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  • Families getting on together
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What does this mean?

In Kids Stats families getting on together refers to the way families communicate, make decisions and solve problems.

Why is it important to monitor?

Families that get on together provide nurturing environments. They provide children and young people with healthy role models of relationships, the ability to cope with stressful life events, and foster their self-esteem.

The ability of a family to get on together is influenced by the:

• quality of the relationships between family members
• health of family members
• stress in their lives, including employment and financial security. [1]

Families that do not get on well together tend to have low levels of cohesion and high levels of conflict. These problems have adverse short and long-term effects on the behaviour and well-being of children and young people. [2]

Indicator

Currently, there is no routine measure of how well families get on together collected in NSW.

The indicator used in Kids Stats to monitor how well families get on together is obtained from the NSW Child Health Survey 2001 [3]. The indicator is:

The number of parents or carers with children aged 0 to 12 years reporting family functioning on a scale of 1 to 4 score, as a proportion of all NSW Child Health Survey

In this survey parents or carers of children aged 0 to 12 years answered questions about the functioning of their family. The questions were based on the McMaster Family Assessment Device [4]. This assessment tool generates a score between one and four, with one reflecting healthy family functioning and four reflecting unhealthy functioning.

Main findings

The median score for family functioning was 1.75, reflecting a high level of family functioning overall. Families with a marginally healthier level of family functioning than the overall population include families:

• with mothers who have tertiary level of education (1.58)
• in the three highest categories of socio-economic advantage (1.67)
• with young children or children of mixed ages (1.67).

Notes: [1] Centre for Epidemiology and Research (2002). NSW Child Health Survey 2001 and 2005. NSW Public Health Bulletin, 13, S-4.
[2] Grynch, J. & Fincham, F. (1990). ‘Marital conflict and children’s adjustment: a cognitive contextual framework’, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 56, 448-461.
[3] Quaine, J., Eyeson-Annan, M., Baker, D., O’Sullivan, B., Williamson, M., & Jorm L. (2003). Report on the Development of the Child Health Survey. NSW Public Health Bulletin, 14 (S-1).
[4] Epstein, N.B., Baldwin, L.M., Bishop, D.S. (1983). The McMaster Family Assessment Device. Journal of Martial and Family Therapy, 9, 171-180.

For details of the references and to find out more about the data follow the link to Glossary and further information.