Family Relationships
Samuel R. Mathews, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
The University of West Florida
Family Relationships
• Family Systems
– Multiple dyadic relationships
– Changes in individual impact changes in multiple
dyads and can create disequilibrium
– Disequilibrium can result in both positive and
negative outcomes
– What are some sources of disequilibrium?
Parental Development in Midlife
• Climacteric—changes in functioning of sex
organs
– Males—reduced level of testosterone
– Females—reduced levels of estrogen
• Sociocultural changes
– Potentially higher levels of professional/career
responsibilities
– Changes in peer groups for parents
– Facing expenses (e.g. college expenses;
mortgages, health care)
– Higher levels of satisfaction as adolescents
become more autonomous
Sibling Relationships
• Multiple and Potentially Overlapping Relationships
– Caregiver
– Buddy
– Critical
– Rival
– Casual
• Relationships move from critical/rival to more
buddy/casual across childhood and adolescence
• With family change (e.g. divorce) relationships can
get closer
Extended Family Relationships
• Traditional Cultures (e.g. Kyrgyzstan):
– Single children frequently live with parents until
marriage
– Females tend to move to male’s village and home
upon marriage
– Marriage is younger
– Ties close with extended family (e.g.
grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins)
– Closeness with extended family members similar
among USA minority groups
– European adolescents show similar closeness
Extended Family Relationships
• Divorce or Death of a Parent:
– Relationship with grandparents becomes closer
– With maternal custody upon divorce, maternal
grandfather assumes aspects of father role
– Extended family members fill multiple roles
Parenting Styles: Diana Baumrind
• Parenting defined by two dimensions:
– Responsiveness—warmth, caring, sensitive,
supportive
– Demandingness—expectations, supervising,
monitoring
Parenting Style: Authoritarian
• Low responsiveness
• High demandingness
• Characteristics
– Corporal punishment, severe sanctions against
infractions
– High expectations with Low support
– Decisions are not open to discussion
– Rationales are not provided
Parenting Style: Authoritarian
• Child & Adolescent Outcomes:
– Rigid in perspective
– Lack problem-solving skills
– Likely not eager to make difficult decisions
– Passive
– Dependent
– Conforming (looks to powerful peer groups)
Parenting Style: Permissive—Indulgent
• High responsiveness
• Low demandingness
• Characteristics:
– Few rules or boundaries
– Adolescent is not accountable for behavioral
outcomes
– Responds positively to most requests made by the
adolescent
– Few negative consequences for problem behaviors
– Inappropriately involves adolescent in parental
lives
Parenting Style: Permissive—Indulgent
• Child & Adolescent Outcomes:
– Poor emotional control
– Low persistence to difficult or unpopular tasks
– Frequent externalizing behavior when desires are
denied
– Poor decision-making skills
– Blurred boundaries between adolescent and
parent
Parenting Style: Disengaged
(neglectful, indifferent)
• Characteristics:
– Inconsistent discipline based on impact of
behavior on parents’ own activities and
preferences
– Few rules or boundaries
– Punishment, when given, can be harsh
– Low parental monitoring
Parenting Style: Disengaged
(neglectful, indifferent)
• Child & Adolescent Outcomes:
– Low levels of performance in social and academic
domains
– Frequently poor emotional control
– Typically lacks clear understanding of contingency
of outcomes on behaviors
– May seek out peers for support with little
attention to norms of the peer group
Parenting Style: Authoritative
• High responsiveness
• High demandingness
• Characteristics:
– Sets consistent and reasonable boundaries for
adolescents’ behaviors
– Uses reason and discussion as first option for
discipline
– Low-to-no use of corporal punishment
– Models civil discussion
– Monitors adolescents’ behaviors
– Allows adolescents’ involvement in family decisions
– Maintains parental role with little or no enmeshment
Parenting Style: Authoritative
• Child & Adolescent Outcomes:
– Higher levels of achievement in social and
academic domains
– Recognizes relationship between behaviors and
outcomes
– Adaptive level of emotional control
– Develops adaptive decision-making skills
– Lower levels of psychological distress
– Appropriate peer relationships
Parenting Style: Traditional Parenting
• High Responsiveness
• High Demandingness
• Characteristics
– Compliance with cultural and traditional demands
with little or no negotiation
– High levels of warmth & closeness
– High levels of family interdependence
– Likely associated with collectivist cultures
– Demandingness linked to narrow socialization
Parenting Style: Traditional Parenting
• Child & Adolescent Outcomes:
– Generally positive within the cultural boundaries
– May experience stress as cultural borders are
crossed (e.g. schooling; dating)
Adolescent Individual Differences: A Complex
View of Parenting
• Within families parenting can vary
– Among siblings based on individual differences
– Within individual based on developmental change
(e.g. puberty)
– Within individual based on situational change (e.g.
