Samenvatting
Samenvatting Modern Families
- Vak
- Gezinspedagogiek
- Instelling
- Universiteit Leiden (UL)
Samenvatting van het boek Modern Families van Susan Golombok, bestaande uit alle hoofdstukken behalve hoofdstuk 6.
[Meer zien]Voorbeeld 3 van de 28 pagina's
Voorbeeld 3 van de 28 pagina's
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Voorbeeld van de inhoud
Chapter 1 IntroductionThe traditional nuclear family of a heterosexual married couple with biologically related
children is now in the minority. Instead, a growing number of children are raised by
cohabiting, rather than married, parents, by single parents, by stepparents and by same-sex
parents, with many children moving in and out of these different family structures as they
grow up. Recent years have also seen the emergence of co-parenting arrangements,
whereby a man and a woman who are not in a relationship together raise children jointly.
Changes to the structure of the family have been taking place since the 1970s. Families
headed by single parents, cohabiting parents or stepparents are often referred to collectively
as ‘’non-traditional families’’, and result largely from parental separation or divorce and the
formation of new cohabiting and marital relationships. However, the focus of this book is on
‘’new families’’, rather than ‘’non-traditional families’’. The term ‘’new families’’ is used to
refer to family forms that either did not exist or were hidden from society until the latter part
of the twentieth century, and that represent a more fundamental shift away from traditional
family structures than do non-traditional families. These include lesbian mother families, gay
father families, families headed by single mothers by choice and families created by assisted
reproductive technologies involving in vitro fertilization (IVF), egg donation, donor
insemination, embryo donation and surrogacy. Although new families are distinct from non-
traditional families, they are not mutually exclusive. It is not unusual for new families also to
be non-traditional.
In spite of the rise in new family forms, the traditional nuclear family is still generally
considered the best environment in which to raise children. It is commonly assumed that the
more a family deviates from the norm of the traditional two-parent heterosexual family, the
greater the risks to the psychological well-being of the children. However, this depends on
the extent to which these new families differ from traditional families in the aspects of family
life that matter most for children’s healthy psychological development and, particularly, the
extent to which they provide a less supportive family environment for children. Before
exploring parenting and child development in new family forms, it is therefore important to
examine factors associated with the optimal development of children in traditional families.
Family influences on child development are often conceptualized in terms of three
interrelated components: the psychological well-being of the parents, the quality of parent-
child relationships, and the psychological characteristics of the child. Each of these must be
viewed in the context of the social environment in which the family is based.
Psychological well-being of parents
Quality of marriage
The psychological well-being of parents can be influenced by the quality of their marriage.
However, studies of the association between bad marriages and negative outcomes for
children have found the link between the two to be weaker than expected. Marital
dissatisfaction appears to have little effect on children, but what does make a difference is
marital conflict. Children whose parents are in conflict have been found to be more
aggressive, disobedient and difficult to control, more likely to become involved in delinquent
behavior and to perform poorly at school, more likely to be anxious and depressed, and
more likely to have difficulty in getting on with peers relative to children whose parents are
happily married.
Just because parents are in conflict does not mean that their children will suffer
psychological problems. It is even thought that it can be good for children to be exposed to
arguments, because they will learn how to resolve disagreements and make up. Thus, what
,seems to matter for children is not whether their parents fight, but how they fight. Aspects
that are harmful to children are frequent fighting, a belief that the fighting is heralding their
parents’ separation, severe hostility, being the subject of their parents’ rows, and parents’
inability to make up.
The process through which marital conflict affects children has been the subject of much
debate. Some believe that marital conflict is bad for children because of its indirect effects on
parenting, but exposure to parents’ fighting also has a direct effect on children’s
psychological well-being in that seeing parents argue is, in itself, distressing. It is now
generally agreed that marital conflict may have both indirect and direct effects on the
psychological well-being of children.
Parents’ psychological state
Parents’ psychological adjustment can also affect the psychological well-being of children.
Children of depressed parents have consistently been found to show elevated rates of
behavioral, social and emotional problems. They are not only more likely to show a wide
range of psychological problems, but are also more likely themselves to become depressed.
Of particular interest to psychologists are the mechanisms involved in this association. One
explanation is that depression reduces a parent’s ability to parent effectively. Just as with
marital conflict, depression is thought to interfere with parents’ control and discipline of their
children, and also with their emotional availability and sensitivity to them, thus jeopardizing
children’s security of attachment.
