Any family is like a living organism. In its development and formation, it certainly goes through certain stages. In psychology, each of them is attributed to a particular level of family development. This includes a period of courtship, and after a life together, which takes place without children. The next stage in the development of the family is the period when babies appear in it. Further, the relationship between the spouses becomes mature, and the children grow up. After that, already matured sons and daughters leave their father's house and go out into independent life. An additional turning point for many spouses is retirement. After all, this period will require the restructuring of life in a new way. Difficulties in the transition of spouses from stage to stage result in a crisis in their relationship. Consider the stages of the family life cycle and the problems that arise in this in more detail.
A bit of history
The idea of distinguishing the stages of the family life cycle arose in psychology in the forties of the 20th century. She came to this discipline from sociology. Who introduced the concept of "family life cycle"? For the first time this term was used by R. Hill and E. Duvall in 1948 in their report presented on the Americana national conference dealing with the problems of relations between people who are closely related. The theme of the speech touched upon the dynamics of marital interactions. Initially, it was indicated that the life cycle of the family goes through 24 stages.
In the sixties of the last century, psychotherapy began to consider this idea. The life cycle of the family was reduced to 7-8 specific stages.
Today, there are various classifications for these stages. When compiling them, scientists, as a rule, proceed from those specific tasks that a family has to solve in order to successfully function in the future. In most cases, this is influenced by family structure. The life cycle of a family is considered by many domestic and foreign scientists based on the place of children raised by spouses. For example, E. Duval used a criterion relating to the educational and reproductive functions of people related by marriage. That is, the scientist put forward his own periodization of the family life cycle based on the presence of children from parents, as well as their age. These are the stages:
- The emerging family. She has no children yet. The period of such a relationship lasts in most cases up to five years.
- Childbearing family. The eldest child of such parents is under the age of three.
- A family raising preschool children. The oldest child is between the ages of 3 and 8.
- A family in which children attend school. The age of the oldest child is inbetween 6 and 13 years old.
- A family in which children are teenagers. The oldest child has reached the age of 13-21.
- A family that sends grown children to independent life.
- Mature spouses.
- An aging family.
Of course, not every couple in a close relationship can be considered this way. After all, there are families in which children differ greatly in age or spouses have been married more than once. Sometimes a child is brought up by only one of the parents, etc. Nevertheless, regardless of the structure of the family and the specific tasks facing it, it will inevitably encounter certain difficulties typical of this or that stage. Knowing about them will allow you to cope with emerging problems much more successfully.
Family dynamics
Married people, as well as their children, are primarily nothing but a social system that consists in constant interchange with the environment around it. The functioning of any family occurs in the interaction of two complementary laws. The first of them is aimed at maintaining stability and constancy. It is called the "law of homeostasis". The second of them is responsible for development. This law indicates that any family can not only change the number of its members. It can also cease to exist. That is why the stages of the family life cycle are considered in a certain sequence and frequency of stages. All of them include moments arising from the period of occurrence and up to the liquidation of thissmall social system.
The concept of "family life cycle" is the story of loved ones. It has a certain extension in time and its own dynamics. The concept of “family life cycle” also includes everything that reflects the regularity and repetition of events occurring in this social system, which significantly affect the change in its structure. This is the birth and death of people, as well as age-related changes in spouses and their children. The dynamics of the life cycle of the family and allows you to highlight the main stages of its existence. Knowledge about them helped specialists develop an effective system of recommendations for providing psychological and social assistance to people who are at one of the crisis stages in the development of marital and parental relationships.
What is a family?
Human society is made up of many groups of people linked together by a common household, common housing, and, most importantly, close relationships. This is the family. Very often what happens in such a group of people does not depend on their desires and intentions. After all, the life of this social system is regulated by certain properties. Scientists view people's actions as something secondary. It follows from this that human actions are subject to certain rules and laws that are characteristic of each of the stages of the family life cycle. In addition, do not forget that a group of people consisting of close relationships is called upon to perform certain functions:
- emotional;
- household;
- cultural (spiritual) communication;
- educational;
- sexual-erotic.
Based on the completeness of the areas described above in the life cycle of the family, the types of family and marriage can be different. So, a group of close people is considered as functional if all these directions take place. But it also happens differently. A family is considered dysfunctional if one or more of the directions described above are broken or missing altogether.
Based on the law of development, a group of people who are in close relationship with each other must certainly go through a certain sequence of different events. In this case, all of them will gradually replace each other. The life cycle of family development begins with its creation, ending with its liquidation. All this can be compared with the path that every person has to go through. He is born, lives, and then dies.
You can get acquainted with the classification of different types of family life cycle by studying the literature on psychology. It also contains information about what is characteristic of each stage in the development of relations in a small social group. It also contains a description of those crises of the family life cycle that people have to overcome from one stage of relationships to another.
Monad time
In 1980, scientists proposed a description of the life cycle of the American family. At its first stage, a lonely young man is examined. He is practically independent financially and lives separately from his parents. This stage of the family's life cycle came to be called the "time of the monad." Such a stage is veryimportant for a young person. After all, his independence allows him to form his own views on life.
