Family Development : Family Dynamic Development

The purpose of this paper is to discuss one of the tasks of family development and the life cycle theories. The task I chose was assuming mutual responsibility for child care and nurturing.

While taking Introductory Sociology with Professor Cole Smith this semester, the course revealed concepts covering various topics about society and the world around us. During the course, the ideas and concepts covered were impressionable because of the nature of the content. Each chapter discussed controversial topics challenging the way the students previously perceived information. However, there are chapters in this course that have been the most influential. For example, chapter one covered the theoretical perspectives, chapter four examined the concept of the social construction of reality, and chapter twelve exploring the family dynamic. Although each chapter provided insight on various subjects, the information allows for the reader

Conger, R. D., Ge, X., Elder, G. H., Lorenz, F. O., & Simons, R. L. (1994). Economic stress, coercive family process, and developmental problems of adolescents. Child Development, 65, 541–561.

Monica A. Steff, a lot of the research on adolescents in the 1980s emphasized on family relations (Gecas & Steff, 1990). A lot of “storm and stress” research done on adolescents found that adolescence was not particularly a turbulent time and most of them had good relationships with their parents. Gecas and Steff also mentions a study conducted by Steinberg, Elmen, and Mounts in 1989 that found that about 75% of adolescents are very close and identify with their parents. Studies that reported increased conflict between adolescent and parent indicated that most of the conflicts were over minor issues such as appearance or music taste, not major values (1990). In a study Gecas and Steff mentions, over 6,000 adolescents from Japan, Israel, Hungary, West Germany, Italy, Australia, Turkey, Bangladesh, Taiwan, and the U.S., which found that most of the adolescents were found to be positive attitudes towards their families and themselves, high interests in work, and occupational goal (1990). These researchers explain that the degree in which the adolescents face conflict and rebellion vary within the historical changes within the society. As one can tell, there are mixed views as how society members look at

Possessing a functional or dysfunctional family is of much importance to a healthy development, helping children through peer pressure, acceptance, and the anxiety of belonging. Yet how important is the environment that a child is raised on, this being shared or non-shared? How difficult or easy can peer pressure be? Will peer pressure help or deter a child from being functional. How much do these factors affect development from childhood to adolescence? This paper will explain the different stages of childhood to adolescence, and how a child and adolescence copes with nature and nurture .

When the supposed parent doesn’t give enough attention to the kids, such kids are prone to violent attitude. Even, some parent practically exposed to their kids to violence indirectly. An example is when a parent takes an underage for a gun show. Of course, such kids would want to use it one day. Parents who engage in domestic violence always have a negative impact on the kids. According to a research (Harold & Sellers, 2018), “Interparental quality is regarded as a major determinant factor in the life of a child and adolescent psychopathology. Recent research has highlighted that children are affected by attributes of interparental conflict, specifically how parents express and manage conflicts in their relationship, across a continuum of expressed severity and negativity – ranging from silence to violence.” The article further reveals evidences that children's emotional, behavioral, social, academic outcomes, and future interpersonal relationships are adversely affected by conflict between parents either divorced or still living together. The research article is based on Historical and it is a clinically oriented. Some parents believe that parenting has a duration, therefore, once their children attain a certain age little or no correction is required from them. Good parenting does not have a duration, rather, it is a continuous

School and education happens to be one of the main things affected in the lives of both African American males and females living in single parent households. Parents tend to become less involved in the childs academics and social activities in school from the stress of being a single parent and having so much responsibility on them. It seemingly gets worse by the time the child reaches high school. One survey asked high school students whether their parents helped them with their school work and supervised their social activities. Students whose parents separated between the sophomore and senior years reported a loss of involvement and supervision compared to students whose parents stayed together (Mclanahan, n.d.). This usually leads to the child performing poorly in the classroom and on assignments. The child becomes less motivated to attend school, which leads to poor attendance. Poor attendance and lack of motivation sometimes results in the child dropping out of school. If the parents live apart, the probability that their children will drop out of high school rises by 11 percentage points. And for every child who actually drops out of school, there are likely to be three or four more whose performance is affected even though they manage to graduate (Mclanahan, n.d). Children born to unmarried parents are slightly more likely to drop out of school and become teen mothers than children born to married parents who divorce. But the difference is small compared to the

“In the united states, more than 4 to 5 in 10 marriages end in a divorce, and approximately half of American children are affected by this change in family relationships” ( McDevitt & Ormrod, 2015, p.73). The divorce rate is continuously skyrocketing, and more children are having to learn how to deal with this occurrence. In addition to divorce, there are also many different types of family situations, that are not considered traditional, and these also cause children to go through hardships. For the most part, children who grow up in traditional working households have tended to do better in school and grow developmentally stronger than children in non-traditional household settings due to the hardships and the changes these children are going through.

A traditional family is no longer considered the norm amongst a typical family structure. Many family structures consist of the nuclear family, single parent household, lesbian/gay family, childless family, grandparent family, and stepfamily. Each family is made distinctive, develops at different stages, and deals with family issues. Family development theory is used to help families deal with issues and how to handle them in different stages of development. Issues within the family can be caused by a numerous of situations from a child acting out to a parent getting a divorce.

The Structure of Family Developmental psychologist around the world have completed numerous research on how family structures impact the development of adolescence. Researchers believe these family structures influence how people interact with each other. From the Twilight Saga’s ideal Cullen family, to the spilt homes of Bella and Jacob, Stephanie Meyer can show how family life influences development of adolescences. The orphaned creature that Mary Shelly writes of in Frankenstein is affected by his lack of a family. Adolescent development is mainly broken into three sectors; physical, psychosocial, and emotional.

Moreover, a deteriorating structure within a family impacts children from a very young age. They start to get neglected and eventually accept the difficulties. A study was done on kindergarten boys from low socioeconomic neighborhoods in Canada and it found that boys raised in adverse family environments are at a high risk of engaging in deviant peer groups (Lacourse et al., 2006). This indicates that when a child is not cared for appropriately, they are capable of doing as they wish. For the reason that some families have a complex structure and are hard to cope with, youth replace them with a gang which can be seen as a surrogate family. Mackay (2005) depicts that adverse conditions such as parental separation have shown to result in significant

In a family, it is the relations between children and parents as well as siblings. A child’s success depends on both the physical presence of adults and attention given to the child by adults. The High School and Beyond sample shows that students who have two parents, one sibling, and a mother who expects college education have the lowest percentage of dropping out of school at 8.1%. On the other hand, students who have one parent, four siblings, and no college expectation have a whopping 30.6% of dropping out. This is caused by the absence of the single-parent as he or she is most likely working. In addition, having more siblings means that the parent’s attention is split and each child receive less consideration. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the second category has a higher dropout rate because they have less social capital.

Children from instable families during early childhood are at risk for school failure, so recognizing protective factors for academic accomplishments for these children is very important (Burchinal, Robert, Zeisel, Hennon, & Hooper, 2006, p.79). Black children that are exposed to various risk factors during their early childhood are more likely to experience issues with academics opposed to other races (Burchinal et al., 2006). The way a child is raised or their home life can affect them as far as their developmental growth. A child’s early home environment has an intense outcome on his well-being (Burchinal et al., 2006). As an infant negative experience within it can distort the brain’s stress response system, decrease the quality of caregiving

The cause of behavioral and/or emotional problems among our youth could come from being raised in a single parent home. Many children resort to negative acts of behavior because of limited parental supervision within the single parent household. Children are two to three times more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems in single parent homes (Maginnis, 1997).

3. Become aware of the “alive versus the inanimate” and “familiar versus unfamiliar” and develop rudimentary social interaction.