Another explanation is that the greater marital conflict in couples in which one partner is
depressed - rather than the depression itself - is responsible for the behavioral and
emotional problems of the children of depressed parents. But whether marital conflict, on its
own, can account for the psychological difficulties experienced by children of depressed
parents remains an open question. In a review of relevant studies, it was concluded that
marital conflict in families with a depressed parent increases children’s risk for conduct
problems, and the parent’s depression - rather than the associated marital discord -
increases children’s own risk for depression. to complicate the issue further, depression and
marital conflict may each be caused by external factors, and these external factors may, in
themselves, be implicated in children’s development of psychological problems.
Children whose parents are dependent on alcohol and drugs are also at a disadvantage.
Compared with other children, they are more likely to show conduct problems, including
antisocial behavior and delinquency. An obvious explanation is that parents who are often
drunk or drugged cannot properly care for their children, but this is not the only reason why
these children are at risk. Parents who become dependent on alcohol or on addictive drugs
often live in conditions of extreme poverty and may suffer from psychiatric disorders such as
depression. Also, a high rate of neglect and abuse has been found among the children of
alcoholic and drug-addicted parents. In addition to the life experiences that place these
children at risk for psychological problems, they may also inherit a vulnerability toward
alcohol or drug dependence themselves.
Quality of parent-child relationships
The question of what it is to be a good parent has been a major focus of psychological
enquiry since the days of Sigmund Freud. Whereas much of the research on parenting has
stemmed from attachment theory, other researchers have examined the influence of
parenting on children’s psychological adjustment more generally.
Attachment theory
, Much of the knowledge we have today about the aspects of parenting that matter most for
children’s psychological adjustment comes from the ground-breaking work of the psychiatrist
John Bowlby and the psychologist Mary Ainsworth, who highlighted the importance for
children to feel secure in their relationships with their parents. According to Bowlby, infants
have an innate tendency to use their parents as a secure base from which to explore the
world and as a source of comfort when they are distressed. He also argued that the quality
of a child’s relationship with his or her mother in the first years of life determines the child’s
future well-being. Today, it is no longer thought that the mother must be the child’s primary
attachment figure, but it is crucial that children have one or more attachment figures.
Unless children experience extreme deprivation early in life, they will form attachments to
their primary caregivers. However, not all children become securely attached to these
caregivers. Mary Ainsworth was particularly interested in the ways in which securely and
insecurely attached children differ from each other, and devised the Strange Situation Test
to explore these differences, in which the mother and infant are observed in an unfamiliar
playroom during a series of increasingly distressing events designed to elicit attachment
behavior in the infant. The infant’s attachment behavior is classified as either ‘’secure’’,
‘’insecure-resistant’’, or ‘’insecure-avoidant’’. The way in which an infant reunites with his or
her mother following separation is viewed as an indicator of the extent to which the infant
expects to receive comfort from her when distressed. Infants who are considered securely
attached are confident about exploring the room and playing with toys in their mother’s
presence, and are not distressed by the arrival of the stranger when their mother is there.
They greet their mother warmly on her return from leaving the room and, if they have been
upset by her absence, are easily comforted by her and soon return to play. Infants classified
as insecurely attached behave in one of two ways. Those classified as ‘’insecure-resistant’’
often seem wary of exploring the playroom, even when their mother is present. They
become extremely distressed when their mother leaves the room and, on her return, clearly
want to her but resist contact and are difficult to comfort. In contrast, ‘’insecure-avoidant’’
infants tend to explore the playroom immediately and show little distress when the mother
leaves the room and little interest in her return. Instead, they often carry on with whatever
they are doing and appear to ignore her presence. More recently, a fourth category,
‘’insecure-disorganized’’, was identified. Unlike insecure-resistant and insecure-avoidant
children, these children do not seem to have a consistent way of responding to stress.
Instead, they appear disorientated by the experience; they sometimes become completely
motionless, as if frozen to the spot, or move in odd ways in their mother’s presence. This
pattern of behavior is most often seen among children who have been neglected or abused.
Mothers of securely attached infants tend to be responsive to their infants and sensitive to
their needs, whereas mothers of insecure-resistant infants appear to be unpredictable in
their behavior. Sometimes they are responsive but at other times they are unavailable to the
infant. In contrast, mothers of insecure-avoidant infants appear to be actively rejecting.
Over the years, there has been some controversy over the origins of secure and insecure
attachment relationships - not only in regard to the importance of mothers responding
sensitively to their infants, but also in relation to the aspects of maternal sensitivity that make
a difference. Whether maternal sensitivity is the key to secure attachment, rather than other
maternal behaviors are questions that have intrigued researchers for some time. These
questions culminated in a review in 1997 of all studies that have investigated whether a
mother’s sensitivity is associated with the attachment security of her baby. It was concluded
that that maternal sensitivity is an important factor in whether or not infants become securely
attached, but this does not mean that all infants with sensitive mothers become securely
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