FAMILY GOALS AND STANDARD

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FAMILY GOALS AND STANDARD

GOALS: Goals are aims, objects, ends or things that individuals or families are willing to achieve or attempt to accomplish.

E.g. a student goal in the secondary school could be to obtain distinction in all his/her subjects in WAEC which will qualify him/her for admission into higher institutions.

Goals in the home or in the family could include the provision of shelter good food, clothing, good health and happiness. The goals of a family may differ in many ways from the goals of other families.

TYPES OF GOALS

 Goals are classified according to the time needed to achieve them. They are:

1. Long Term Goals: These are big family goals which take a very long period of time to achieve. They may be the first goal set by the family but may be the last to be achieved or realized e.g. building a house, having healthy children etc. These long term goals influence the other types of goal set by the family.
2. Short Term or Intermediate Goals: They are goals set up as a means of achieving the long term goals. They take lesser time to be achieved than the long time goals. E.g. Regular provision of three balanced meal per day towards meeting the long term goals of raising healthy children.
3. Immediate Goals: These goals are regarded as steps taken to achieve the re complex goals. They take a very short time to achieve. E.g. shopping for goods, planning preparing and serving meals could be to achieve intermediate goals for previewing children with balanced meals.

STANDARD

STANDARD: Standards are measures of quality and quantity or methods or ways of goals achievement. They are used to measure the value of something, such as activity .e.g. standard of living and the satisfaction received from such activity.

Standards are what a person or a family will accept as good and worthwhile. The standard set by a family influence their use of resources. E.g. providing three meals a day can be a goal for the family but the standard could be that the meal must be balanced and served on the dining table.

TYPES OF STANDARD

1. CONTENT STANDARD: These are tangible things which people are working towards. Examples of tangible standard include goods and services which people choose.
2. FLEXIBLE STANDARD: These are standards that allow people to adjust their behaviour to change that may occur. For example, when a family maintain flexible standard in the way they do or do not clean the house, it may depend on the situation at a given time. This mean that when the family has more time, they will do through cleaning and when they have limited time, they clean only those places that look very dirty. Another example of flexible standard could be the way family meals are served.
3. RIGID OR FIXED STANDARD: These standards are often imposed upon the individual or family by an outside group such as religious, social group. For example, the standard of dressing accepted by a given religion or culture.