Ch. #15 The Family

Low family SES and economic hardship may be associated with poor developmental outcomes because of what?

(1) Economic stresses that result in less warm and nurturant, more authoritarian, and less consistent parenting; (2) limited investment of resources, mainly money and time, in children's development; and (3) socialization goals centered more on keeping children out of trouble.

Since the 1950s, several dramatic social changes have altered the family experience. What are some of the trends that have changed family life in the United States (pt. #1)?

1. More divorce. 2. Fewer children. 3. More single adults. 4. More working mothers. 5. More unmarried parents. 6. More postponed marriages.

Since the 1950s, several dramatic social changes have altered the family experience. What are some of the trends that have changed family life in the United States (pt. #2)?

7. More remarriages. 8. More single-parent families. 9. More years without children. 10. More multigenerational families. 11. Fewer caregivers for aging adults.

What is an example of how the characteristics of the baby might make new parenthood easier or harder to manage?

A baby who is difficult (for example, cries endlessly because of colic) creates more stresses and anxieties for parents than an infant who is quiet, sociable, responsive, and otherwise easy to love.

What is child maltreatment?

A broad term that includes both child abuse and neglect of the child's basic needs.

What is the child effects model?

A child effects model of family influence highlights the influences of children on their parents.

What are linked lives?

A concept, put forward by Glen Elder and his colleagues, is that we lead linked lives - our lives and development are intertwined with those of other members of our families.

What is autonomy?

A key developmental task of adolescence is achieving autonomy, or the capacity to make decisions independently and manage life tasks without being overly dependent on other people.

How do infants affect the mother-father relationship?

A screaming baby can negatively affect a couple's relationship by causing a stressed father to blow up at his wife.

What is the family life cycle?

A sequence of changes in family composition, roles, relationships, and developmental tasks from the time people marry until they die.

Why must we also consider the ecological context of abuse?

Abuse is most likely to occur when a parent is under great stress and has little social support. Life changes such as the loss of a job or a move can disrupt family functioning and contribute to abuse or neglect. Abuse rates are also highest in deteriorating neighborhoods where families are poor, transient, socially isolated, and lacking in community services and informal social support.

What are examples of accepting, responsive parents?

Accepting, responsive parents are affectionate and often smile at, praise, and encourage their children; they consider their children's perspectives, although they also let children know when they misbehave.

What several factors can help facilitate a positive adjustment to divorce and prevent lasting damage?

Adequate financial support, good parenting by the custodial parent, good parenting by the noncustodial parent, minimal conflict between parents, additional social support, minimal other changes, and personal resources.

How can adjustment problems when a new baby arrives be minimized?

Adjustment to a new sibling is easier if the marital relationship is good and remains good after the birth and if the firstborn had secure relationships with both parents before the younger sibling arrived - and continues to enjoy close relationships with them afterward.

Even after the crisis phase has passed, how can divorce leave a residue of negative effects on as many as 25% of children into adulthood?

Adults whose parents divorced are also less likely than adults from intact families to marry and more likely to experience relationship problems and divorce or separation if they do.

How can the effectiveness of different parenting approaches differ depending on the cultural or subcultural context in which they are used?

African American parents living in high-crime poverty areas in the United States sometimes rely on authoritarian and even harsh parenting in an effort to protect their children from harm. Their children tend to view this as a sign that their parents care rather than as a sign of hostility and rejection.

What is an example of spillover effects?

After parents have a stressful day at work, for example, they tend to be withdrawn from their spouse and children and angry and irritable if provoked. By contrast, a rewarding, stimulating job can have positive effects on a parent's interactions within the family.

Whereas the entry of children into the family cause modest decreases in marital satisfaction, how does the departure of the last child seem to be associated with increases, especially for women?

After the nest empties, women often feel that their marriages are more equitable and their spouses are more accommodating to their needs.

What are reconstituted families?

Also called blended families, that include at least a parent, a stepparent, and one child.

What is an example of how child abusers tend to have been abused as children?

Although most maltreated children do not abuse their own children when they become parents, a relatively high percentage, about 30%, do.

What is the teaching function of siblings?

Although older brothers and sisters are not always as skilled at teaching as parents are, they clearly feel a special responsibility to teach, and younger siblings actively seek their guidance.

Sibling rivalry may be rooted in what evolutionary fact?

Although siblings are genetically related, they compete with one another for their parents' time and resources to ensure their own survival and welfare.

How can siblings can affect each other not only directly but also through the indirect effects they have on their parents - for ill?

An incompetent older sibling can set in motion a negative chain of influence in the family system leading to less supportive parenting and less positive outcomes for the younger sibling.

What is an example that focuses on what characteristics child and parent bring to their interactions - not how they change each other as they interact?

