cmn 124 family com reading

What are abstinence rules? What are contingency rules?

(sometimes called "no-tolerance rules") or "contingency rules."16 An example of an abstinence rule is, "Don't drink alcohol until you are 21," whereas a contingency rule is, "If you do drink, don't drive." In specifically examining rules about alcohol use among teens and parents, researchers found that many have a "call-me" rule, present with both abstinence or contingency rules, which means that the child should call the parent if they are in a dangerous situation because of alcohol use and, generally, the child will not get into trouble.17 When referring to alcohol and risky sexual behaviors, parents and their adolescent offspring report using both abstinence and contingency rules.18 However, tobacco rules are almost all abstinence. As communication scholar Michelle Miller-Day found, using a strategy of "no tolerance" may be the most effective in preventing substance abuse.19 On the other hand, family health rules also play an important role in encouraging adolescents to use health-promoting behaviors such as exercise, good nutrition, and sun protection.20

What is the pragmatic style? The prevarication style?

A proband who uses a pragmatic style will disclose the information actively and practically, such as calling or sending an e-mail to siblings to tell them of his recent genetic test and suggesting they get tested. On the other hand, a proband who uses a prevarication style will try to find the "right moment" to disclose the information. Such a person using this style will look for opportunities within normal events, such as a family gathering. However, this attempt to find the right moment may take months or even years.55

2. Volatile Couples

Almost the exact opposite of conflict avoiders, volatile couples are intensely emotional. During a conflict discussion, they begin persuasion immediately and they stick to it throughout the discussion. Their debating is characterized by a lot of laughter, shared amusement, and humor. They seem to love to debate and argue, but they are not disrespectful and insulting. Their positive-to-negative ratio? Five to one. While there may be a lot of negative affect expressed, including anger and feelings of insecurity, but no contempt. They have no clear boundaries around their individual worlds, and there is enormous overlap. While they have to argue a great deal about their roles, they emphasize connection and honesty in their communication.

What is ambiguous loss?

Although crises are major events that are fairly easy to recognize due to their severity, sometimes family members experience ambiguous loss, characterized by high uncertainty regarding personal relationships.9 There are two types of ambiguous loss: The first type occurs when individuals are perceived by family members as being physically absent but psychologically present. This includes soldiers missing in action and kidnapped children. Couples who want to have children but experience failed attempts at pregnancy may also experience ambiguous loss.10 The second type of ambiguous loss occurs when an individual is perceived as being physically present but psychologically absent. This includes people with addictions, serious head injuries, or Alzheimer's disease. In the latter case, for example, researchers have found that wives whose husbands had Alzheimer's disease experienced a state called "married widowhood"—although they could visit their husband in the nursing home facility, many felt like widows as the husband they knew was lost to them.11 Such losses are often referred to as causing "frozen grief" because they limit the grieving process due to the uncertainties involved. Some families of those killed in the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center towers struggled with the physical loss of a member without verification of their death and no body to bury. The absence of a body delayed or altered the usual ceremonies, such as a funeral mass or sitting Shiva, and loved ones found it difficult to start grieving because it might be considered disloyal.12 Another example of ambiguous loss is the premature birth of a child, where the parents manage the dialectical contradiction of grief and joy.13 Ambiguous loss can also be very stressful in the family system as it changes the family, is not quickly or obviously resolvable, and can make it difficult to understand or negotiate family boundaries.14