Love
The second stage of the life cycle of family development begins at the time when there is a meeting with a future marriage partner. What is included in this stage? Love and romance, and after that, the emergence of the idea to connect your life. With the successful passage of this stage of the family life cycle, people exchange the expectations that they express about a joint future, agreeing on it.
Dyad Time
In the third phase of the life cycle of a family, lovers enter into marriage, begin to live under the same roof and run a joint household. This stage is called the "time of the dyad". During this period, the first crisis occurs.
Problems of the family life cycle of this phase are the need to organize a life together. Young people have to decide on the distribution of various functions. For example, someone has to organize leisure activities, someone has to decide what the money will be spent on, someone needs to work, etc. Some issues are easy to agree on, and some are difficult to discuss due to ambiguity and unspecified preferences. For example, in a family where a young wife grew up, mother never went in a dressing gown and put on makeup for the arrival of her father. But for the newly-born spouse, a woman in high heels and in an evening dress at home is associated with the image of a teacher who was once hated by him. The young husband loves his mother. And she went home in slippers and a bathrobe. On the backgrounddifferent visions of behavior and the first disharmony occurs.
Childbirth
When overcoming the crisis period of the third stage, the marriage is saved. However, even more serious tests await the family. When the first child is born, the structure of the family changes.
On the one hand, it becomes more stable, and on the other hand, there is a need for a new redistribution of time, roles, money, etc. Spouses must decide who will rise to the night crying of the child. They also have to decide how to visit - in turn, or the husband will always leave his wife with the baby at home. This stage is considered to be passed successfully if the child did not introduce alienation into the marital relationship, but, on the contrary, rallied the parents.
Birth of subsequent children
The fifth stage of the family life cycle is quite simple. Indeed, at this stage, the spouses do not need to conclude a new contract between themselves. They already know how they will live with their children, who will be responsible for what. They have already gone through all this at the previous stage. Of course, there can be more than two children, but the patterns in the development of the family system will not change from this.
There are certain data that indicate the dependence of family roles on the order that takes place at the birth of children. So, if a girl is the eldest in the family, then she becomes a nanny for her brothers and sisters. It bears some responsibility forjunior. At the same time, such a child most often does not manage to live his own life. The middle child is considered the most prosperous and free in the family. However, the inevitable moment in family relations is rivalry between children. During this period, parents have to solve problems related to children's jealousy. Coalitions often form in dysfunctional families. At the same time, a mother with one child opposes a father with another. Or the woman is with the children on one side, and the man on the other. And this point is very important for people's mental he alth.
Schoolchildren
At the sixth stage of its life cycle, the family has to come face to face with the norms and rules of the outside world, which differ from those accepted within the group of close people. At the same time, the spouses will have to figure out what can be considered success or failure, as well as what price they are willing to pay for the compliance of their child with social standards and norms. For example, a family may be hypersocializing. In this case, she is ready to succeed at any cost. The loser in this case will only have to cry, not having received the support of people close to him.
The family can also be dissident. It is characterized by being in opposition to external rules and norms. In such families, problems sometimes arise regarding loy alty to accepted internal values and norms, because violation of the rules of brotherhood threatens a person with ostracism.
It can be argued that at the described stage of the family's life cycle, the boundaries of the existing internal system are being tested.
Reaching adolescence
The seventh stage of the family life cycle is associated with the puberty of the eldest child. This is the time when a grown child is trying to understand who he is and where he is going in this life. The family needs to prepare their child for independence. This is the point that tests the effectiveness and viability of the functioning of this group of people.
As a rule, this period coincides with the crisis that is typical for middle age. Parents at this time especially need to maintain stability. After all, for them this is the middle of life, which leads to the realization that some facts are already irreversible, the profession is chosen, certain career growth results take place, and children are more grown up. During this period, people begin to understand that their strength is decreasing, and there is not much time left ahead. In this case, it is much easier to recognize oneself as a loser, “hiding behind” children. After all, an unfinished career can be explained by the fact that a lot of time had to be spent on a child. Often, the stability of the family directly depends on whether children and parents continue to live together. The departure of young people makes it necessary for spouses to communicate only with each other. At the same time, they have to solve a huge number of problems that were previously simply put off for later. There are no more excuses in the form of children, which sometimes leads spouses to divorce. That is why this stage in the life of the family is considered the most painful and problematic. Close people willrebuild internal and external boundaries, and learn to live with changing composition.
Empty Nest
The eighth stage is a repetition of the third. The difference between them lies only in a different age of the members of the dyad. Children have become independent and live their own lives, and parents have to spend time together. It is good if people have preserved the joy of mutual communication, having reached the stage of the “empty nest” without much loss.
Loneliness
The ninth phase of the life cycle occurs after the death of a spouse. A person has to live out his life alone, just as in his younger years, until he entered into a marriage relationship. Only now he is in old age, and behind his back the years lived.
