Term Project Paper: Understanding Family Secrets
For our project, we have decided to take a closer look at the topic of family secrets, and more specifically at the four different types of family secrets. Family secrets involve information purposefully hidden or concealed by one or more family members. The four types of secrets are sweet, essential, toxic and dangerous. Galvin, Braithwaite, & Bylund (2015) describe sweet secrets as those that protect fun surprises and they are time limited. Essential secrets tend to foster closeness, and toxic secrets are labeled as poisonous. Dangerous secrets are when the owner of the secret is in physical or emotional danger (Galvin et al., 2015). In our paper, we are going to explain more about each type of secret including several examples for each one, why people keep these secrets, and why people reveal secrets.
We thought that the topic of family secrets was an important concept to take a closer look at because every family has secrets; they are a part of our everyday life. When you hear the word secret, it tends to be associated with negative situations in such cases of toxic and dangerous secrets. However, that is not always the case. Sometimes there are situations that secrets can be viewed in positive ways. For example, a sweet secret could be …show more content…
Kurz (2002) explains how essential secrets create boundaries. These secrets are mostly seen in parent/child relationships and develop when the child is a young adult. In this journal, the author talks about the importance of caring for a teenager. In doing so, the interactions between the parent and child is a journey of little white lies. For instance, young adults do not want their parents knowing about their experimentation with sex, drugs, et cetera. These boundaries are built to help protect that relationship from information that everyone may not need to know (Kurz,
For our project, we have decided to take a closer look at the topic of family secrets, and more specifically at the four different types of family secrets. Family secrets involve information purposefully hidden or concealed by one or more family members. The four types of secrets are sweet, essential, toxic and dangerous. Galvin, Braithwaite, & Bylund (2015) describe sweet secrets as those that protect fun surprises and they are time limited. Essential secrets tend to foster closeness, and toxic secrets are labeled as poisonous. Dangerous secrets are when the owner of the secret is in physical or emotional danger (Galvin et al., 2015). In our paper, we are going to explain more about each type of secret including several examples for each one, why people keep these secrets, and why people reveal secrets.
We thought that the topic of family secrets was an important concept to take a closer look at because every family has secrets; they are a part of our everyday life. When you hear the word secret, it tends to be associated with negative situations in such cases of toxic and dangerous secrets. However, that is not always the case. Sometimes there are situations that secrets can be viewed in positive ways. For example, a sweet secret could be …show more content…
Kurz (2002) explains how essential secrets create boundaries. These secrets are mostly seen in parent/child relationships and develop when the child is a young adult. In this journal, the author talks about the importance of caring for a teenager. In doing so, the interactions between the parent and child is a journey of little white lies. For instance, young adults do not want their parents knowing about their experimentation with sex, drugs, et cetera. These boundaries are built to help protect that relationship from information that everyone may not need to know (Kurz,