It is now time to describe the framework to the child's world, the primary structure. It was this which shaped and was shaped by the children I observed. It is a framework of overt and covert rules and regulations built up on functional myths which these families found necessary for ordering their daily lives. These myths represent the ways in which they have found it necessary to account for the unknown, especially as encountered in their dealings with illness in their children. As already mentioned no disrespect for these myths is implied by calling them such; instead I am wanting to emphasise their historical social construction.

The family rules presented here represent my deductions to account for the ways in which the elicited views and described behaviour are linked together into a coherent whole. They are of necessity rather intangible (Ford, 1983), and I have not tried to alter the framework in order to test the forces binding it, or the relationship of the framework to the elicited views of the children. This represents the next stage in what would have to be a long-term project, and is what Bronfenbrenner (1979 p. 41) would term a ‘transforming experiment’.