Teaching Students How to "Think Family"

Abstract

Given recent shifts toward increasing amounts of community-based and family-provided health care, nurses working in all aspects of health care delivery arefaced with helpingfamilies cope effectively with complex caregiving experiences. To do this, nurses need an understanding and appreciation of the interactive complexity offamily life, and they need to know how to "thinkfamily. " This article presents learning experiences in an upper level family nursing course at the University of British Columbia that foster thinkingfamily. Specific attention is given to the usefulness of questions in promoting systems thinking and to the students' struggles and successes as they transform their ways of thinking about family functioning, family illness experiences, andfamily nursing care.