Active Conflict Stage

At this point, the conflict manifests itself in a series of overt verbal and nonverbal messages. This symbolic interchange may resemble a battleground or a calm, pointed discussion, depending on the family's rules and style of fighting. Whereas yelling may signal that a major fight has begun in some families, in others, it may be considered a common occurrence, as noted by this wife in the following account: Unfortunately, my husband is the type who would rather yell. He is not always a fair fighter. When I want to talk and explain my feelings, and then give him a chance to explain his, he either goes into moody silence or explodes. I find both approaches useless. Typically, active conflict escalates from initial statements and queries to overt fighting, bargaining, or giving an ultimatum. This may be characterized by a discernible strategy, or game plan, when one or more family members try to maneuver and convince others of the merits of an issue. The longer the conflict continues, the more the participants' behavior may raise frustrations, encourage active arguing, and increase resistance to change. Problematic couples usually escalate their conflicts by continued cross-complaining, accusations, and blaming. However, functional couples tend to match positive remarks with positive remarks, or balance their negative sentiments with positive remarks. In one study of engaged couples, for example, researchers found that a lack of blaming and the use of complementary control messages that promoted positive affect during discussions about problems was positively associated with the couples' relational satisfaction.43 Some scholars have found that whereas wives tend to have more other-directed and relationship-sensitive concerns during active conflict, husbands are more likely to be concerned with the content of the message, their conversational role, and their personal identity.44 In fact, thinking about the conflict from the perspective of the dyad or relationship (e.g., "We're getting more and more irritated") is uncommon for husbands and wives.45 Wives and husbands also view their own com munication during the conflict interaction as more favorable than the communication of their partner. For instance, in one study of couples married three years or less, researchers found that a husband's or wife's expectations about the spouse's understanding and negative communication was associated with their own communication. For example, if a wife expected that during conflict her husband would not try to understand her feelings, she was more likely to use negative communication (such as complaints and criticism) and less likely to use positive communication such as compliments and displays of affection.46 The ability of each spouse to accurately understand the emotions of the other plays an important role during active conflict. Spouses infer how the other is feeling during active conflict based on their observations of their spouse, as well as their own feelings and thoughts. The presence of depressive symptoms in either husband or wife during the active conflict stage can make it difficult for the spouse to accurately assess their partner's anger.47

What are Gottman's conflict couple types

Avoiding, Validating, Volatile, Hostile, and Hostile-Detached.

1. Conflict Avoiders

Conflict avoiders minimize persuasion attempts and instead emphasize their areas of common ground. They avoid conflict, avoid expressing what they need from one another, and congratulate their relationship for being generally happy. An important aspect about conflict-avoiding couples is in the balance between independence and interdependence. They have clear boundaries and are separate people with separate interests. This is not to denigrate the quality of the areas where they meet and depend on one another. They can be quite connected and caring in those areas of overlap where they are interdependent. While they are minimally emotionally expressive, they maintain a ratio of positive-to-negative affect around five to one. Their SPAFF (Specific Affect Coding System) weighting is not overly positive, but not bad at all. Their interaction is good enough for them.

What are digital natives? Digital settlers? Digital immigrants?

Digitalnatives are continuously connected by technology; they think and process information differently from previous generations because they are native speakers of the language of technology. These are toddlers who know how to start their favorite video on their parents' touch-screen smartphone; they are kids who text their parents from the backseat on a family trip, "Are we there yet?" Not all younger people are digital natives, a culture defined by age and interaction with information technologies, but the number of such natives is increasing exponentially. Although digital settlers grew up in an analog world, they have become sophisticated in their use of technology, although they also rely heavily on analog communication. These are parents who wonder how they could juggle so many responsibilities without the ability to work from home, pay bills online, and text a spouse to coordinate family activities. Finally, digital immigrants are those who were not born into the digital age and who have not adapted easily to new technologies. They may have learned to use e-mail or to go to social networking sites, but live much or all of their lives offline. These may be grandparents who go onto e-mail on a weekly basis to send out a family e-mail update, but expect a handwritten thank-you note for a birthday gift. Many families have members who represent each category of digital connection, which may lead to communication challenges or generational competence reversals.

5. What are the covert destructive conflict patterns (e.g., displacement, disqualification etc.)?

Displacement Disengagement pseudomutuality

4. Hostile Couples

Hostile couples are like validating couples, except there are high levels of defensiveness on the part of both partners. In research from the Love Lab with heterosexual couples, the husband was usually the validator and the wife was the avoider. That was based on influence function shapes, which you can learn more about in "Principia Amoris: The New Science of Love." There was also a lot of criticism, "you always" and "you never" statements, and whining. During conflict, each partner reiterated their own perspective, and no support or understanding appeared between partners for either person's point of view. There was lots of contempt. All Four Horsemen were present.