Antisocial behavior can result when a child who behaves aggressively elicits negative, coercive parenting and when that parenting contributes further to the child's aggression.

Although more American fathers are involved in child care than ever before, more fathers also live apart from their children than ever before. Thus...

As Livingston and Parker (2011) put it, we have "a tale of two fathers," the engaged kind and the absent kind.

What should we conclude overall about the implications of today's diverse families for child development?

As Mavis Hetherington (2006) concludes, "It is family process rather than family structure that is critical to the well-being of children" (p. 232).

Why is one good example of a child effect is the influence of a child's age and competence on the style of parenting used with that child (pt. #2)?

As children develop, then, parenting shifts from parent regulation of the child, to parent and child coregulation of the child, to self-regulation by a now more capable child.

What is an empty nest?

As children reach maturity, the family becomes a "launching pad" that fires adolescents and young adults into the world to work and start their own families. The term empty nest describes the family after the departure of the last child.

As children reach puberty and become more physically and cognitively mature and more capable of acting autonomously, they assert themselves more. Thus...

As they do so, their parents give up some of their power, adolescents assume more control of their lives, and the parent-child relationship becomes more equal.

How much have the daily lives of mothers and fathers changed from 1965 to 2011?

As women have increased their involvement in paid work, they have decreased their involvement in housework and managed to spend more time caring for their children than mothers in 1965 did. Fathers have helped make this possible by increasing their involvement in child care from 2.5 to 7 hours a week and their housework time from 4 to 10 hours a week.

By crossing the acceptance and demandingness dimensions, what are the four basic patterns of child rearing to consider?

Authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and neglectful parenting.

What is authoritative parenting?

Authoritative parenting. Authoritative parents are more flexible; they are quite demanding and exert control, but they are also sensitive to their children. They set clear rules and consistently enforce them, but they have rationales for their rules and explain them, are responsive to their children's needs and points of view, and involve their children in family decision making.

What can be done for burdened caregivers?

Behavior management training, anger management training, and cognitive behavioral therapy can help caregivers sharpen their caregiving skills, teach their aging parents self-care skills, learn to react less negatively to the difficult behavior often shown by elderly adults with dementia, and cope with the stress associated with their role and the conflicts that may arise between it and their other roles.

What are "boomerang children"?

Boomerang children who return home are often unemployed, have limited finances, are divorced or separated, or have experienced other difficulties or delays getting their adult lives off the ground.

How are stresses magnified for families living in poverty or moving in and out of poverty as a result of job loss and other economic crises?

Both parents and children experience stress as they cope with a physical environment characterized by pollution, noise, and crowded, unsafe living conditions and a social environment characterized by family instability and violence.

What is the emotional support function of siblings?

Brothers and sisters confide in one another, often more than they confide in their parents. They protect and comfort one another in rough times. Even preschoolers jump in to comfort their infant siblings when their mothers leave or when strangers approach.

How does the arrival of a new baby affect a mother, a father, and their relationship (pt. #2)?

But couples have added new roles (as mothers and fathers) to their existing roles (as spouses, workers, and so on), and new parents often find juggling work and family responsibilities challenging. All of this adds up to stress.

The caregivers most likely to experience caregiver burden are those who must:

Care for parents or spouses with dementia and associated behavioral problems, who lack personal resources such as a secure attachment style, and who lack social and cultural support for caregiving.

Middle-aged adults who must foster their children's development while tending to their own development and caring for aging parents sometimes find their situation overwhelming. They may experience ________.

Caregiver burden.

What is the family stress model?

Centers on the negative effects of financial stresses on parent mental health, parenting, and, in turn, child development.

What is child abuse?

Child abuse, mistreating or harming a child physically, emotionally, or sexually, is perhaps the most visible form of family violence.

Why are a growing number of adults voluntarily decide to delay having children or to be "child free"?

Childlessness generally does not diminish the well-being of adults and sometimes boosts it. Indeed, the marital satisfaction of childless couples tends to be higher than that of couples with children during the childrearing years.

How does the potential for abuse exists in all possible relationships within the family system?

Children and adolescents batter, and in rare cases kill, their parents. Siblings, especially brothers, abuse one another in countless ways, especially if there is violence elsewhere in the family.

In a pioneering longitudinal study, what did Diana Baumrind find about children raised by authoritarian parents?

Children of authoritarian parents tended to be moody and unhappy, relatively aim-less, and unpleasant to be around. They had little opportunity to learn self-reliance and lacked confidence in their own decision-making skills.

How has subsequent research shown that the worst developmental outcomes are associated with the neglectful, uninvolved style of parenting?

