1. CHAPTER 12 Stress and Success in Family Life
Child, Family, and Community:
Family-Centered Early Care and Education
Sixth Edition
Janet Gonzalez-Mena
Updated by:
Ruby Willey-Rendon, West Texas A&M University

2. Working with Families Concerns of families addressed so far:
Children’s development
Education
Socialization
Review Ecological Model in Chapter 1

3. Small Group Work Discuss and response:
Come up with a working definition of a family.
Your definition should reflect each group member’s views.
Read and reflect:
Does your definition reflect all families you know?

4. Families Come in all Forms
Kinship networks
Step or blended
Adopted / Foster
Gay or lesbian
Single-parent
Communal
Others you can identify?

5. Implications for Educators
Children are embedded in families
Families have stressors
Educators are in a unique position to:
Support families through stress and success
Promote healthy connections

6. Successful Families Successful Families:
support and nurture its members so that everyone’s needs are met.
feel a wide range of emotions and are free and able to express them when appropriate.

7. Successful Families Traits Include:
Healthy involvement
Attachment and commitment
Give time and attention to family
Recognize and respect boundaries
What other traits can you identify?

8. Meet the Families
Select one of the families introduced in this chapter
Perhaps it is a family you had the most difficulty accepting
Review the story of this family
Identify the strengths in the family

9. Families Successes Stressors Commitment Attachment to each other
Individual independence & group interdependence
Able to give and receive nurturing
Coping skills
Build self-esteem
Poverty
Special needs of children
Substance abuse
Divorce/custody issues
Lack of support
Bias issues
Inaccessible resources
Communication difficulties

10. Stress as a Positive Force
Stress can be a growth factor.
Example:
Stress is useful can be seen in the way a baby’s bones form to enable the child to walk.

11. Research on Resilient Children
Sense of connection to someone in early year
Can elicit positive responses from others
Problem-solvers
Needed by someone else
Perceive setbacks constructively

12. All Children Can be Resilient
Important to recognize that of those who were not considered resilient most were able to create meaningful lives.
It just took longer.
Important to balance stress levels with positive or protective factors

13. Helping Build Resilience
Connect family with resources
Teach and model skills for creating connection and gaining support
Teach and model problem solving
Give children responsibility
Provide positive role models

14. -- Ellen Galinsky (researcher)
Words of wisdom…
“Things can be hard, but they don’t have to do us in. It isn’t whether good or bad things happen to you; it’s how you handle them that matters.”
-- Ellen Galinsky (researcher)