Frustration Awareness Stage

In response to sensing a prior condition event, this stage involves one or more family members becoming frustrated because someone or something blocks them from satisfying a need or concern. One or more parties become aware of snappy answers, nonverbal messages in the form of slammed doors, or avoidance of eye contact. In most ongoing repetitive conflicts, it is common for nonverbal cues to appear before verbal ones. As you nonverbally become aware of the conflict, you might think, "He's really getting upset" or "I can feel myself getting tense." Certain code words or phrases also heighten tensions. For example, "You're not going to have another drink (piece of cake, cigarette), are you?" or "Why don't I ever have any clean clothes?"

Prior Conditions Stage

Ongoing conflict does not emerge from a vacuum. It is rooted in the history of the relationship. Prior conditions are present in the absence of active conflict but, under pressure or stress, come into play. Prior conditions that may trigger a clash include ambiguous understandings of each family member's responsibilities and role expectations, ongoing competition over scarce resources such as money or affection, unhealthy dependency of one person on another, and problematic decision-making patterns. Specific circumstances, such as holiday times, income tax time, drunken episodes, or the arrival of in-laws, may all serve as prior conditions. Past experiences set the groundwork for tension arousal. Oftentimes, the stage may be set for family conflict by mindlessness, or going through relational life on autopilot, without paying much attention to the present state of the relationship or the perceptions of others.41

What are the stages for grieving significant loss (e.g., reorganization)?

Shock, resulting in numbness, disbelief, or denial. Recoil, resulting in anger, confusion, blaming, guilt, and bargaining. Depression and sadness that permeate a family's thinking. Reorganization, resulting in acceptance and recovery.

Solution or Nonsolution Stage

The active conflict stage evolves into either the temporary solution or the nonsolution stage. The solution may range from creative, constructive, and satisfactory to destructive, nonproductive, and disappointing. The solution may represent a compromise or adjustment of previously held positions. In this stage, how conflict episodes are managed or solved determines the outcome and whether positive or negative results follow in the immediate future. It does not, however, resolve the ongoing issue at stake in the cycle of repetitive conflict. Essentially, within ongoing family conflicts, solutions may be thought of as conflict management. For example, partners who struggle continually over the wife's work as an undercover police officer may argue over her inability to stay in touch with her husband while on duty. He becomes upset because he gets frightened when she does not return calls within a few hours, something that happens regularly, and he resents always being the go-to parent for problems at their son's school. The times that she has access to a safe phone or can pick up her son from school provide a short-term solution. But when the next phone call comes and she has to remain in her role, even into overtime hours, he becomes angry once again. So, although occasionally a conflict episode can be defused and managed with vacation days or less dangerous assignments, the ongoing conflict process is never resolved. However, if she took a desk job, the conflict would disappear. Some conflicts move into ongoing nonsolutions, however, as the active conflict stops but nothing is resolved. Family members simply live with the frustrations or angry feelings that surface, as nonsolution brings the conflict to an impasse. In the opening vignette about Callie and Peter, this couple may enter into the convolution stage when each of them just stops talking about their problems, which is likely to reduce their feelings of family cohesion and adaptability.48 Obviously, communication problems can develop if they have too many conflicts that end with nonsolutions. However, every family lives with some unresolved conflicts because the costs of an acceptable solution outweigh the advantages to one or more family members. In some families, these unresolved conflicts may become major problems that undermine relational quality, but other families may live with irresolvable disputes without experiencing a subsequent decline in relational quality among family members.49

3. Validating Couples

The interaction of these couples is characterized by ease and calm. They are somewhat expressive but mostly neutral. In many ways, they seem to be intermediate between avoiders and the volatile couples. They put a lot of emphasis on supporting and understanding their partner's point of view, and are often empathetic about their partner's feelings. They will confront their differences, but only on some topics and not on others. They can become highly competitive on some issues, which can turn into a power struggle. Then they usually calm down and compromise. During conflict, validating couples are only mildly emotionally expressive. Once again, the ratio of positive-to-negative affect for validators averaged around five to one.

What is the chilling effect?