Children of neglectful parents display behavioral problems such as aggression and frequent temper tantrums and tend to become hostile and antisocial adolescents who abuse alcohol and drugs and get in trouble.

In a pioneering longitudinal study, what did Diana Baumrind find about children raised by permissive parents?

Children of permissive parents were often impulsive, aggressive, self-centered, rebellious, aimless, and low in independence and achievement. Given little guidance, they did not learn self-control and self-direction.

In a pioneering longitudinal study, what did Diana Baumrind find about children raised by authoritative parents?

Children raised by authoritative parents were the best adjusted: They were cheerful, socially responsible, self-reliant, achievement oriented, and cooperative with adults and peers.

How can a vicious circle of the sort described by the transactional model of family influence result from divorce?

Children's behavioral problems make effective parenting more difficult, and deterioration in parenting aggravates children's behavioral problems. When this breakdown in family functioning occurs, children are likely to display academic problems and adjustment difficulties at school, behavior problems ranging from aggression to depression, and strained relations with peers.

What is cohabitation?

Cohabitation, living with a romantic partner without being married, is on the rise, to the point that most marriages are now preceded by cohabitation.

Many single adults enter into romantic relationships that may or may not lead to marriage called ________.

Cohabitation.

Does the quality of a couple's relationship early in their marriage have implications for their later marital adjustment?

Compared with couples who were happily married after 13 years, couples who remained married but were unhappy had had relatively poor quality relationships all along.

How do parents of different socioeconomic (SES) levels rely on different parenting styles in raising children?

Compared with middle-class and upper-class parents, lower-class and working-class parents tend to place more emphasis on obedience and respect for authority. They are often more restrictive and authoritarian, reason with their children less frequently, and show less warmth and affection.

What are the implications for children of being raised by gay or lesbian parents?

Comparing lesbian mothers with heterosexual mothers in two-parent and single-parent homes, Susan Golombok and her colleagues discovered that lesbian mothers tend to hit children less and to engage in imaginative and domestic play more but are otherwise similar to heterosexual mothers.

Across cultures, adolescents are most likely to become autonomous, achievement oriented, and well-adjusted if their parents do what?

Consistently enforce a reasonable set of rules, involve their teenag-ers in decision making, recognize their need for greater autonomy, monitor their comings and goings, gradually loosen the reins, and continue to be warm, supportive, and involved throughout adolescence.

What are examples of controlling, demanding parents?

Controlling and demanding parents set rules, expect their children to follow them, and monitor their children closely to ensure that the rules are followed.

Unmarried people live together for what reasons?

Convenience, trial marriage, or alternative to marriage.

What is the parental imperative?

Couples often adopt more traditional gender-role attitudes and divide their labors along more traditional lines - a phenomenon called the parental imperative.

When parents are unhappy or are experiencing marital problems, parenting and parent-child relationships can deteriorate, placing teens at greater risk for problems such as...

Delinquency, alcohol and drug use, anxiety, depression, and emotional distress.

What is demandingness-control?

Demandingness-control (sometimes called permissiveness-restrictiveness) refers to how much control over decisions lies with the parent as opposed to with the child.

Even as adults, individuals who were abused as children tend to have higher-than-average rates of...

Depression, anxiety, and other psychological problems. They still show deficits in the processing of emotion. Their marriages are more negative and less satisfying and their relationships with their families are less emotionally close.

What are direct effects wihin the family?

Direct effects within the family include, for example, a mother's or a father's effects on an infant's development.

How is divorce not just one life event?

Divorce - the same can be said of the separation of a cohabiting couple - is a series of stressful experiences for the entire family that begins with difficulties before the divorce or separation and includes a complex series of life changes as the relationship unravels and family members reorganize their lives.

What are examples of coparenting?

Do they talk to each other about the children and agree on the basics of child-rearing? Have they worked out a division of responsibility for parenting? Are they consistent in their rules and enforcement of rules? Do they back one another up - or do they undermine each other's parenting, contradict one another, and compete for their children's affection?

What are the stages of the family life cycle?

Each stage has a particular set of family members, each with distinctive roles and distinctive developmental tasks - for example, establishing a satisfying relationship in the newlywed phase, adjusting to the demands of new parenthood in the childbearing phase, and adapting to the departure of children in the "launching" phase.

What are the four important functions of siblings?

Emotional support, caregiving, teaching, and social experience.

Abusive parents tend to have been...

Exposed to harsh parenting as children and to abusive romantic relationships, suffer from mental health problems and low self-esteem, and misinterpret normal child behavior as ego threatening.

What are indirect effects?

Family members (or subsystems of the family) can have either direct or indirect effects on one another.

How do changes in family membership and changes in any person or relationship within the family affect the dynamics of the whole system?