Russian family
In our country, the stages that a group of close people goes through are significantly different from American ones. The life cycle of a Russian family differs from that described above due to economic reasons taking place in the country, as well as in connection with certain cultural characteristics of the Russian nation.
The differences primarily relate to the isolation of families. Indeed, in Russia, not many people can afford to buy a separate apartment or house. In addition, the joint life of several generations is not considered bad and difficult. Consider the life cycle stages of a typical Russian family:
- Accommodation of parents with adult children. As a rule, young people do not have the opportunity to gain experience of independent independent living. They are part of the familysubsystems, that is, the children of their parents. As a rule, young people do not have a sense of responsibility for their own destiny. Indeed, in practice, he fails to check the rules of life.
- At the second stage of the family life cycle, a young man meets his future marriage partner, bringing him after the wedding to his parents' house. And here he has a very difficult task. Within a large family, a small one should be created. Young people will have to decide not only what rules they will have to live together, but also to agree with their parents. Usually a young wife or husband enters a large family, like a daughter or son. That is, the elders begin to consider them another child. The daughter-in-law or son-in-law should call the parents “dad and mom”. That is, between themselves, the spouses seem to be like a newly found sister and brother. Not everyone is ready for such a scenario of relations. It is good if both spouses do not want to build their lives in this way. Worse, if only one. This leads to conflicts between daughter-in-law and mother-in-law, son-in-law and mother-in-law.
- The birth of a child also contributes to the transition of the family to the next stage and the emergence of a crisis period. Spouses, again, need to agree among themselves on who will do what and be responsible for what. Often when several generations live together under the same roof, the roles between people are not fully defined. Sometimes it becomes unclear who is a functional mother and who is a grandmother. It is also not clear who is actually responsible for caring for the child. Babies often become sonsor a daughter not of a mother, but of a grandmother. Parents become older brothers and sisters for their children.
- The fourth stage, as in the Western version, is quite mild for the family. After all, in many ways it repeats the previous stage. This period brings nothing new to the family, besides childish jealousy.
- The fifth stage is characterized by active aging of the progenitors and the appearance of many diseases in them. The family is in crisis again. The elderly, because of their helplessness, depend on the middle generation. Ancestors move to the position of small children, who, as a rule, are not treated with love, but with irritation. But before, these old people were in charge, were aware of all the events and made decisions. At this stage, it is also necessary to revise internal agreements once again. In the culture of the Russian people, it is believed that children should not send their parents to a nursing home. Good sons and daughters inspect old people until they die. During this period, puberty of the younger generation occurs. And often in such families there are coalitions. Old people and teenagers conspire against the middle age generation. For example, the first ones cover school failures or late absences of children.
- The sixth stage can be considered a repetition of the first. After the death of the elderly, the family remains with adult children.
Of course, most of the stages from the life path of an American family are also in the Russian version. This may include, for example, the stage of courtship, the conclusion of a marriage contract, the appearance of children, the way theypsychological development, etc. However, in the context of a large family consisting of three generations, they take place in a modified form. The main features of the family of the Russian state consist in a very strong moral and material dependence between its members. All this often leads to confusion of roles, an indistinct division of the main functions, the need for constant clarification of rights and obligations, etc. Our youth is much tougher and more closely connected with the previous generation than in the West. Each of the family members has to contact daily with a large group of close people, getting involved in difficult relationships and simultaneously performing many social roles that do not fit well with each other.
A new approach to classification
Recently, domestic family science is considering a different version of the life cycle that people who are closely related to each other go through during their existence. The authors of this approach are V. M. Medkov and A. I. Antonov. According to them, the life cycle of a family consists of four periods, defined by the stages of parenthood.
In other words, this theory examines marital relations through the prism of the birth, upbringing, and socialization of children. In this case, the following stages are distinguished:
- Pre-parenthood. The period of this stage lasts from the registration of marriage until the appearance of the first child. Spouses during this period are preparing to become parents and start a family in its full understanding.
- Reproductive parenting. This is the periodwhich lasts from the birth of the first child to the appearance of the last child. Depending on the decision of the parents, the second stage may be longer or shorter, or it may be completely absent if the child is the only one in the family.
- Socialized parenthood. At this stage, the family is engaged in raising children. Sometimes this stage lasts forever. However, fathers and mothers should limit their parental care when their son or daughter comes of age. Protracted socialization often leads to the fact that a young person does not start his own family, preferring to remain an eternal child.
- Ancestry. After the appearance of the first grandchild, the parents turn into grandparents. They become progenitors, which does not mean the end of the stage of socialized parenthood. The fact is that even at that time there may still be minor children in the family. The fourth and final stage of the family life cycle lasts until the death of one of the spouses-grandparents.
However, it is worth noting that not all families go through the stages described above. This is often influenced by reasons of an objective and subjective nature. Among them are forced and voluntary separation of children and parents, spouses, deaths and divorces. At various stages of the family life cycle, similar causes lead to the appearance of its various forms and to the incomplete passage of the stages described above.
