Background
Family refers to a collection of people that are united due to the ties of marriage, adoption, household, and blood in the respective social position. This is comparable to family life cycle that refers to the intellectual and emotional state that individuals experience as they develop from childhood to retirement. In every stage of the family life cycle, individuals tend to experience family life tribunals that allow them to build and gain new skills. Notably, gaining these skills assists the family members in navigating through their life cycles that they encounter daily. However, not every person passes smoothly through the family life cycle stages. Some of the difficulties that individuals incline to experience through these phases include financial problems, death cases, or severe illness of their loved one within the family framework life (Hristova, 2020). The papers will emphasis on the family life cycle assessment from a developmental perception to coach the engrossed families in the community.
Stages of Family Life Cycle
Copious family life cycle periods have been experienced by different families within our present-day society. The crucial stage of the family life cycle includes independence or unattached stage. These stages allow individuals to start living and familiarize with their life by themselves. The other stage includes marriage or coupling, where individuals tend to unite with each other and live as one. The subsequent stage includes parenting, where couples from the prior stage learn how to take care of their children and educate them to start a new life (Hristova, 2020). It also allows parents to control their children’s life through puberty period. Nonetheless, the other stage includes launching of adult children to acclimatize and learn new skills in adult life. Finally, the senior and retirement year is the last stage that every person should learn and gain different skills to minimize the negative challenges in life.
Importance of Understanding Family Fife Cycle
To master the milestones and skills of each stage of the life cycle is a vital concept that every person should strive to achieve. This allows every individual to successfully move from one stage to the other while developing them positively. If a person fails to master the skills of the family life cycle, they may still move to the next stage of the circle but may have exertion with relationships and future changeovers. Successful transitioning in life succors in preventing stress-related disorders, diseases, and negative emotions. This is why every person must learn and master the family life cycle skills to understand the challenges of each specific stage to become more successful as they grow older.
Skills that Should be Mastered in Every Stage of a Family Life Cycle
Every person should master skills in every stage of a family life cycle that will allow them to successfully transition from one stage to the other. The mastering of the skills in the family life cycle assists in the prevention of emotional stress and diseases. The prerequisite skill during marriage stage is to practice patience, respect and mutual support to maintain long term relationship (Shannon et al., 2020). Parenting stage requires people to have vital skills related to decision making. Also, they are advised to practice love, stress management, and health management. Launching adult children to acclimatize and learn new skills in adult lifer require parents to practice life skills. Effective communication is another skill that is important in senior and retirement years stage because it allows the family members to interact positively and solve their problems appropriately.
Example of how an Individual Identify if they have Mastered the Skill of Life Cycle
The main example of how an individual can identify if they have mastered the skill of the family life cycle is to solve the problem and family issues appropriately without engaging in conflicts. For instance, during the coupling or marriage stage, individuals may identify if they have mastered the skills when the practice respect and show genuine love (Shannon et al., 2020). This is because the parents will be able to communicate effectively and offer reasonable guidelines hence resulting in effective interaction between the two disagreeing family parties.
The Effects or Difficulty People May Have if they do not Master the Skills of Each Stage
Failing to master the skill of each stage in the family life cycle may contribute to negative magnitudes to an individual’s life. Specifically, the person may develop stress regularly due to a lack of mastery skills to control their daily living. Furthermore, the person may not be able to bring unity within the family member but instead contribute two conflicts which should not be the case. Another significance that may affect individuals when failing to master the skills of the family life cycle is that they may face problems in upholding and controlling their emotions which may contribute to the development of the mental disorder. Subsequently, individuals may lack the skills for financial budgeting, which may lead them to a financial crisis that may contribute to stress development. Individuals may also lack the knowledge to teach moral behavior to their children.