Family membership changes as new children are born, grown children leave the nest, and parents depart or die. Moreover, each family member is a developing individual, and the relationships between husband and wife, parent and child, and sibling and sibling change in systematic ways over the years.

It is in the nature of systems to settle into certain patterns of functioning and to resist change, so once an unhealthy patterns of interaction such as fighting between parents becomes established, it can be difficult to change. However...

Family systems also show a capacity to change in response to changes both within and outside the family, so there is hope for turning maladaptive patterns of interaction into more adaptive ones.

What are a few reliable differences between parents who abuse their children and those who do not?

First, child abusers tend to have been abused as children. Second, abusive mothers are often battered by their partners. Third, abusers often have mental health problems. Fourth, abusive parents often have distorted perceptions of the normal behavior of infants and young children.

Why are parents generally not upset by the empty nest (pt. #1)?

First, they have fewer roles and responsibilities and therefore experience less stress and strain. Second, they have more opportunity to focus on their relationship; for women, increased enjoyment of time with their partners is a key reason for increased marital satisfaction.

How do gay and lesbian families face special challenges, as evidenced by the continuing national struggles over gay marriage even after the Supreme Court ruling legalizing it?

For example, a gay or lesbian person's life partner may not be embraced as a full member of the family, allowed to make life-and-death decisions if their partner becomes ill, or given custody of the partner's children if the partner dies.

In support of an interactional model of family influence, what is an example of a combination of a high-risk parent and a challenging child?

For example, a mother who feels powerless to deal with children, and who must raise a child who has a disability or illness or is otherwise challenging, is prone to overreact emotionally when the child cannot be controlled and use harsh discipline.

How does the concept of gene-environment interaction illustrate the interactional model?

For example, aggressive behavior is most likely to develop if a child has a variant of the MAO-A gene associated with temper control problems and is raised by an abusive parent. It takes the combination of an at-risk child and an abusive environment.

How do some children appear to be more at risk for abuse than others>

For example, children who have medical problems or who have difficult temperaments are more likely to be treated harshly or abused than quiet, healthy, and responsive infants who are easier to care.

Gender stereotypes would suggest that fathers are not cut out to care for infants and young children, but what evidence says they are?

For example, fathers prove to be no less able than mothers to feed their babies effectively. And fathers, like mothers, provide sensitive parenting, form attachments with their babies, and serve as secure bases for exploration.

How do mothers indirectly affect the father-infant relationship?

For example, fathers who have just had pleasant conversations with their wives are more supportive and engaged when they interact with their children than fathers who have just had arguments with their wives.

Why is one good example of a child effect is the influence of a child's age and competence on the style of parenting used with that child (pt. #1)?

For example, infants in their first year of life require and elicit sensitive care, whereas older infants who are asserting their wills and toddling here and there force parents to set limits.

How do fathers indirectly influence the mother-infant relationship?

For example, mothers who have close, supportive relationships with their husbands tend to interact more patiently and sensitively with their babies than do mothers who are experiencing marital problems or feel that they are raising their children largely without help.

What are positives in the list of trends in family life?

For example, postponing marriage improves its chances of success because partners are more mature and financially stable, men's and women's roles in the family are more equal than they used to be now that more women work, and families are better off financially with two wage earners than with only one.

What is an example of how abusive parents often have distorted perceptions of the normal behavior of infants and young children?

For example, when infants cry to communicate needs such as hunger, abusive mothers may infer that the baby is somehow criticizing or rejecting them. One mother interpreted her 3-month-old's babbling as "talking back."

How are elderly adults targets of family violence?

Frail or impaired older people are physically or psychologically mis-treated, neglected, financially exploited, and stripped of their rights - most often by stressed adult children or spouses serving as their caregivers.

What is a profile of the couples at highest risk for divorce?

Generally they are young adults, in their 20s and 30s, who have been married for an average of only about 7 years, and who often have young children. Couples are especially likely to divorce if they married as teenagers, had a short courtship, conceived a child before marrying, and are of low SES.

What are the family experiences of gay men, lesbian women, and other sexual minority adults like?

Generally, gay and lesbian relationships evolve through the same stages of development, are unsatisfying or dissatisfying for the same reasons, and are typically as rewarding as those of married or cohabiting heterosexuals.

How does spousal or intimate partner abuse appears to be the most common form of family violence worldwide?

Globally it has been estimated that about one-third of women are beaten, coerced into sex, or emotionally abused by their partners.

What is the social experience function of siblings?

Having at least one sibling to interact with can have positive effects on a child's social cognitive skills and social competence. In their interactions with siblings, especially all those skirmishes, children learn how to take others' perspectives, read others' minds, express feelings, negotiate, and resolve conflicts.

