The changing family in a changinf society

Lead-in

1.In pairs discuss the following issues and report your opinion:

a) What do you think the perfect family is like?

b) How many children should there be?

c) Should both parents work?

d) Should grandparents live with the family?

2. Which of these two things do you consider to be the most important in your life? Why/Why not? In Pairs discuss the reasons. (See Appendix)

Family life

Good health

Relationships

Friendship

Career

3. Do a class-in survey using the first question in ex. 2 and draw a chart showing the survey result. Comment on the results in a short written report.

Pre-reading

Scan the text. Choose the heading from the list (A-E) for each part (1-5) of the text.

A. Conflict

B. Sex of the Child and the Nature of Custody

C. Models of Divorce

D. Age and Developmental Changes

E. Working Mothers

Reading

Read the text and fill in the gaps with the words given below. Change the forms of the words where necessary.

1. guilty	2. structure	3. problems	4. needs	5. mother-custody
breadwinning role	to state	to remarry	not to decline	higher
self-esteem	prior	dependency	anger	effects
receive	adjustment	to remember	child-rearing	better
profitably	relationship	self-esteem	considerable	including
overinvest	ex-spouse	memories	emotional affairs	opposite-sex
be not employed	a type of custody	at the onset of	families
benefit	consideration		to facilitate
to occupy	a good predictor		divorce
to response to

Text.

Part 1.

Because household operations have become more efficient and family size has decreased in America, it is not certain that chil­dren with mothers working outside the home actually _______ less attention than children in the past whose mothers were not_______. Outside employment—at least for mothers with school-age children—may simply be filling time previously taken up by added household burdens and more children. It also cannot be assumed that if the mother did not go to work, the child would _______ from the time freed up by streamlined household operations and smaller families. Mothering does not always have a positive effect on the child. The educated, non- working mother may _______ her energies in her children, fostering an excess of worry and discouraging the child's inde­pendence. In such situations, the mother may give more par­enting than the child can _______ handle.

Maternal employment is a part of modern life. It is not an aberrant aspect of it, but a _______ to other social changes. Not only does it meet the parent's needs, but in many ways it may be a pattern better suited to socializing children for the adult roles they will_____. This is especially true for daughters, but it is also true for sons. The broader range of emotions and skills that each parent presents is more con­sistent with this adult role. Just as his father shares the _______ _______ and the child-rearing role with his mother, so the son, too, will be more likely to share these roles. The needs of the growing child require the mother to loosen her hold on the child, and this task may be easier for the working woman whose job is an additional source of identity and_______. Overall, researchers have found no detrimental effects of maternal em­ployment on children's development.

A common experience of working mothers (and working fathers) is feeling _______ about being away from their children. The guilt may be triggered by parents missing their child, wor­rying that their child is missing them, being concerned about the implications of working (such as whether the child is receiving good child-care), and worrying about the long-term effects of working (such as whether they are jeopardizing the child's fu­ture). To reduce guilt, the guilt needs to be acknowledged. Parents re­spond to guilt either by admitting it and working through it or by denying it and rationalizing it away. The latter tendency is not recommended.

Part 2.

Two main models have been proposed to explain how divorce affects children's development: the father-absence model and the multiple-factor model. The family structure model ______ that any differences in children from different family structures are due to the family structure variations, such as the father’s being ab­sent in one set of the families. However, family structure (such as father-present versus father-absent) is only one of many fac­tors that influence children's development and _______ in single-parent families.

The multiple-factor model of divorce takes into account the complexity of the divorce context and examines a number of influences on the child's development, including not only family_______, but also the strengths and weaknesses of the child _______ to the divorce, the nature of the events surrounding the divorce itself the _______ ___ _______ involved, visitation patterns, socioeconomic status, and post divorce family functioning. Researchers are finding that the availability and use of support systems (relatives, friends, housekeepers), an ongoing positive _______ between the custodial parent and the _______, authoritative parenting, financial resources, and the child's competencies at the time of the divorce are important factors in how successfully the adolescent adapts to the divorce. Thus, just as the family structure factor of birth order by itself is not a _______ _______ of children's development, neither is the family structure factor of father absence. In both cir­cumstances - birth order and father absence - there are many other factors that always have to be taken into _______ when explaining the child's development is at issue.

