The variety of family types and the creation of constant new circumstances of family life is a reality. Individuals choose their own paths. Due to rapid changes, diverse paths and family life courses, the family is more and more difficult to define.

The definition of families is expanding from the traditional family structure to more diverse family structures. Diverse family structures are families made up of diverse individuals or relationships that structurally differ from the traditional (married mother and father with biological children) family. The family definition is important because it acts prescriptively. It is the reflection of moral ideological representations and social political acting. “What is accepted in the society by the majority as moral, and thus, normative, is usually rewarded by social political measures and vice versa” (Rener et al., 2006: 14).

Beside the statistic, sociological definitions of the family, there are the definitions that include the individuals’ needs being met in it, or the field of individual expressiveness, or the emotional background and shelter. Current definitions point out the meaning of the family's self-perception that is not based only on formal or blood ties. Thus, in the past, the broadest definition of the family was given by Coote (1990: 9) who argues that “in the real life, ‘the family’ means different things to different people – to any of them something compatible with his or her personal experience”.

Personal satisfaction derives from the quality of family life, and not from its type. Instead of the family structure, we should consider the relationships that affect favourably a child's development: mutual co-operation, trust, connection, warmth, security and care, emotional and psychological security.

Students can come from more or less secure, accepting learning environments. They can originate from culturally and ethically different social environments, from diverse families. They can come across changes in family life in their close environment, and that can have more or less positive consequences. That is why it is important to create the inclusive environment in which an individual is accepted.

Apart from the fact that we pay attention to teachers' conceptions, teaching and learning approaches, empathy skills in dealing with students from diverse families, we are interested in a student's conceptions of family in general and their experiencing of their own family.

In the paper, we want to find out how students define the notion of a family and how they experience the family. We posed these research questions: what do students associate the word family with, how do students define the family, what family types do students know, what do students like to do together with the family, and when do students do not feel all right in their family. We wanted students not only to express their own view on the family, but that they express themselves creativity as well.

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