Why is achieving autonomy about establishing an identity separate from one's parents and preparing to leave the nest and fly on one's own?

If adolescents are to "make it" as adults, they cannot be rushing home for reassuring hugs after every little setback or depending on parents to get them to work on time or manage their checkbooks.

What is best for the development of autonomy?

If adolescents maintain close attachments with their parents and parents maintain authoritative control but also gradually grant teens more responsibility for decision making. Gaining some separation from parents is healthy; becoming detached from them is not.

How can siblings can affect each other not only directly but also through the indirect effects they have on their parents - for good?

If an older sibling is competent, this contributes positively to his mother's psychological functioning, which makes her more likely to provide supportive parenting to a younger sibling, which in turn increases the odds that the younger sibling will also be competent.

What is an example of middle-generation squeeze?

Imagine a 55-year-old woman caring for her daughter's children (and maybe even her granddaughter's children) as well as for her own ailing parents (and possibly her grandparents).

Some scholars think it makes more sense to talk of the "________" consisting of children and whoever cares for them to embrace single-parent families, gay and lesbian families, and so on.

Immediate family.

How does how much autonomy adolescents want and how much parents grant differ from culture to culture?

In collectivist Asian cultures like China, parents continue to be in command, the balance of power does not shift as much, and the quest for autonomy is less evident, at least during early and middle adolescence, than in the United States.

What if the children don't leave or come flying back?

In recent years, an increasing number of adult children have been remaining in the nest, or leaving and then refilling it in a kind of "boomerang effect."

What is the transactional model?

In the transactional model of family influence, both parent effects and child effects are at work as parent and child influence one another reciprocally over time.

What is an extended family household?

In which parents and their children live with other kin - some combination of grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews.

What are indirect effects within the family?

Indirect effects are instances in which the relationship or interaction between two individuals in the family is modified by the behavior or attitudes of a third family member.

When parents compete rather than cooperate, their infants may show signs of ________ or may become securely attached to one parent but be blocked from enjoying close relationships with both parents.

Insecure attachment.

Contrary to myth, how do gay and lesbian couples usually do not have one adopt the traditional "husband" role and the other the "wife" role?

Instead, relationships are usually egalitarian; partners share responsibilities equally and tend to work out a division of labor based on who is especially talented at or does not mind doing certain tasks.

How can maltreatment have damaging effects on the developing brain, the stress response system, and other biological systems that affect psychological functioning?

Intellectual deficits and academic difficulties are common among mistreated children. Social, emotional, and behavioral problems are also common. Maltreated children tend to have poor understanding of emotions, experience many negative emotions, and have difficulty regulating their emotions.

What is the involved style of grandparenting?

Involved grandparents often help with child care, gave advice, and played other practical roles in their grandchildren's lives. Indeed, some involved grandparents lived with and served as substitute parents for their grandchildren because their daughters or sons could not care for the children themselves.

How does a child's genetic makeup and personality also influence the parenting she receives?

Is it not possible that easygoing, manageable children cause their parents to be warm and authoritative? Could not difficult, stubborn, and aggressive children help mold parents who are rejecting rather than accepting - and who either rule with an authoritarian iron hand or throw up their hands in defeat and become neglectful?

How are extended family households common in many cultures?

It has been suggested that humans evolved to involve the whole "village," or at least many members of the extended family along with a mother and father, in raising children.

How is marriage a significant life transition for most adults?

It involves taking on a new role (as husband or wife) and adjusting to life as a couple. Their self-esteem and sense of mastery rise, and their emotional distress level drops.

Contrary to popular belief, how are most parent-adolescent relationships retaining whatever quality they had in childhood?

It is rare for a parent-child relationship to suddenly turn bad at adolescence; more likely, a troubled parent-adolescent relationship has grown out of a troubled parent-child relationship and has been shaped by both the parent's parenting and the child's personality and behavior.

The rowdy play style shown by many fathers in our culture does not show up in all cultures, either. Thus...

It seems, then, that both nature (evolution) and nurture (societal gender-role norms) contribute to mother-father differences in parental involvement and styles of interacting with young children.

What are examples of sibling rivalry?

Jealousies, bouts of teasing, shouting matches, and occasional kicks and punches continue to be part of the sibling relationship throughout childhood; squabbles are most often over possessions.

What are examples of less accepting and responsive parents?

Less accepting and responsive parents are often quick to criticize, belittle, punish, or ignore their children and rarely communicate to children that they are loved and valued.

What are examples of less controlling and demanding parents?

Less controlling and demanding parents make fewer demands and allow their children a great deal of autonomy in exploring the environment, expressing their opinions and emotions, and making decisions about their activities.

This breakdown in parenting then contributes to what negative child outcomes?

