10 Top Family Stressors

Our textbook, Child, Family, School, Community:Socialization and Support (Berns) lists ten significant family stressors and my list will review that one, with my view on how these family stressors affect children in the home.

1. Economics - We are obviously seeing lots of economic strain this year. Families are losing their homes, either through being unable to make the payments if they were buying, or through losing a rental because the owner cannot pay as a result of the current mortgage crisis. Finding a new place to live is always a stressful task; moving and adjusting to new surroundings can be confusing and upsetting to children.

The children are too young to understand the resultant changes in standard of living if a parent loses a job, but still are aware of the general unhappiness that has suddenly taken hold of their parent (s). Finances are often the number one item that couples (married or not, straight or gay) argue about, since how we view money is rooted in how we were raised to view it, and partners may not have the same attitudes about spending, saving, or dealing with economic crises. The children hear the fighting and it is often very frightening to them to have the people they love and depend upon disagreeing.

2. Children's Behavior - Parental expectations about children's behavior are also most often rooted in how they themselves were raised. Those of us lucky enough to gain a human development background may come into conflict with those who do not. Parents and other extended family members may hold differing views about how children should act in situations, confusing the younger child with inconsistent expectations. Children may develop fear and shame around pleasing someone and meeting their behavioral expectations or they may rebel against developmentally unrealistic expectations, acting out and thereby spiraling the situation into even more tension. Parents may develop embarassment and hostility towards school officials who seem to single out their child as having behavior problems and find it stressful to communicate with schools in any way.

3. Insufficient Couple Time - If couples don't have ample time to communicate, they are more likely to be contradicting each other, offering the children differing expectations, or providing inattentive parenting. Couples who are happy are more resilient in dealing with the stresses of family life, and will offer a more secure home to the children they raise.

4. Lack of Shared Responsibility in the Family - Families that allow one person to shoulder most of the responsibilities do not offer healthy role modeling for adult life to the children in them. Sharing the tasks and the pleasures of family life teaches the children to think beyond themselves, to look for ways to be productive, and to nurture others as well as look after getting their own needs met. Those children will be more productive adults and more likely the kinds of people others want to work with, live with, marry, etc. It is a mistake to think that doing everything for your child is a sign of love for them; in reality, you would be raising an emotionally crippled person who cannot fend for themselves.

5. Communication with Children - Parents are the child's first role models when it comes to learning communication skills. Children who aren't talked to or read to have greater difficulty learning literacy skills, which are critical for school success. Everyday communication helps a child to feel a part of the greater world.

Beyond simple words, children also need to learn the social communication skills that will allow them the chance to succeed in their culture, and the parents have a responsibility to teach these skills so that their children have a greater chance of leading happy, productive lives. Children raised in homes where communication is poor or lacking entirely will suffer confusion, poor social development and essentially grow up socially handicapped.

6. Insufficient "me" time - While this concept is relatively new, stress studies have shown that allowing stresses to build up undermines a person's health, productivity and even shortens lifespan. Spending even small amounts of time alone, pursuing a personal interest, exercising, and regrouping in other personal ways, deflects stress, lowers blood pressure, promotes greater well-being and allows the person to approach the tasks at hand with a fresh outlook. When a parent is frazzled all of the time, they cannot give their best efforts to the job of childrearing. The harm to the children is in potential neglect, emotional or physical abuse, and in allowing the child to grow up without the fuller nurturing possible from a fully engaged parent.

7. Guilt for not accomplishing more - Parents who are consumed with guilt, either for not earning more, not providing certain things for their children, or not being a more loving or 'better' parent, are missing the present moment. Each day is a new opportunity to engage in play with the child, to read to the child, to show your love. By focusing on the past and the future too much, parents allow the child to grow up without their attention on the child as she or he is right now. Play is available almost any time, and for free, and builds long-lasting and loving memories.

8. Spousal Relationship - When families have strained or unhappy relationships between the spousal partners, all participants are aware of this, no matter how hard the two in conflict try to conceal it from the others. The steady, underlying tension undermines the child's sense of security, especially those too young to have a developmental capacity to understand what it is they are feeling, and where it is coming from. While a teenager may be able to understand that the adults are the ones disagreeing, it is still hard for them not to feel partly responsible. While studies have shown the traumas that children of divorce go through, it is also important to understand that living in a war zone between the partners is equally damaging, and perhaps more so. Our text pointed out that parents who divorce and go on to establish new, harmonious relationships with other partners are then modeling healthy relationships rather than unhealthy ones.

