcome: Peter and Brian will be made aware of the effect of their behaviors on their family. Both of them care deeply for their family and their feelings and concerns will influence them to moderate their drinking habits. Intervention: Peter and Brian must be taught that their drinking habits may be passed on to the children (Latham, 2014). Peter, Brian, and Lois should also be involved in proper health promotion teaching to the children on the harmful effects of alcohol abuse. Rationale: Adults in the family have strong influence in the behaviors of their children (Latham, 2014). Peter and Brian are significant role models to the children, especially Chris and Stewie. Behaviors are often mimicked and passed down to younger generations. Outcome: Peter and Brian will be made aware of the effect of their behavior on the children. They will learn that they need to set a responsible example and modify their drinking habits to drinking in moderation, especially around the Meg, Chris, and Stewie.
Clossick, E., & Woodward, S. (2014). Effectiveness of alcohol brief interventions in general practice. British Journal Of Nursing, 23(11), 574-580. Denham, S. A., Eggenberger, S., Young, P., & Krumwiede, N. (2015). Family-focused nursing care. F.A. Davis Company. Kaakinen, J. R., Coehlo, D. P., Steele, R., Tabacco, A., & Hanson, S. M. (2015). Family health care nursing: Theory, practice, and research (5th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: F.A. Davis Co. Latham, L. (2014). Alcohol misuse and the family. World Of Irish Nursing & Midwifery, 22(5), 55-56. Townsend, M. C. (2014). Psychiatric mental health nursing: Concepts of care in evidencebased practice (8th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: F.A. Davis.
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