Chapter 3.2

Question 1

Deciding to divorce

Answer 1

Emotional transition
Accepting inability to resolve tension, continue relationship

Developmental issue
Accepting one’s own part in failure of the marriage

Question 2

Planning system breakup

Answer 2

Emotional transition
Supporting viable arrangements for all parts of system

Developmental issues
Working cooperatively on custody, visitation, finances
Dealing with extended family

Question 3

Separation

Answer 3

Emotional transition
Cooperative coparenting and joint financial support of children
Resolution of attachment to spouse

Developmental issues
Mourning loss of nuclear family
Restructuring relationships and finances
Adaptation to living apart
Realigning relationships with extended family

Question 4

Divorce

Answer 4

Emotional transition
Emotional divorce
Overcoming hurt, anger, guilt

Developmental issues
Retrieving hopes, dreams, expectations

Question 5

Post divorce
Single parent custodial

Answer 5

Emotional transition
Maintain financial responsibility
Continue parental contact
Support children’s contact with parent and extended family

Developmental issues
Flexible visitation arrangements
Rebuilding financial resources
Rebuilding own social network

Question 6

Post divorce
Single parent noncustodial

Answer 6

Emotional transition
Maintaining parental contact
Support child’s relationship with parent, extended family

Developmental issues
Continuing effective parenting relationship
Maintaining financial responsibilities
Rebuilding own social network

Question 7

Remarried family formation

Answer 7

Entering new relationship
Planning new family
Remarriage and reconstruction

Question 8

Entering new relationship

Answer 8

Emotional transition
Recovery from loss of first marriage
Emotional divorce

Developmental issues
Recommitting to marriage
Readiness to deal with complexity, ambiguity

Question 9

Planning new family

Answer 9

Emotional transition
Accepting fears
Accepting need for time and patience
multiple new roles
boundaries: space, time, membership, authority
affective issues: guilt, loyalty, unresolvable past hurts

Developmental issues
Work on openness
Avoiding pseudomutuality
Maintaining cooperative financial, coparenting
Help children deal with fear, loyalty
Realign relationships with extended family

Question 10

Remarriage and reconstruction

Answer 10

Emotional transition
Resolution attachment to previous spouse and ideal of “intact” family
Accepting different model of family with permeable boundaries

Developmental issues
Restructuring family boundaries
Interweaving of systems, realigning relationships
Making room for children’s relationships with all family
Enhancing stepfamily integration, sharing history , memories

Question 11

Differences: stepfamilies and nuclear

Answer 11

Loyalty
Seeing family together initially may be unproductive

Transitional stress
Focus first on transitional adjustment processes rather than intrapsychic processes.

Negative societal comparison
Need for acceptance and validation as a worthwhile family unit.

Stages in long integration period
Stage in family development is important in assessment of whom to see.

Establishing equilibrium vs break in homeostasis
Normalize, educate to promote stability

Complicated “supra family system”
Keep complications in mind
Draw a genogram

History of losses
Grief work may be necessary

Preexisting parent-child coalitions
Permission to develop a secure couple relationship

Couple relationship does not = stepparent stepchild relationship
Step relationships take special attention separate from the couple relationship

Different balance of power
Stepparent initially has little authority
Discipline handled by bio parent
Positive channels for children’s power

Influential parent elsewhere
Foster appropriate control to reduce anxiety, helplessness

More than two parent figures
Think in terms of parenting coalition

Ambiguous boundaries differing histories
Attention to these possible sources of loss, stress

Initially, no family history
Share past histories
Develop rituals, ways of doing things

Emotional climate intense, unexpected
Encourage empathy, understanding of unmet human needs:
to be loved, appreciated
to belong
to have control over one’s life

Question 12

Adoptive families

Answer 12

Continuum of openness
International adoptions
Adoptive families represent range of family forms
How/when the story of adoption told
Recognize unique strengths, challenges
Adoption breakdown
Genetic, hereditary factors
Deficiencies in prenatal, perinatal care
Conditions in adoptive home
Temperamental differences
Fantasy, communication, attitudes
Identity and adolescence
Parent child age differences
Hajal & Rosenberg (1991) in Wright & Leahy

Question 13

LGBT family life cycles

Answer 13

Manage multiple views of relationships
Differences among “traditional” families as well as from LGBT families
“Traditional” family life cycle with unique differences

Question 14

LGBT families with adolescence

Answer 14

Rituals in individuation, identity absence
Parenting to “protect” vs “prepare”

Question 15

LGBT leaving home

Answer 15

Family of origin modeling
Focus on strength of relationship
Gender scripts in relationship roles

Question 16

LGBT families with children

Answer 16

Multiple stuctures/forms
Biological
Stepfamily
adoptive family
Biases
Gender scripts

Question 17

LGBT families later life

Answer 17

Continuing adaptation negotiation with families of origin
Impact of illness/aging
Intergenerational caregiving/legacies
Care facilities and next of kin

Question 18

Function Instrumental

Answer 18

activities of daily living

Question 19

Emotional Communication

Answer 19

Functioning Expressive:

Who in your family tends to start conversations about feelings?

How can you tell when your _____ is happy? Angry? Sad?

Question 20

Verbal Communication

Answer 20

Functioning Expressive

Who among your family members is the most clear
and direct when communicating verbally? When you state clearly to your young
adult son that he has to pay you rent, what effect does that have on him? When
your teenagers talk directly to each other about the use of condoms, what do
you notice? If your adolescents were to talk more with you and your husband
about safer sex, what do you think your husband’s reaction might be?

Sometimes we talk to person A when the message is about person B
There’s also indirect messages when we talk. “Cover up your shorts are too short” also can mean “there’s sometjing wrong/shameful with your body”
If you have unclear communication, you have boundary issues

Question 21

Problem Solving

Answer 21

Functioning Expressive

This subcategory refers to the family’s ability to solve its own problems effectively.
Family problem solving is strongly influenced by the family’s beliefs
about its abilities and past successes. How much influence the family believes
it has on the problem or illness is useful to know. Who identifies the problems
is important. Is it characteristically someone from outside the family or from
inside the family?

Question 22

ROLES

Answer 22

Functioning Expressive

Established patterns of behaviour for family members

Question 23

Influence and Power

Answer 23

Functioning Expressive

Who is more likely to request that their needs be met? Who is more likely to accommodate the other person’s requests?

Question 24

Alliances and Coalitions

Answer 24

Functioning Expressive

Complementary and symmetrical are terms used to describe a two-person relationship

Threeperson relationship is triangle,

What are your Diads and triads in your home? When do they occur most often?

Question 25

Terms used to describe a two-person
relationship

Answer 25

Complementary
Symmetrical
Dyad