Comprehensive Stress Management

Thirteenth Edition

Chapter 17
Family Stress

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 Chapter Outline
• The family
• Marriage
• Cohabitation
• Divorce
• Single-parent families
• Gay and lesbian families
• Family stressors
• A model of family stress
• Interventions

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 Family
• Set of intimate and personal relationships
• May be legal or extralegal
• Nuclear family: Married couple and their
children
• Extended family: Relatives other than
spouses and children

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 Functions of the Family
• Govern reproduction and child rearing
• Provide economic support
– Physiological, safety, and security needs
• Meet emotional needs
– Love, care, concern, and a sense of belonging

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 Types of Family
• Single-parent
• Blended
• Same-sex
• Dysfunctional

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 Figure 17.1 - Households by Type,
2009

Source: U.S. Census Bureau. Statistical Abstracts of the United States, 2011
(Washington, D.C.: U.S.Census Bureau, 2010), 54.

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 Marriage
• Can be joyful, with couples sharing happiness
• Can lead to stress as two people who lived
apart now must accommodate each other

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 Cohabitation
• Romantically involved couples living together
although not married
• Prevalent among young adults, the widowed,
the separated, and the divorced
• Uncertainty, convenience, and financial
benefits are significant factors

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 Single-Parent Families
• Families in which the father or the mother is
absent due to:
– Divorce
– Marital separation
– Out-of-wedlock pregnancy
– Death

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 Gay and Lesbian Families
• Gay and lesbian couples must cope with
marriage and the right to raise children
• Perceived as living an immoral and sinful life
• Supporters argue that gay and lesbian
households can be as ethical, spiritual, or
religious as any other household

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 Family Stressors
• Dual-career family
• Children
• Family planning
• Adoption
• Mobility
• Violence
• Financial stressors

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 Dual-Career Family
• Family in which both spouses work outside the
home with careers of their own
• Reasons
– Day care
– Clothing
– Medical care
– Schooling
– Personal aspirations

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 Children
• Can be stressful as family members need to
adjust to the children's rapid changes
– Changes in body, mind, and social skills
• Stress associated with raising children can be
limited by:
– Maintaining a positive relationship by
participating in enjoyable family activities

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 Family Planning
• Planning for how many children to have
• Involves method of contraception and abortion
– Can cause distress due to disagreement
between sexual partners

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 Adoption
• Closed adoption: No contact between the birth
parents and the adoptive parents
• Open adoption: Contact between the birth parents
and the adoptive parents
• Stress associated with the inability to conceive children,
the process of adoption, and placing a child for
adoption
• Adopted children as adults may seek to identify their
birth parents
• Stress related to the search process and to the
reactions of both the adoptive parents and the birth
parents
• Birth parents might feel guilty or might reject the
adopted child

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 Mobility
• Families moving away from their extended
family
• New relationships need to be developed
– Takes time for these new relationships to
become meaningful
• May lead to lack of involvement with extended
family

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 Violence
• Child abuse and neglect
– Result of drug abuse, poverty and economic
stress, and a lack of parenting skills
• Intimate partner violence
– Abusive spouses, ex-spouses, boyfriends, or
girlfriends
• Domestic violence
– Sexual, emotional, and property/economic
abuse

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 Financial Stressors
• Poverty
• Unemployment or minimum-wage jobs
• Inability to afford health insurance
• Poor housing arrangements
• Child care
• Educational costs

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 Other Stressors
• New stepfamilies
• Assisting elderly parents
• Sexual lives
• Raising children alone
• Parents living apart from their children

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 Figure 17.2 - Family Stress Model

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 Interventions
• Life-situation interventions
• Financial stress interventions
• Perception interventions
• Emotional arousal interventions
• Physiological interventions

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 Life-Situation Interventions
• Devote time for family members
• Improve communication among members of
the family
• Talk with a counselor about family planning
• Plan vacations to visit extended family and call
them regularly

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 Financial Stress Interventions
• Identify income you expect to acquire for each month
• Identify anticipated expenses for each month
• Try to set aside some money each month for savings
• Try to pay off some of your debt each month if you
owe money
• Control spending and pay bills on time
• Review the budget periodically
• Avoid extended warranties when making purchases
• Consult organizational evaluations of products before
purchasing them
• Use generic drugs rather than brand-name drugs

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 Perception Interventions
• Use selective awareness to perceive the changes in
your family life
– Exciting, interesting, and challenging
• Enjoy your family life as fully as possible
• Understand the Type A behavior pattern
– Doing many things rather than doing fewer things
well
• Discuss the quality-of-time versus quantity-of-time
issue with partners
• Develop internality
– Controlling some events and analysing how that
attempt fared

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 Emotional and Physiological Arousal
Interventions
• Regular practice of relaxation helps to cope
better with:
– Normal family transitions
– Unusual and unanticipated family stressors
• Exercise can reduce stress and thereby
prevent illness

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