peer groups, schooling)
• The relationship between parent and
adolescent is bidirectional and reciprocal
• Siblings can experience variation in family
environments
Attachment and Parenting
• Attachment: close, committed and secure
emotional relationship with another (usually
caregiver)
– Secure attachment: relationship that allows for
exploration and which is used for comfort and
soothing given distress
– Insecure attachment: relationship within which
there is uncertainty, wariness, and resistance to
comforting and soothing behaviors
Attachment and Parenting
• Secure attachment related to positive
outcomes in adolescence
• Balance between autonomy and relatedness is
reached in secure attachment
• Early attachment (infancy) is moderated and
modified by forces in the environment
Parent-Adolescent Conflict
• Generally disputes are over minor (in the
great scheme of things) issues
• Adolescents generally like their parents
• Level of conflict changes across adolescence
– Early and middle adolescence tends to be
associated with higher levels of conflict
– Late adolescence and emerging adulthood tend to
be associated with reduced levels of conflict
Parent-Adolescent Conflict
• Related to:
– Increased cognitive capability to construct more
complex and involved arguments
– Relative control over issues perceived by
adolescent to be personal choices
– Parents’ coding themes around risks for harmful
outcomes in themes related to personal choice
(e.g. choice of peers instead of risk for drug and
criminal involvement; romantic relations instead
of risk for STD’s)
Parent-Adolescent Conflict
• Conflict is minimized and has more positive
outcome if parent-adolescent relationship is
renegotiated across the adolescent years
• What parenting style is most likely associated
with renegotiation?
Culture and Conflict with Parents
• “Cultures can take the raw material of nature
and shape it in highly diverse ways.” (Arnett,
2010, pg 193).
– The biological change that is related to conflict
with parents leads to quite different levels and
sources of conflict across cultures
– Narrow socialization, as within collectivist
cultures, leads to less conflict and adherence to
parental and generational authority
Emerging Adults’(EA) Relationship with Parents
• In USA, frequently associated with residing
outside the home for the first time
• Parents frequently lose direct control and
monitoring capabilities
• EA’s who reside outside the home typically
report more positive relationships with
parents
• EA’s who return to their family of origin for
residence typically have a decline in
relationships.