Low self-esteem, poor school performance, poor peer relations, and adjustment problems such as aggression and depression.

What is an example of how abusive mothers are often battered by their partner?

Many abusive mothers may have learned through their experiences both as children and as romantic partners that violence is the way to solve problems, or they may take out some of their frustrations about being abused on their children.

How do an increasing number of people not experience this traditional family life cycle?

Many adults enter into romantic relationships but remain single or childless, marry multiple times, or otherwise follow a different path than the one in which a man and woman form a nuclear family, raise children, and grow old together.

What is an example of how abusers often have mental health problems?

Many are insecure individuals with low self-esteem, and many struggle with depression and substance abuse. These adults see themselves as victims, feel powerless as parents, and find the normal challenges of parenting stressful and threatening.

Parents coping with poverty tend to be harsh, punitive, and inconsistent. Poverty is associated with what child health problems, emotional and behavioral problems, and academic failure?

Many chronic stressors associated with poverty can alter children's stress response systems in ways that pave the way for health and mental health problems later in life and can disrupt the development of regions of the brain that are involved in attention and self-regulation and that are therefore important in coping with challenges.

What are the effects of increased stress and of sharper gender-role differentiation?

Marital satisfaction typically declines somewhat in the first year after a baby is born and continues to decline thereafter. This decline is often steeper when couples adopt more traditional gender roles.

What is an example of how the social context might make new parenthood easier or harder to manage?

Most important is social support, possibly from friends and relatives but especially from a partner. Things go better for a new mother when she has a good relationship with her partner and when he does his fair share of child care and housework than when she has no partner or an unsupportive one.

How does the arrival of a new baby affect a mother, a father, and their relationship (pt. #1)?

On average, new parenthood is best described as a stressful life transition that involves both positive and negative changes. On the positive side, parents claim that having a child brings them joy and fulfillment and contributes to their own growth as individuals.

In a longitudinal study of newlywed couples, perceptions of the marital relationship became less favorable and marital satisfaction declined during the first year after the wedding. How did behavior also change?

One year into marriage, the average spouse says, "I love you," hugs and kisses their partner, makes their partner laugh, and has sexual intercourse about half as often as when they were newly wed.

Whether it is in decline or not, how is the American family more diverse than ever before?

Our stereotyped image of the family - the nuclear family with a married couple consisting of a breadwinner-husband/father, a full-time housewife/mother, plus children - has become just that: a stereotype.

Why must we also consider the larger macroenvironment context of abuse?

Ours is a violent society in which the use of physical punishment is common and the line between physical punishment and child abuse can be difficult to draw. Child abuse is less common in societies that discourage or outlaw physical punishment of children

What is parental acceptance-responsiveness?

Parental acceptance-responsiveness refers to the extent to which parents are warm, supportive, sensitive to their children's needs, and willing to provide affection and praise when their children meet their expectations.

What is neglectful parenting?

Parents who combine low demandingness-control and low acceptance- responsiveness are relatively uninvolved in their children's upbringing. They seem not to care much about their children. They may be hostile and rejecting or indifferent - or they may be so overwhelmed by their own problems that they cannot devote sufficient energy to expressing love and setting and enforcing rules.

Why do financially stressed parents tend to be less warm and nurturant, more authoritarian, and less consistent?

Parents who experience financial problems feel economic pressure, which tends to make them depressed, which increases conflict between the couple, which disrupts each partner's ability to be an effective parent.

What might make new parenthood easier to manage?

Parents who have an easy baby to contend with; who possess positive personal qualities and coping skills; and who receive support from their partners and other people are in the best position to cope adaptively with new parenthood.

What is an example of how the characteristics of the parent might make new parenthood easier or harder to manage?

Parents who have good problem-solving and communication skills, are in good mental health, and find adaptive ways to restructure their lives to accommodate a new baby adjust well. Similarly, parents who have realistic expectations about parenthood and about infants and children tend to adjust more easily than those who have an unrealistically rosy view.

Physically abused and otherwise maltreated children tend to have problems in virtually every area of development, including:

Physical injuries, health problems, atypical brain development, cognitive deficits, social, emotional, and behavioral problems, and psychological disorders.

Third and finally, how do high- and low-SES parents have different values and socialization goals in socializing their children?

Poor parents have more worries about their children's welfare than wealthier parents do, especially when it comes to the possibility that their children could be the victims of violence, become teen parents, or get in trouble with the law.

What is family systems theory?

Proponents of family systems theory conceptualize the family as a system. This means that the family, like the human body, is truly a whole consisting of interrelated parts, each of which affects and is affected by every other part, and each of which contributes to the functioning of the whole.

What is caregiver burden?

