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Family development
Family development
Lindsey Rasmussen
Family Systems LP3 Assessment
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Family development
Family development theory aims to provide an understanding of how and why a
family develops and functions as it does. Generally speaking, a family is a system made
up of individual members who live together and share daily life. Within a family, each
member struggles to balance their need to belong to the family system with their desire
to be an individual (Curtis, 1999, p.54). The family goes through a sequence of
predictable developmental stages, or a life cycle, while at the same time its individual
members are undergoing through their own maturation process, creating a powerful and
dynamic relationship; as each individual member grows, develops, and matures, so
does the family as a whole, and each process influences and is influenced by the other.
Overall, the developmental frameworks of the family and individual help us to better
understand how each is able to maintain stability and continuity in the face of
predictable change (Family development theory: An overview, n.d., slide 6).
Various models have been proposed to explain the maturation process of the
family. As cited in Curtis (1999), Steinglass has proposed that the typical family
undergoes three phases as it matures and within each phase must master certain tasks.
According to Steinglass (1987), the first phase is the “early phase” wherein the family’s
task is to form an identity and establish their system’s internal and external boundaries.
The family’s identity is its subjective sense of continuity and character over time. It
includes things such as a shared system of beliefs and rules, which determine how
family members relate to others inside and outside the system. The family’s boundaries
can be permeable, rigid, diffuse, or a combination of types, and determine how family
members interact with one another. Permeable boundaries are clear and direct, but
flexible. They allow for the development of emotional maturity. Rigid boundaries are
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Family development
restrictive and inflexible, prohibiting family members from moving independently within
the system. Diffuse boundaries are inconsistent and may be too permissive, causing
family members to be enmeshed. Overall, the boundaries established during this initial
phase determine how family members interact with one another, as well as people
outside the system (Curtis, 1999, p.56). What follows then is the “middle phase” wherein
the task is to establish and maintain a stable and consistent family environment. This is
the longest phase, characterized by a commitment to a limited number of central
themes, and is generally a time of regulation rather than growth (Curtis, 1999, p.62).
The third and final phase is the “late phase” wherein the focus of the family shifts from
the present to the future; it is a time of restabilization, reorganization, and incorporation
– of new members and ideas (Curtis, 1999, p.64)
The more recent model of Carter and McGoldrick (1999), has broadened the
model of family development (what they refer to as “the family life cycle framework”) to
include a “multidimensional, multicultural, and multigenerational perspective” (Garrett,
2011, slide 29). Carter and McGoldrick’s (1999) family life cycle framework describes
the maturation of the family as occurring in six stages, each of which requires the
completion of a specific task. The first stage, “leaving home”, is where the single young
adult leaves the family home and as a result, must learn to accept personal
responsibility. The second stage, “joining of families”, occurs when the single adult
becomes a couple through marriage, and must commit to their new family system. The
third stage, “families with young children”, requires the acceptance of new members into
the family system. The fourth stage, “families with adolescents”, demands an increasing
flexibility of familial boundaries to meet the children’s growing need for independence,
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Family development
as well as the potential frailties of grandparents. Stage 5 is “launching children and
moving on”, during which time the family learns to accept different exits from and entries
to, their family system; herein relationships change – by renegotiation, realignment, and
through new formation. The last stage, “families in later life”, requires the acceptance of
shifting generational roles, like supporting a more central role of the middle generation,
adjusting to old age/retirement, and coping with death and change while maintaining
functioning (Garrett, 2011, slides 17-18).
The family develops while simultaneously providing the context for the
development of its individual members. The individual strives to progress through
stages of development, and like the family, who must master certain stage-specific
tasks for its normative development, the individual must resolve crises s/he encounters.
Erik Erikson has proposed a widely accepted psychosocial developmental model which
posits that the individual progresses through eight stages of development. At each
stage, according to Erikson, the individual is faced with a crisis s/he must resolve in
order to successfully progress onto the next stage of development. Erikson’s stages and
their accompanying crises are as follows: (1) infancy: trust versus mistrust (satisfy basic
needs); (2) toddler years: autonomy versus shame and doubt (explore and develop selfreliance); (3) preschool years: initiative versus guilt (achieve a sense of competence);
(4) childhood years: industry versus inferiority (set and reach personal goals); (5)
adolescence: identity versus role confusion (test limits and form self-identity); (6) young
adult years (achieve intimate personal relationships): intimacy versus isolation; (7)
middle adult years: generativity versus stagnation (help next generation and be
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Family development
productive); and (8) mature adult years: ego integrity versus ego despair (integrate life
activities) (Kanel, 2012, p.128-130) (Garrett, 2011, slide 9-10).
You may be asking yourself, what does the development of the individual have to
do with the family’s development through its life cycle? The answer, I believe, is
everything. To view the family as a system and understand how and why it develops
and functions as it does, requires us to look at the individual members, the relationships
that exist among them, the functioning of the family as a whole, as well as its
interactions with other systems. And each of these elements influences and is
influenced by the following: where each individual is in their development, how they’ve
resolved prior crises and what crisis they are currently faced with, where the family is in
its life cycle, how its mastered prior tasks, as well as what task it is currently faced with.
In other words, family development influences individual development and vice versa.
No matter which developmental model we adhere to, the following hold true.
Regardless of its structure and composition, the family (as well as the individual)
proceeds through predictable life stages; stages which are precipitated by significant life
events and require the ability to change and adapt. Furthermore, each stage has a task
to be mastered or a crisis that must be resolved for the family (or individual) to transition
as smoothly as possible, onto the next stage of development. If a task is not fully
mastered, a crisis not completely resolved, or there is a lack of flexibility, adaptation, or
cohesion, development is delayed and difficulties are carried into the next stage. This
can cause a family (or individual) to be stuck in a certain stage of development or
develop psychiatric symptoms. Certain unforeseen life events also have the ability to
interfere with developmental stages, things like infertility, disabilities, divorce, drug or
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Family development
alcohol dependency, or teen pregnancy (Family development theory: An overview, n.d.,
slide 21).
Overall, the family developmental or life cycle perspective is very helpful in that it
provides a context for understanding individual and family dysfunction; psychiatric
symptoms can be seen as an indication that the family is struggling with mastering the
task of whatever stage they are in (Garrett, 2011, slide 30). On the other hand, this
perspective is a simplified picture of normal family development and doesn’t really take
into consideration recent changes like single-parenthood, cohabitation, and blended or
other “non-traditional” families (Garrett, 2011, slide 33). Therefore, it is important to
remember the following: avoid overgeneralizing, stages can overlap, and real-world
transitions rarely occur as precisely and as neatly as theory suggests (Garrett, 2011,
slide 14).
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Family development
References
Becvar, D. & Becvar, R. (1999). Systems theory and family theory: A primer
Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc.
Curtis, O. (1999). Chemical dependency: A family affair. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole,
Cengage Learning
Family development theory: An overview [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from
http://morainepark.edu.
Garrett, J. Family development: Continuity and change [PowerPoint slides].
Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net.
Kanel, K. (2012). A guide to crisis intervention. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, Cengage
Learning.
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Family development