9. Insufficient Family Play Time - Play allows us to release endorphins and feel good! If time isn't made for play, we can begin to feel like we are merely hamsters running on wheels.... and certainly parents who aren't having fun can't smile, laugh and convey good feelings to their children. Play is also a strong factor in continued family bonding.

Here, I will venture into personal experience, and state that years and years of sledding, camping, swimming at the river in summer, family games indoors in winter, and lots of other laugh-producing experiences allowed my adult children to look back fondly on their childhoods and remember lots of fun times even though we lived below the poverty line. They have all remained close to each other and to me.... and still believe in play and having fun together.

10. Overscheduled Family Calendar - When parents allow their lives (and that of their child's) to become overscheduled, they do not allow for flexibility, or what teachers describe as 'the teachable moment'. Living with less hurry and less slavery to a schedule allows people to take the time to talk about a problem or to visit with a friend or relative. If you are always in a hurry, your children will grow up feeling like their worry or problem is too small for your attention, or that now is a bad time and maybe they should wait until later, which may never come. Making time for people rather than things is what builds strong family ties.

A Child of the 60s

I was born in 1954, but since I didn't start school until the 59-60 school year, my prime cultural influences, both inside and outside of my birth family came from the decade of the 1960s..... ranging from memories of my parents' fears over the Cuban missile crisis, the galvanizing sadness following President Kennedy's assassination, and the cultural changes that began trickling out of San Francisco north to my part of California following the Summer of Love.

Being at war is one of the similarities between that decade and this; we have now been actively at war even longer, and a new generation of young people are seeing the effects of themselves, their partners and friends, and the choices they have had to either make or put on hold. I am thankful for each of them that they do not have to face the 'draft'. This is not a political forum, so I won't delve too deeply into how the Vietnam war affected those around me, but suffice it to say that my personal experiences with the after effects in the 1970s have given me a large dose of compassion for those involved in the Iraq war.

Another similarity is the sense of hope and enthusiasm this election year. Maybe it is the opportunity for change after eight years with the same team, but it reminds me a lot of how people reacted to the 1968 primary election. Thankfully, we have not had to face the trauma as a country that Robert Kennedy's assassination in the midst of the California campaign created. The hope from that period inspired many in a generation just entering high school and college to study for and work in careers of social service and I am truly hoping for the same outcome, as so many of those people are now readying to retire and we need a new crop of idealists as a nation to replace the aging ones!

What is different? Technology is the most obvious difference! I can now research so many things I want to know about so quickly. When I was growing up, the library was within easy walking distance, and I made the trip at least a few times a week, but now a much larger world is open to me through the Internet (I still check out books from the library). I have been able to further my education online, and also text message my adult children to stay in touch.

The societal trend that I see having the most negative impact on child development today is the fallout of the No Child Left Behind Act. This act had the good intention of wanting all children, no matter where they lived in the country, to get a good education. Around the time it was first proposed, about a decade ago, there were gross disparities in school districts, based on funds from property taxes.... now, there is a standard allotment to each school per child attending. The idea was to make sure each school had the resources it needed. However, as standardized testing became the way to measure student success, and schools began to be 'punished' for low test scores in their student body populations, more and more schools began to eliminate elective offerings, add 'study halls', 'opportunity class', and other mechanisms to increase the likelihood of higher test scores, and to concentrate on teaching English and Math at earlier levels, with little regard to the developmental levels of the children.

Now, we have a kindergarten curriculum that insists on mastery of what was covered in first grade two decades ago, and strong fears in parents and teachers alike that if children aren't fed more instruction, earlier, they will not be able to 'compete' in the educational world. This outlook compares learning to sports achievement, without regard for the stages of child development and individual variations. Children haven't suddenly changed; they aren't ready for these steps any sooner than they were a decade or two, but the expectations are higher and the resultant stress to childhood is a very dangerous trend. I would hate to see childhood become an endangered stage of life!