Psychological distress associated with the demands of providing care for someone with physical or cognitive impairments.

When parents are extremely strict and controlling and stifle autonomy, or when they are extremely lax and fail to guide and monitor their adolescents, teens are likely to become what?

Psychologically distressed, rebel, socialize with the wrong crowds, and get into trouble.

Studies suggest that much hinges on the quality of the ________ between mother and father and on how effectively they coparent even though they do not live together.

Relationship. If mother and father have a good relationship, even if it is no longer a romantic one, and if the father feels supported as a coparent, he is likely to be more involved with his child.

What is the remote style of grandparenting?

Remote grandparents were symbolic figures seen only occasionally by their grandchildren. Primarily because they were geographically distant, they were emotionally distant as well.

What are the identified three major styles of grandparenting?

Remote, compassionate, and involved.

What is an example of the parental imperative?

She specializes in the "feminine" role by becoming the primary caregiver and housekeeper, often reducing her involvement in work outside the home and increasing her hours of labor inside the home, while he emphasizes his "masculine" role as provider and works harder in his job.

Although most older siblings adjust well and fairly quickly to the arrival of a new brother or sister, ________ - the spirit of competition, jealousy, and resentment between brothers and sisters - is a normal part of sibling relationships.

Sibling rivalry

What is the caregiving funcion of siblings?

Siblings babysit and tend young children. In a study of 186 societies, older children were the principal caregivers for infants and toddlers in 57% of the cultures studied.

How is the family also a system within other systems, whether it is of the nuclear or the extended type?

The family is a system (a microsystem) that is embedded in and interacts with larger social systems such as a neighborhood, a community, a subculture, and a broader culture.

How do children fare when their custodial parent remarries?

The first few years are a time of disruption as a new family system takes shape and new family roles and relationships are ironed out. The difficulties are likely to be worse if both parents bring children to the family than if only one parent does.

What is the interactional model?

The interactional model improves on the parent effects and child effects models by recognizing that parent and child characteristics may combine in certain ways to influence development.

What are the four different models of influence in the family?

The parent effects, child effects, interactional, and transactional models.

How is even a simple man, woman, and infant "family system" complex?

The presence of both parents means that we must consider husband-wife, mother-infant, and father-infant relationships. Every individual and every relationship within the family affects every other individual and relationship through reciprocal influence.

What is sibling rivalry?

The spirit of competition, jealousy, and resentment between brothers and sisters - is a normal part of sibling relationships.

What can parents look forward to during their child-rearing years if they do have additional children?

The stresses and strains of caring for a toddler are greater than those of caring for an infant, and the arrival of a second child means added stress.

What are helicopter parents?

The term helicopter parenting refers to developmentally inappropriate levels of control and assistance to late adolescents and emerging adults - also called overparenting.

What is middle-generation squeeze?

The term middle generation squeeze (others call it the sandwich generation phenomenon) describes the situation of middle-aged adults pressured by demands from both the younger and the older generations simultaneously.

What is a nuclear family?

The traditional nuclear family consists of father, mother, and at least one child.

What is coparenting?

The ways in which two parents coordinate their parenting and function well (or poorly) as a team in raising their children.

How do most families going through a divorce experience it as a genuine crisis - a period of considerable disruption that often lasts at least 1-2 years?

The wife, who usually ends up as the primary caregiver for any children, is likely to be distressed, although she is often relieved as well. The husband is also likely to be distressed, particularly if he did not want the divorce and feels shut off from his children.

How can involved grandparenting take a toll on grandparents?

These grandparents are often poor or have health problems and sometimes suffer from stress, depression, and deteriorating health when grandchildren move in with them and they must become the primary parents.

Why do some observers view these changes as evidence of a "decline of the family"?

They emphasize the often negative effects on children of increased births to unmarried parents, divorce, and single-parent families, and the problem of more elderly adults having fewer children to support them.

How are middle-aged parents affected by how well adjusted their children are?

They may have difficulty maintaining a sense of well-being if their children are experiencing problems or are having trouble launching themselves successfully into adulthood.

Why are demonstrations of child effects, interactional effects, and transactional effects within the family important?

They mean that parents are not solely responsible for whether their children turn out "good" or "bad."

When Judy Dunn and Carol Kendrick carefully studied young children's reactions to a new sibling, they found that mothers typically pay less attention to their firstborns after the new baby arrives than before its birth. Thus...

They sometimes become more difficult and demanding, or more dependent and clingy, and they may develop problems with their sleeping, eating, and toileting routines. Although positive effects such as an increased insistence on doing things independently and helping out are also evident, it is clear that some firstborns resent losing their parents' attention.

There appear to be many examples of such interactions between child characteristics and characteristics of the child-rearing environment. Thus...