Their research on the chilling effect, which refers to the tendency of individuals to withhold complaints and avoid confrontation with their partner or with other family members for fear of reprisal, compared two potential explanations for how expressions of coercive power influence decisions to conceal secrets. In the direct effects model, they theorized that coercive power directly influences family members' concealment by suppressing the desire to reveal sensitive information for fear of negative consequences. In the indirect effects model, however, they suggested that coercive power might reduce family members' closeness and commitment to one another, which in turn compels them to continue concealing their secret. After surveying members of 171 families (totaling more than 600 individuals), Afifi and Olson found more support for the direct effects model than for the indirect effects model. Specifically, coercive power emerged as a positive predictor of family members' continued concealment of the secret. Likewise, coercive power was inversely associated with family members' closeness and commitment to each other, but closeness and commitment did not mediate (or help explain) the association between coercive power and continued concealment. Based on their findings, Afifi and Olson concluded that the chilling effect may only hold true for more aggressive types of power in families. Their work demonstrates that the use of power and continued decisions to conceal (or perhaps reveal) secrets to other family members matter. For further reading, see Afifi, T. D., & Olson, L. (2005). The chilling effect in families and the pressure to conceal secrets. Communication Monographs, 72, 192-216.

5. Hostile-Detached Couples

These couples are like two armies engaged in a mutually frustrating and lonely standoff with no clear victor, only a stalemate. They snipe at one another during conflict, although the air is full of emotional detachment and resignation, like gun smoke. In the Love Lab, we found that escalating conflict will occur between two validators, but then one of them will back down. But will the volatile let the validator withdraw? Absolutely not. So, why does the hostile-detached couple eventually divorce? Why doesn't the hostile couple? Could it be that the answer has to do with the second phase of love, the "establishment of trust" phase? Our love equations have an explanation: Hostile couples (validator-avoider) regulate their negativity, while hostile-detached (validator-volatile) couples do not.

Follow-Up Stage

This stage could also be called the aftermath stage. It includes the reactions that follow active conflict and affect future interactions, such as avoidance or conciliation without acceptance. Grudges, hurt feelings, or physical scars may fester until they lead to the beginning stage of another conflict. The house may be filled with long silences, avoidance, or formal politeness. On the other hand, the outcomes may be positive, such as increased intimacy and self-esteem, or honest explorations of family values or concerns. The members may exchange apologies or communicate about the fight. This aftermath stage is linked by a feedback chain to the initial stage, because each conflict in a family is stored in the prior conditions "bank." In ongoing, unresolved conflicts, whenever the trigger or the prior conditions reoccur, the entire conflict process is ignited once again. This may go on for years or decades.

What are the 5 conflict management styles from the model of conflict managemet

competition compromise collaboration avoiding accomodation

Disengagement

happens when members avoid each other and express their hostility through their lack of interaction. Essentially, disengaged family members live within the hollow shell of relationships that used to be functional. Instead of dealing with conflict, they keep it from surfacing. Some families go to extremes to avoid conflicts, as depicted in the following example: My wife and I should have separated 10 years before we did. I was able to arrange my work schedule so that I came home after 11 o'clock and slept until Carmen and the kids had left in the morning. That was the only way I could remain in the relationship. We agreed to stay together until Luis graduated from high school. Now I feel as if we both lost 10 years of life, and I'm not sure the kids were any better off just because we all ate and slept in the same house.

What is reminiscing?

indulge in enjoyable recollection of past events.

What is cross-complaining?

involves responding to another person's complaint or criticism with one of your own while ignoring the other person's point.