How Race Interacts with the Understanding of Family Life Cycle
Race interacts with understanding the family life cycle appropriately, specifically regarding racial-ethnic socialization and cultural orientation. Family plays a vital role in shaping the negative outcome of racial-ethnic identity and cultural orientation, which has been observed to increase vulnerability. In this context, the family life cycle that entails numerous transitional stages teaches a culture of origin to young developing children (Shannon et al., 2020). The topic of racial-ethnic socialization has been applied to transmit information from adults to young children, which develops them positively in terms of moral behavior. This is related to cultural socialization, where people are able to socialize and engage in parenting practices that teach their children good behaviors, and ethnic heritage are the cultural histories that promote the continuity of cultural customs and tradition.
How Socioeconomic Status Interacts with the Understanding of Family Life Cycle
Socioeconomic status plays a vital role in creating an understanding of the family life cycle. This is because it influences the academic achievement that develops and shapes many people within the society to understand and master every skill of the family life cycle. Besides, individuals can develop cognitive thinking through family environment variables such as parenting ideas and behavior. It has used the family members to identify the economic status within the society, which reduces stress issues and other emotional aspects. Socioeconomic status also promotes positive relationships among the family members and unity within other members of the community. It also assists individuals in identifying and determining occupational and income levels, making them gain opportunities in the real world.
How Religion Interacts with the Understanding of Family Life Cycle
The concept of religion interacts with the understanding of the family life cycle by enhancing family cohesion of every family member. In other words, the notion of religion has contributed to the shaping of individuals’ mindsets, hence reducing unnecessary crises and conflicts among the family members. Religion creates an effective understanding of the family life cycle by developing individuals’ behavior spiritually depending on different religious perspectives and roles, which minimizes immoral behavior from children or adult people (Martin, 2018). Religion practice is linked to the family life cycle by offering faith to family members improving and developing emotional stability, specifically during social crises such as death (Tamir, 2020). Finally, religion creates unity among the family members by educating them on the various approaches they may use to overcome life challenges and focus on building themselves.
The Theories that Support Family Life Cycle
The family life cycle was the first theory developed by Carter and McGoldrick in 1988. It views the dysfunction in relation to normal function while framing challenges within the family context hence assisting people to overcome problems in every stage of the life cycle. The theory provides how a person grows from the individual to the retirement stage and portrays every information needed for someone to develop their life significantly (Martin, 2018). Similarly, Duvall’s family development theory is related to family life cycle theory, which focuses on the nuclear, intact family, and the traditional concept that can be used to unite the family members appropriately.
Improving Family Life Cycle
The primary way of improving the family life cycle is to learn and master the skills of every stage appropriately. This particular aspect will assist anyone in developing the quality of their family in a stage. Another concept is to self-examine you when acquiring educational knowledge from experts to improve and develop individuals’ cognitive skills. Engaging infrequent family counseling may also act as a way of improving the family life cycle (Martin, 2018). Mastering the traditional customs of your family members may increase and improve the family life cycle. Supporting each other within the family May improve the family life cycle. Finally, developing individuals’ communication skills may effectively solve family issues and conflicts hence improving the family life cycle.
Conclusion
In summary, the presentation has focused on family life cycle assessment from a developmental perspective. Numerous stages have been experienced by distinct families within our current society. The primary stage of the family life cycle includes independence. The other stage discussed in the presentation includes marriage or coupling. The subsequent stage includes parenting and taking care of children. Finally, the presentation has focused on the concept of race, religion, and socioeconomic in relation to how it correlates to family life cycle.
References
Grant, C. (2022). Children and Life-Cycle Consumption. Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 15(2), 42. Web.
Hristova, V. (2020). Parenthood – Predictable Crisis at the Family Life Cycle. Journals.uni-Vt.bg. Web.
Martin, T. F. (2018). Family Development Theory 30 Years Later. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 10(1), 49–69. Web.
Shannon, R., Sthienrapapayut, T., Moschis, G. P., Teichert, T., & Balikcioglu, B. (2020). Family life cycle and the life course paradigm: A four-country comparative study of consumer expenditures. Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science, 30(1), 34–44. Web.