They tell us that the effect of a particular parenting approach depends on the child with whom it is used, and that the effect of a particular child characteristic depends on how a child with that characteristic is parented.

Why are parents generally not upset by the empty nest (pt. #2)?

Third, parents are likely to view the emptying of the nest as evidence that they have done their job of raising children well. Finally, most parents continue to enjoy a good deal of contact with their children after the nest empties, so it is not as if they are really losing the parent-child relationship.

What is the intergenerational transmission of parenting?

This "cycle of violence" is an example of a broader phenomenon, the intergenerational transmission of parenting, or the passing down from generation to generation of parenting styles, whether abusive or positive.

What is authoritarian parenting?

This is a restrictive parenting style combining high demandingness-control and low acceptance-responsiveness. Parents impose many rules, expect strict obedience, rarely explain why the child should comply with rules, and often rely on power-assertion tactics such as physical punishment to gain compliance.

Why can the mother-child relationship not be understood without considering the father; nor can the father-child relationship be understood without taking the mother into account?

This is because parents have indirect effects on their children by influencing the behavior of their partners.

What is the compassionate style of grandparenting?

This is the most common style of grandparenting. Companionate grandparents saw their grandchildren frequently and enjoyed doing things with them. They only rarely played a parental role and liked it that way.

What is the parent effects model?

This model assumes that influences run one way, from parent - particularly mother - to child.

Brenda Volling and her colleagues (2014) observed how 2- to 3-year-old firstborns reacted when their mothers, and separately their fathers, interacted positively with their 1-month-old siblings. What did they find?

This study and others suggest that entry of a new family member perturbs the family system, but that most firstborns take interest in and adapt well to a new sibling while a minority have difficulty coping temporarily.

What is permissive parenting?

This style is high in acceptance-responsiveness but low in demandingness-control. Permissive parents are child-centered; they have relatively few rules and make relatively few demands, encourage children to express their feelings and impulses, and rarely exert control over their behavior.

Why do these socioeconomic differences in parenting styles and child outcomes exist?

Three major explanations center on SES differences in financial stress, resources invested in children, and cultural values and socialization goals.

How does the parent-child relationship change during adolescence?

Time spent together decreases as adolescents become more involved with peers. This can make adolescents feel less involved with and supported by their parents. Parent-child conflict also increases temporarily in early adolescence, around the onset of puberty.

What are kinkeepers?

Traditional gender-role norms call for women to be the kinkeepers of the family - the ones who keep family members in touch with each other and handle family problems when they arise.

How are the benefits of perceived parent acceptance clear across the lifespan?

Warm, responsive parenting is associated with secure attachments to parents, academic competence, high self-esteem, good social skills, peer acceptance, a strong sense of morality, good mental health, and many other virtues.

How complex does the family system become if we add another child (or two or six) to it?

We must then understand the husband-wife/couple relationship, the relationship between each parent and each of their children, and the relationship between each pair of siblings. The family now becomes a system with subsystems - specifically, the couple, parent-child, and sibling subsystems.

Why is a second explanation of social-class differences in parenting and child outcomes is that low-SES parents have fewer resources to invest in their children's development than high-SES parents do?

Wealthier parents can invest more money and time in getting their children a good education; providing books, computers, and other learning materials in the home; taking their children to educational events; and devoting time to interacting with their children and stimulating their minds. They can also spend more on good nutrition, child care, and health care.

Within 3-5 years of a divorce, about 75% of single-parent families experience what other major transition?

When a parent remarries and the children acquire a stepparent - and sometimes new siblings.

How do mothers and fathers differ somewhat in their styles of interacting with young children?

When mothers interact with their babies, a large proportion of their time is devoted to caregiving: offering food, changing diapers, wiping noses, and so on. Fathers spend much of their time with children playing. They specialize in tickling, poking, bouncing, and surprising infants.

What are spillover effects?

Working parents are also subject to spillover effects - positive or negative effects of events at work on family life and effects of events at home on work.

Caregiver burden is likely to be heavier if (pt. #1):

• The caregiver lacks personal resources such as a secure attachment style. • The recipient of care has Alzheimer's disease or another form of dementia rather than physical health problems and engages in the disruptive and socially inappropriate behavior that often accompanies dementia.

Caregiver burden is likely to be heavier if (pt. #2):

• The caregiver lacks social support - especially in the form of a supportive marriage. • Cultural and contextual factors do not support caregiving; for example, white caregiver devote fewer hours to care but feel more burdened by it than African American caregivers do, possibly because of differences in cultural norms regarding family responsibility for elder care.

What might make new parenthood easier or harder to manage?

Characteristics of the baby, the parent, and the social context all count.