What is resilience?

is a family's ability to function well in the midst of adversity.20 Communication scholar Patrice Buzzanell argued that resilience is not a fixed state or something that some families have and others do not; rather, resilience is the ability to develop ways of managing adversity. It is "constituted in and through communicative processes that enhance people's abilities to create new normalcies."21 For example, couples who suffer through the loss of a child together by building intimacy during the grieving process (rather than growing apart) would be considered a resilient family. Buzzanell explains that resilience is not a state to be achieved; it is a process centered in communication that we are always learning, "cultivated through messages, family rituals, stories of recovery and remembrance, visits to past family homes or ancestral sites, and retention of objects, sayings, and connections whose objective utility or 'worth' belies their symbolic connections."22 Quality-of-life factors also affect resilience.23 Living in poverty or in a violent neighborhood affects a family's ability to be resilient. Resilient low- to middle-income families are characterized by internal strengths complemented by community support services, religious programs, and a sense of belonging to the community. It is important to understand the importance of communication for individual and family resilience as we make sense of and deal with stressors through interactions with others.24

. What are the stages of ongoing conflict (e.g., resolution stage)? Can you explain each stage?

o help you think more carefully about how family conflict unfolds over time, we have identified six conflict stages that are useful for analyzing the ongoing and repetitive conflict process: (a) a prior conditions stage, (b) a frus tration awareness stage, (c) an active conflict stage, (d) a solution or nonsolution stage, (e) a follow-up stage, and (f) a stage. These are represented in resolution Figure 9.2. As you read through this model, think about a recent conflict in your family and consider whether or not you can identify all six stages in the dispute. Did each of these stages emerge as a distinct entity or "phase" in the argument, or was it difficult to know when one ended and the next began?

What is common couple violence?

occurs when a conflict gets "out of hand" and leads to one or both partners using "minor" forms of violence during the dispute.110 Although it can escalate into serious, sometimes even life-threatening, forms of violence, it typically occurs in only a handful of conflicts among the total number of conflicts that couples report having each year. It differs from abuse in that the power between partners ebbs and flows, rather than residing solely with one partner who abuses the victim partner. Researchers have found that about half of all couples have engaged in these behaviors

Displacement

occurs when a person's anger is directed to an inappropriate person. Displacement is depicted in the story of the man whose boss yelled at him but the man could not express his anger at the boss. When he arrived home, he yelled at his wife, who in turn grounded her teenager, who in turn hit the fourthgrade sibling, who in turn tripped the two-year-old baby, who later kicked the dog. When a person believes anger cannot be expressed directly, the individual finds another way to vent the strong emotions. Dangerous displacement occurs when parents who cannot deal emotionally with their own differences turn a child into a scapegoat for their pent-up anger; over time, he or she becomes the "acting-out" child. Relational members judge messages as more hurtful and distance themselves from the relationship when they perceive that a message was intentionally hurtful and part of a pattern of hurtful messages, rather than an isolated instance.92

What is cyberbullying? What are the different behaviors of cyberbullying (e.g., flaming)?

or deliberate and repeated harm inflicted through phones and computers, presents serious challenges to young people and their families. One practitioner identified seven cyberbullying behaviors:94 flaming, or online fighting with angry language; harassment, which involves repeatedly sending nasty and insulting messages; denigration, or spreading rumors or gossip about someone; impersonation, which involves pretending to be someone else with negative effects on that person; outing, or sharing someone else's private, embarrassing information online; exclusion, which involves intentionally excluding an individual; and cyberstalking, which describes intense and repeated harassment that is threatening or creates fear. In recent years, the media has provided numerous examples of adolescent suicides attributed to cyberbullying; the phenomenon has become so prevalent that the term "cyberbullicide" was coined to describe "suicide directly or indirectly influenced by experiences with online aggression."95 Cyberbullying represents a particularly dangerous form of harm because, in contrast to former decades when home provided sanctuary from taunting peers, cyberbullying has become a 24/7 experience for many pre-adolescents and adolescents. In one study of 2,000 middle school students, researchers found that 20% of their respondents were seriously thinking about attempting suicide due to cyberbullying.96 The students reported that the most frequent form of cyberbullying involved posting "something online about another person to make others laugh," whereas cyber-victims reported receiving "an upsetting e-mail from someone you know" as the most frequent form. Cyberbullying victims were almost twice as likely to have attempted or considered suicide compared to youth who had not experienced cyberbullying. In many cyberbullying cases, parents expect schools to provide justice and protection for their children, although school district discipline codes seldom address authority over student cell phones or home computers.97 Parental discussions about cyber bullying can be important. In a recent study, researchers surveyed middle and high school students about their experiences with cyberbullying. They found that when students believed their parents would punish them, they were less likely to participate in these bullying activities.98 Unfortunately, many parents do not discuss these issues with their children or ask their children if they have witnessed or experienced such interactions.