Part 3.

The age of the child at the time of the divorce needs to be considered. Young children's responses to divorce are medi­ated by their limited cognitive and social competencies, their _______ on their parents, and possibly inferior day care (Hetherington, Hagan, & Anderson, 1989). The cognitive immaturity that creates considerable anxiety for children who are young at the time of their parents' divorce may benefit the children over time. Ten years after the divorce of their parents, adolescents had few _______ of their own earlier fears and suffering or their parents' conflict (Wallerstein, Corbin, 8c Lewis, 1988). Nonetheless, approximately one-third of these children continued to express anger about not being able to grow up in an intact, never-divorced family. Those who were adolescents at the time of their parents' divorce were more likely to _______ the conflict and stress surrounding the di­vorce some 10 years later, in their early adult years. They, too, expressed disappointment at not being able to grow up in an intact family and wondered if their life would not have been better if they had been able to do so. And in one study, ado­lescents who experienced the divorce of their parents during adolescence were more likely to have drug _______ than ado­lescents whose parents were divorced when the adolescents were children or than adolescents living in continuously mar­ried families.

Evaluations of children and adolescents 6 years after the di­vorce of their parents found that living with a mother who did not _______ had long-term negative effects on boys, with deleterious outcomes appearing consistently from kindergarten to adolescence. No negative effects on preadolescent girls were found. However, _______ adolescence, early-maturing girls from divorced families engaged in frequent conflict with their mothers, behaved in noncompliant ways, had lower self-esteem, and experienced more problems in het­erosexual relationships.

Part 4.

Many separations and divorces are highly _______ _______ that immerse the child in conflict. Conflict is a critical aspect of family functioning that often outweighs the influence of family structure on the child's development. For example, chil­dren in divorced families low in conflict function better than children in intact, never-divorced _______ high in conflict (Black 8c Pedro-Carroll, 1993; Rutter, 1983; Wallerstein, 1989). Although the escape from conflict that divorce provides may be a positive benefit for children, in the year immediately following the divorce, the conflict does not _______ but in­creases. At this time, children - especially boys - in divorced families show more adjustment problems than children in in­tact families with both parents present. During the first year after the _______, the quality of parenting the child experiences is often poor; parents seem to be preoccupied with their own needs and adjustment – experiencing _______, depression, con­fusion, and emotional instability - which inhibits their ability to respond sensitively to the child's_______. During the second year after the divorce, parents are more effective in their _______ duties, especially with daughters.

In sum, large numbers of children are growing up in divorced families. Most children initially experience _______ stress when their parents divorce, and they are at risk for developing problem behaviors. However, divorce can also remove chil­dren from conflicted marriages. Many children emerge from divorce as competent individuals. In recent years, developmentalists have moved away from the view that single-parent families are atypical or pathological, focusing more on the di­versity of children's responses to divorce and the factors that _______ or disrupt children's development and adjustment.

Part 5.

The sex of the child and the sex of the custodial parent are im­portant considerations in evaluating the ______ of divorce on chil­dren. One research study directly compared 6 to 11-year-old children living in father-custody and _______ families (Santrock 8c Warshak, 1979,1986). On a number of measures, _______ videotaped observations of parent-child interaction, children living with the same-sex parent were more socially competent - happier, more independent, with _______ self- esteem, and more mature - than children living with the _______ parent. Some researchers have recently found support for the same-sex parent-child custodial arrangement, while others have found that, regardless of their sex, adolescents are _______ adjusted in mother-custody or joint-custody families than in father-custody families.

Follow-up

1. In groups of five discuss the changing role of women and other family issues.

A. You are going to find out about the role of women in your country and in any different culture.

Choose any culture and find out some information about the role of women there. If possible, find a culture very different from yours.

Take turns asking your classmates the following questions. Firstly, ask questions about the role of women in your country. Then ask your classmates about the role of women in the culture he/she has chosen. (You may use similar questions as given below).You will have about one-half hour to do this.

Take notes on the answers. Then present the information to the class. Summarize the answers briefly.

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