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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, and
• 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, obtained from the New South Wales Population Health Survey [3] is:

The per cent of families with children aged 0 to 15 years who scored 2.17 or below on the McMasters 12-item General Functioning Scale.

In this survey parents or carers of children aged 0 to 15 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 health family functioning and four reflecting unhealthy functioning. A score of 2.17 or below on the General Functioning Scale of this assessment toolis considered to reflect healthy family functioning.

Main findings

In 2005, just under 95 per cent of families in NSW reported healthy family functioning. Families with a marginally healthier level of family functioning than the overall population include families:

• with mothers who have tertiary level of education
• with children in the 0-8 year age group
• from English-speaking backgrounds.

Notes: [1] 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).
[2] Grynch, J. & Fincham, F. (1990). ‘Marital conflict and children’s adjustment: a cognitive contextual framework’, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 56, 448-461.
[3] Centre for Epidemiology and Research, NSW Department of Health (2008). 2005-2006 Report on Child Health from the New South Wales Population Health Survey, http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/PublicHealth/surveys/hsc/0506/toc/1_4_methods.asp
[4] Epstein, N.B., Baldwin, L.M., Bishop, D.S. (1983). The McMaster Family Assessment Device. Journal of Marital 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.