Key Terms Chapter 3: Family Influences on Child Health Promotion

Consanguineous

Blood relationships.

Nuclear Family

Comprised of two parents and their children. Parent-child relationship may be biologic, step, adoptive, or foster. Siblings may be biologic, step, half, or adoptive. Parents are not necessarily married.

Traditional Nuclear Family

Consists of a married couple and their biological children. Siblings, if present, will be full blooded; no halves, steps, adoptive, etc.

Family Structure or Family Composition

Consists of individuals, each with a socially recognized status and position, who interact with one another on a regular, recurring basis in socially sanctioned ways.

Communal Family

Emerged from disenchantment with most contemporary life choices. Although communal families have divergent beliefs, practices, and organization, the basic impetus for formation is often dissatisfaction with the nuclear family structure, social systems, and goals of the larger community.

Resiliency Model of Family Stress, Adjustment and Adaption

Emphasizes that the stressful situation is not necessarily pathologic or detrimental to the family but demonstrates that the family needs to make fundamental structural or systemic changes to adapt to the situation.

Stressors

Events that cause stress and have the potential to effect a change in the family social system. Stressors can be either predictable or unpredictable.

Family Stress Theory

Explains how families react to stressful events and suggests factors that promote adaptation to stress.

Family of Origin

Family unit a person is born into.

Family

Has been defined in many different ways according to the individual's own frame of reference, values, or discipline. There is no universal definition of family; a family is what an individual considers it to be.

Single-Parent Family

In the US an estimated 21.7 million children live in this type of household. The contemporary single-parent family has emerged partially as a consequence of the women's rights movement and also as a result of more women (and men) establishing separate households because of divorce, death, desertion, or single parenthood.

Extended Family or Household

Includes at least one parent, one or more children and one or more members (related or unrelated) other than a parent or sibling.

Blended Family or Household aka Reconstituted

Includes at least one stepparent, step-sibling, or half-sibling. A stepparent is the spouse of a child's biologic parent but is not the child's biologic parent.

Household

Is a descriptive term frequently used, instead of family, because there is a considerable amount newer concepts of "family" such as communal families, single-parent families, and homosexual families.

Developmental Theory

Is an outgrowth of several theories of development * Duvall describes 8 developmental tasks of the family throughout its lifespan*

Family Systems Theory

Is derived from general systems theory, a science of "wholeness" that is characterized by interaction among the components of a system and between the system and the environment.

Same-sex, Homosexual, or Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgenger (GLBT) Family

Is one in which there is a legal or common-law tie between two persons of the same sex who have children.

Affinal

Marital relationships.

Discipline

Means to teach or refers to a set of rules governing conduct. In a narrower sense, it refers to the action taken to enforce the rules after noncompliance.

Identical or Monozygotic (MZ) Twins

Occurs when one ovum is fertilized and separates early in development.

Generational Continuity

Occurs when parents raise their own children in much the same way that they themselves were raised.

Adaptability

Occurs when the family members have the ability to distinguish themselves from each other both emotionally and intellectually. *According to Bowen's family systems theory adaptability is the key to healthy family function*

Fraternal or Dizygotic (DZ) Twins

Occurs when two ovum are fertilized.

Authoritative or Democratic Parenting Style

Parents combine practices from both Authoritarian and Permissive parenting styles. They direct their children's behavior and attitudes by emphasizing the reason for rules and negatively reinforcing deviations. Parental control is firm and consistent but tempered with encouragement, understanding, and security. Control is focused on the issue, not on withdrawal of love or fear of punishment.

Permissive Parenting Style

Parents exert little to no control over their children's actions. They avoid imposing their own standards of conduct and allow their children to regulate their own activity as much as possible. These parents consider themselves to be resources for their children, not role models.

Authoritarian or Dictatorial Parenting Style

Parents try to control their children's behavior and attitudes through unquestioned mandates. They establish rules and regulations or standards of conduct that they expect to be followed rigidly and unquestioningly. The message is: "Do it because I say so."

Limit Setting

Refers to establishing the rules or guidance for behavior.

Polyandry

Refers to multiple husbands.

Polygamy Sororal Nonsororal

Refers to multiple wives. Polygamy in which the wives are sisters. Polygamy in which the wives are not related.

Binuclear Family

Refers to parents continuing the parenting role while terminating the spousal unit.

Feedback

Refers to processes in the family that help identify strengths and needs and determine how well goals are accomplished. Positive feedback initiates change; negative feedback resists change.

Family Function

Refers to the interactions of family members, especially the quality of those relationships and interactions.

Joint Custody

The court assigns divorcing parents equal rights and responsibilities concerning the minor child or children.

Family Theory

Used to describe families and how the family unit responds to events both within and outside the family.