What is a proband?

or the first person in the family to be diagnosed with the genetic condition, has a major impact on when or if family members learn about their risk, and furthermore, if they decide to get tested. Researchers have found that members of resilient families are more likely to get tested.46

pseudomutuality

represents the opposite of disengagement, as it characterizes family members who appear to be perfect and delighted with each other because no hint of discord is ever allowed to dispel their image of perfection. In other words, family members who communicate that their relationships are peaceful and harmonious publicly while privately stewing in unresolved anger and bitterness are engaging in pseudomutuality. The anger remains below the surface to the point that family members lose all ability to deal with it directly. Pretense remains the only possibility. Only when one member of the "perfect" group develops ulcers, exhibits a nervous disorder, or acts in a dysfunctional manner do the relational cracks begin to show. In some cases, spouses and romantic partners may use (or perhaps, abuse) their sexual connection in tandem with other covert strategies to express their relational dissatisfaction. For some couples, sex is a weapon in guerilla warfare. Demanding or avoiding sexual activity is often an effective way of covertly expressing hostility. Sexual abuse, put-downs, excuses, and direct rejection wound others without the risk of exposing one's own strong anger. Such expressions of covert anger destroy rather than strengthen relationships.

What is the life-course approach? What are the different types of time in the life-course

that focuses on different trajectories and transitions influenced by the ways that families develop and change at various times in history. These trajectories and transitions and the historical circumstances that contextualize them are often referred to as "macro level" structures. In addition, the experiences of a given family and the persons in it reflect what we would call "micro level" structures.9 A life-course approach provides a valuable way to understand change in families and how we interact at different times in the family system, because the life trajectories of individuals are linked with others' trajectories, especially members of their family.10 We imagine it is hard for you to think about who you have become at this point in your life without thinking about members of your family—your parents, siblings, grandparents, or cousins. From this perspective, we recognize that the stresses of individuals and families living in the new millennium reflect our particular historical period: the influences of digital media, economic uncertainties, environmental concerns, globalization, new reproductive technologies, and terrorism all influence how a given family interacts with those inside and outside the family. Likewise, it is important to realize that positive developmental changes can be stressful as well. As we have been emphasizing, families are constantly changing and developing over the life course, never reaching a plateau at which we are done developing.11 Digital technology is one example of how current life-course issues impact the family. Whereas technology can bring about opportunities for connection previously unimagined in the last generations of family life, technology can also contribute to stress in the family system. Both the contributions and negative implications of communication via cell phones, text, laptops, tweets, social media, and instant messages are not yet well understood.12 Posts on Facebook or other social networking sites carry immediate news of events and people. These ever-evolving technologies provide a plethora of information we might not otherwise have and force attention to concerns as they occur. Technology can also create stress if family members feel they are expected to (or choose to) be "on call" to their workplace and other activities 24 hours a day. Mobile phones and laptops extend the workday, parents learn of children's school experiences and performance before they might even arrive home from school, and cell phones link parents and adolescents continuously. This high level of connectivity may increase stress, but may be positive as well. For example, one study of 500 adolescents found that those who used social media with their parents felt closer to their parents.13 Digital technology has dramatically altered family life over the past decade and rapid changes will only continue. A life-course perspective focuses on three types of time: individual time, generational time, and historical time. Individual time refers to chronological age, generational time refers to "family time" or the positions and roles individuals hold in families (grandmother, breadwinner), and historical time refers to events that occur during the era in which one lives (e.g., the Civil Rights Movement; the creation of the Internet; the 9/11 terrorist attacks; or the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing). From a life-course perspective, events tend to be thought of as "on-time" or "off-time." Yet, these conceptions of when life events "should" be happening are in flux. Whereas most individuals marry in their twenties (traditionally viewed as "on-time"), today individuals may marry for the first time in their forties or choose to cohabit in a committed relationship for decades. Increasing numbers of women are becoming mothers well into their late forties or early fifties. Many individuals will experience three or four careers before leaving the workforce, return to college multiple times to earn multiple degrees, or work until they are in their eighties. Such variations are considered "off-time" compared to historical norms, but they are certainly not unique today. One way to connect the developmental-stage perspective and the life-course perspective is by adding greater diversity of stages to the developmental perspective. For example, imagine a subcategory for 18- to 29-year-olds who remain living at home because jobs are scarce or because they returned home after failed marriages. In fact, some scholars have suggested that the later teenage years through most of the next decade should be considered a separate developmental stage labeled "emerging adulthood."14 Taking a life-course perspective to communication in family systems helps us understand that when unexpected changes or crises occur, such as college graduation, changes in careers or income, or in values held, satisfaction or dissatisfaction with life may be more significant than one family member's placement within a particular family stage. In addition, certain families encounter quite different experiences from other families influenced by different cultural perspectives due to experiences of race, social class, gender, and ethnicity. Future generations of families will be represented by elongated generational structures due to the recent changes in population growth in industrialized nations—another life-course factor. Due to increased longevity and decreased fertility, the population age structure in these nations has changed from a pyramid, with few older family members to a larger younger generation, to a long but thin rectangle, with more family generations alive at the same time but with fewer members in each generation.15 In some countries, such as China, the effect will be an inverted pyramid, since four grandparents may have only one grandchild due to the one-child policy that began in the late 1970s,16 but which was phased out in 2015. This creates shifts in relational interaction as elder generations compete for connections to limited numbers of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Multi-generational bonds grow in significance as the length of lifespans increases, and this longevity will result in an increase in shared years together. We may have relationships with grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents, where this would have been rare in previous generations. These elders can bring great strengths to families, as well as increased caregiving responsibilities. Although no single model can reflect the complexities of all possible family system structures, the life-course approach enables us to consider important factors when understanding family strengths and stressors, and it depicts differentiation as normal, rather than as a deviation. To follow, we talk about perspectives on family development from a life-course lens, while drawing implications for family communication.

