Family Stress, Crisis, and Resilience Chapter 13 Family Stress, Crisis, and Resilience

Chapter Outline Defining Family Stress, Crisis, and Resilience Theoretical Perspectives on Family Stress and Crisis What Precipitates a Family Crisis? The Course of a Family Crisis

Chapter Outline Family Stress, Crisis, Adjustment and Adaptation: A Theoretical Model Meeting Crises Creatively Crisis: Disaster or Opportunity

Stress Americans are stressed. In a national poll taken just before the onset of the recession that began in 2009, just 16 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds and 12 percent of 30- to 49-year-olds said that they rarely experience stress. We can think of families as continually balancing the demands put upon them against their capacity to meet those demands.

Defining Family Stress, Crisis, and Resilience Family Stress: a state of tension that arises when demands test or tax a family’s capabilities Family Crisis: a situation in which the usual behavior patterns are ineffective and new ones are called for immediately

Defining Family Stress, Crisis, and Resilience Crisis involves change. A crisis is a turning point with the potential for positive effects, negative effects, or both. A crisis is a time of relative instability.

Defining Family Stress, Crisis, and Resilience In part, what makes the difference between whether things get better depends on a family’s level of resilience—the ability to recover from challenging situations

Theoretical Perspectives on Family Stress and Crises From a structural functionalist perspective a family crisis threatens to disrupt the family’s ability to perform critical functions. The family development perspective typically analyzes family transitions - family stressors that can precipitate a family crisis.

Theoretical Perspectives on Family Stress and Crises The family ecology perspective holds that many causes of family stress originate outside the family The family system framework looks at the family as a system. The interactionist perspective focuses on how families define situations as stressful or not.

Perspectives on Family Crisis Many family members are divided by the US-Mexico border The family ecology perspective focuses on how external factors can result in family crisis. From a family systems perspective, all members in the family must adapt to this separation

A Closer Look at Diversity: Young Caregivers An estimated 1.5 million U.S. children under age 18 serve as caregiver to a family member. From a policy point of view, what might be done to assist young caregivers? What might your local community do?

What Precipitates a Family Crisis? Demands put upon a family -stressors- cause stress and sometimes precipitate a family crisis. In general, stressors are less difficult to cope with when they are (1) expected, (2) brief, (3) seen as not so serious, and (4) gradually improve over time.

What Precipitates a Family Crisis? Addition of a family member Loss of a family member Sudden change in income or social statues Ongoing family conflict Daily family hassles

What Precipitates a Family Crisis? Ambiguous loss physically absent but still part of the family (divorce, missing in action) physically present, but emotionally absent (drug /alcohol addiction)

What Precipitates a Family Crisis? Caring for a dependent or disabled family member Demoralizing events: job loss, unwanted pregnancy, poverty, homelessness, having one’s child in foster care, mental illness, criminal prosecution

Types of Stressors

Types of Stressors Daily family hassles, such as a child's coming down with chicken pox, put demands on a family. Sometimes everyday hassles pile up to result in what social scientists call “stressor overload.”

Issues for Thought: Caring for Patients at Home—A Family Stressor Between 20 and 50 million family members in the U.S. today are providing care that medical professionals once performed in hospitals. Family members provide about 80% of all care for ill or disabled relatives.

Issues for Thought: Caring for Patients at Home—A Family Stressor Can you apply the family ecology theoretical perspective to this situation? What are some creative ways that family might deal with high-tech caregiving at home? In what ways might community activism play a part in addressing this situation?

Types of Stressors Stressor Overload Occurs when a family may be stressed not just by one serious, chronic problem but also by a series of large or small, related or unrelated stressors that build on one another too rapidly for the family members to cope effectively.

The Course of a Family Crisis The event that caused the crisis Period of disorganization that follows Reorganization or recovery phase after the family reaches a low point

Course of a Family Crisis Vulnerable Families: families that are having difficulties or functioning less effectively before the onset of additional stressors or demands Resilient Families: families capable of doing well in the face of adversity

Family Resilience Resilient families do well in the face of adversity. Greater financial resources are advantageous in coping with family stress and crises, but low income families are often creatively resilient in locating resources.

Patterns of Family Adaptation to Crisis

Divorce As a Family Adjustment to Crisis and As a Crisis in Itself

Family Stress, Crisis, Adjustment, and Adaptation: A Theoretical Model The ABC-X model states that A (the stressor event) interacting with B (the family’s ability to cope with a crisis) interacting with C (the family’s appraisal of the stressor event) produces X, the crisis.

Family Stress, Crisis, Adjustment, and Adaptation: A Theoretical Model In the double ABC-X model, A becomes Aa, or family pileup. Pileup includes not just the stressor but also previously existing family strains and future hardships induced by the stressor event.

Family Stress, Crisis, Adjustment, and Adaptation

Appraising the Situation The nature of the stressor The degree of hardship or the kind of problems the stressor creates The families previous successful experience in the event crises Childhood legacies of adult family members

Crisis-Meeting Resources The family’s crisis-meeting capabilities—resources and coping behaviors—constitute its ability to prevent a stressor from creating severe disharmony or disruption. Three types: Personal/individual Family Community

Meeting Crises Creatively positive outlook spiritual values and support groups open, supportive communication adaptability informal social support extended family community resources

Extended Family Many—although not all—turn to their extended family for social support in times of stress. This may be less true than researchers once thought, but kin may provide emotional support, monetary support, and practical help.

Issues for Thought: When a Parent is in Prison More than 2 million children have a parent who is in jail or prison. More and more, policy makers have realized that disrupted family ties have a severe and negative impact on the next generation. Consequently, a number of correctional systems have developed visitation programs to facilitate parent-child contact.

Having a family member in prison or jail is a crisis a small but growing number of families face today. Can you think of any possible positive effects in this case? What community supports might help? What might be some alternatives to incarcerating parents who have been actively involved in raising their children?

Crisis: Disaster or Opportunity? A family crisis is a turning point in the course of family living that requires members to change how they have been thinking and acting. Although we cannot control the occurrence of many crises, we can decide how to cope with them. Most crises have potential for positive as well as negative effects.

Happy Stressors It’s important to remember that not all stressors are unhappy ones. Happy events, such as moving into a new house, can be family stressors too.