Emerging Adults’(EA) Relationship with Parents
• In other cultures,
– EA’s tend to live with family of origin longer
– EA’s tend to maintain positive relationships
Historical Change and the Family
• Increase in divorce rate
• Increase in two wage-earner families
• Increase in single family households
Divorce, Remarriage, Single Parenthood, & Dual
Wage-Earner
• Examining the impact of divorce:
– Family Structure
– Family Process
• Family conflict prior to divorce linked to
problems following divorce
• Post-divorce relationship between parents
linked to adolescent outcomes
• Reaction of custodial parent linked to
adolescent outcomes
Divorce, Remarriage, Single Parenthood, & Dual
Wage-Earner
• Post-divorce relationship between parents
linked to adolescent outcomes
– Consistent parenting practicespositive
outcomes
– Civil relationships between divorced
parentspositive outcomes
Divorce, Remarriage, Single Parenthood, & Dual
Wage-Earner
• Reaction of custodial parent linked to
adolescent outcomes
– Enmeshed Relationship (blurred boundaries
between parent and adolescent)linked to
negative outcomes
– Reduced parental monitoringlinked to negative
outcomes
– Economic stresslack of opportunitylinked to
negative outcomes
– Maternal remarriagecan be related to negative
outcomes
Single Parenthood
• Parents (typically mothers) who have raise
children alone experience challenges to family
process factors
– Adaptive levels of parental monitoring, economic
opportunity, attachment, and overall parenting
style can lead to positive outcomes
– Economic stressors can add to the challenges
– Extended families can mitigate many challenges
Dual Wage-Earner Families
• Few differences observed over time in
adolescents from dual earner families
• Differences may stem from motivation for
work
– Parents who feel trapped in an unsatisfying job
and feel great pressure to work tend to be related
to adolescents with poorer outcomes
– Mothers who feel fulfilled and work outside the
home by preference tend to have daughters who
are well adjusted and have positive outcomes
Physical and Sexual Abuse in the Family
• Florida Abuse Hotline: 1-800-96-ABUSE
– Individuals who work in a professional capacity
with children are required to report suspicion of
abuse
• Physical Abuse: abuse in the form of harm to
body of a non-sexual nature
• Sexual Abuse: abuse with sexual overtones
Physical Abuse in the Family
• Abusive parents tend to have experienced
harsh if not abusive families themselves
• Caution in interpretation: most individuals
who were abused DO NOT abuse their
children.
• Families in distress are more likely to have
physical abuse (e.g. economic, psychological,
health stressors)
• Males more likely than females to be
physically abused
• Abused adolescents: more aggressive,
depressed, other problem behavior
Sexual Abuse in the Family
• Females more likely than males to be sexually
abused
• Abusive fathers not likely to be aggressive
• Abusive fathers awkward and insecure in
social relationships
• Distant relationship with spouse/partner
Sexual Abuse in the Family
• Abused adolescent:
– Violation of trust
– Difficulty in relationships
– Extreme sexual reactions (avoidant/promiscuous)
– Higher risk for
• Substance abuse
• Psychological disorders
• Suicidal ideation and attempts
Runaways & Throwaways
• Runaway Criteria:
– Child leaves home without permission and stays overnight
– Child 14 years or younger leaves home without permission
and chooses not to come home when expected to and
stays away overnight
– Child 15 years old or older who is away from home and
chooses not to come home when expected to and stays
away overnight
Runaways & Throwaways
• Throwaway Criteria:
– Child is asked or told to leave home by a parent or
other household adult, no adequate alternative
care is arranged, and the child is out of the
household overnight
– Child who is away from home is prevented from
returning home by a parent or other household
adult, no adequate alternative care is arranged,
and the child is out of the household overnight.
Runaways & Throwaways
• Runaways’/Throwaways’ Families:
– Abusive situations (approx 70% of runaways)
– Conflict with parents
– Conflict between parents
– Alcoholism and other drug abuse by parents
– Parental neglect
Runaways & Throwaways
• Attributes of the adolescent Runaway/Throwaway
–
–
–
–
–
Problems with substance abuse
Criminal/Delinquent activity
Problems/conflict at school
Psychological problems (e.g. depression)
Gay/Lesbian/Transgendered
• Long-term Runaways/Throwaways (weeks/months)
prey for exploitation
Global Problems: Street Children
• Displacement by war, famine
• Family poverty
• Kidnapping for exploitation
• Gender-based exploitation
Discussion Exercise
• Please read the piece at the website below
and be ready to use it in our class discussion
on Chapter 7 (Family Relationships).
• http://www2.lv.psu.edu/jkl1/runawaylives/Fe
elingLonelyAndUnwanted.html
• As read the piece by “F,” how might her take
relate to what you read about families
(structure, process) and their relationship to
adolescents’ experiences of distress and risk.