Family Stress

This week in my family relations class we talked about stress and how it can affect the family as a whole. I am actually taking a Family Stress and Coping class this semester. A lot of the tings we talked about this week tie in really well with what we talked about in my other class this week.  A stressor is a “discreet life event(s) or transition that have an impact upon the family unit and produce, or have the potential to produce, change in the family system.” A normative event is one that “occurs in all families, can be anticipated, and is short term.” Here are some things to help you distinguish whether it is a normative event;

The first thing that I think is important to acknowledge is that stress is going to occur in every family, no matter what. Experiencing stress and learning how to handle it together is just a part of life and living as a family unit. Stress can be either positive or negative. For example; a birth of a child is definitely a stressor, but it is a good thing! On the other hand, a death in the family is a negative stressor.

The model we discussed class is known as the ABC-X model. It stands for the following:

A-    stressor events

B-    resources

C-    definition of the situation

   X- Stress and Crisis.

Here is how it plays out.

A-   A;   

1.      Is it something that occurs in all families?

2.      Can you anticipate its occurrence?

3.      Is it short term or chronic?

Here are 8 additional criteria to consider;

1.      Internal or external

2.      Does it affect one member or all members?

3.      Sudden or gradual?

4.      Severity

5.      Time (how long does it take to adjust)

6.      Expected

7.      Natural or human caused

8.      Perception (are we able to solve the crisis?

9.      Can I do this? What you believe is the truth.

B- RESOURCES

 Resources “characteristics, traits, or abilities of individuals that assist in overcoming stressor

-          Family must figure out ow to deal with event/situation

Key Trains

·         Ability to pull together

·         Ability to be flexible

In balanced ways

·         Not flexible enough

·         Too flexible

·         Not cohesive enough

·          Too cohesive

Accessing Resources

1.      Individual

2.      Family

3.      Community

C-    C DEFINITION OF THE SITUATION

How we define as important as accessing resources

Optimism

·         Is this a challenge or a threat?

·         Research- how does this affect recovery

Self-Fulfilling Prophesy (a prediction of behavior which biases people to act as though the prediction was already true

1.      I am going to fail the exam

2.      Why study? I’m going to fail anyways

3.      Failure

Cognitively REFRAME

Break stressor down into manageable tasks

X- Stress and Crisis

·         Crisis – family is not able to maintain its usual balance because of stressor event (“A state or period of disorganization that ricks the foundations of the family”

·         Family stress “something experienced by families that causes a change in the family or upsets their sense of normalcy

·         Not all stressors lead to crisis

Crisis = broken family

·         What is the purpose of pain?

·         What options

To conclude, although we all go through stress and crisis in our lives, I think the most important thing to take away is that they make us grow, and we learn from them. If we can take a difficult situation, face it head on, or to the best of our abilities and them come out of it better than we were before, I say that is a huge success. There are a lot of people that can’t do that. It is a lifelong learning process but it gets easier with time. We also have to remember that we don’t have to go through hard things alone. We should reach out and take advantage of the people and resources around us that are there to help. We are never a burden.

What are your thoughts on handling stress as family?