Resolution Stage

this stage occurs when a recurring conflict no longer exists; it no longer affects the family. For example, a husband and wife may argue over priorities on bills to be paid. They negotiate and compromise on demands, and then stick to their agreement. Time and developmental stages of each family member also affect solutions to conflicts. For example, parental conflicts over who will take Wei-Lin to school decrease or disappear after she becomes old enough to walk there by herself; the same will be true of parental conflicts over dating rules and curfews when she becomes a young adult. Conflicts over space and territory among six children competing for three bedrooms no longer require solutions when some have left home. It is important to remember that in the model (Figure 9.2), participants may "exit" at any stage. A visitor may interrupt the frustration awareness stage and defuse the tension, at least temporarily. One or the other party may disengage from the issue, give in, or shift the focus. Regardless, this model of conflict stages provides a more general description of how ongoing and repetitive family conflicts typically unfold. Now that we have a general sense of how family conflict progresses or changes over time, let's examine how patterns and rules for conflict behavior influence how individual family members process and produce messages during conflict.

What is bonding?

which simply refers to institutionalizing the relationship through some type of public ceremony or symbolic activity (e.g., engagement and marriage), changes the nature of many relationships.41 Couples at the bonding stage confront and negotiate a variety of issues, such as changes in time available for friends and activities that do not involve the partner, desires for children, sexual needs, career goals, educational plans, religious participation, money management, housing, in-laws, and acceptable conflict behaviors. Some adult children and/or their parents may not be prepared for the separation issues involved at this stage. Each family faces the questions of realignment, wondering: "How willing are we to accept this new person as a member of our family?" Extended family members may become involved to a small or large extent, and this may be more prominent in some cultures, where the focus is on marriage bringing together entire families, and less on the individuals.42 In some cultures, the task of separating from one's family of origin occurs differently or does not occur at all. For example, in many Hispanic families, parent-child connectedness may remain more powerful than the marital bond; the eldest son's bond with his parents may be particularly strong. Therefore, mothers of adult children may remain an integral figure in a young couple's life.43