Sharing Stress

Job Woes Exacting a Toll on Family Life

This article outlines the toll it takes on the family when one or both parents are unemployed.

"But beneath the surface, they have been a family on the brink. They have watched their children struggle with behavioral issues and a stress-induced disorder."

"Children, especially, have become hidden casualties, often absorbing more than their parents are fully aware of."

"A variety of studies have tied drops in family income to negative effects on children’s development."

Children are so in-tune to changes in their family dynamics. The daughter in the family featured in this article ended up pulling her hair out {side note, on nip/tuck, the daughter pulled her hair out and ate it! ahh! also from family stress}. I think that my sister may have done this her whole life. Because my parents were divorced before my sister's second birthday, she grew up in a very stressful household. I can definitely see how she reflected that stress. I guess we all absorb the stress that our family's feeling, though. Not just financial stress.

Family Dinners

The Guilt-Trip Casserole: The Family Dinner

"Teenagers who eat with their families less than three times a week are more likely to turn to alcohol, tobacco and drugs than those who dine with their families five times a week."

"Like breastfeeding and Baby Mozart tapes, family dinner has become a red-hot item on the good-parent scorecard."

"But as parents go to ever more breathless effort, or feel ever more guilt-ridden, are we becoming too literal-minded about 'family dinner'?"

"'To say that family dinners are associated with good outcomes is not the same as saying that family dinners cause good outcomes,' wrote Dr. Cowan, who has studied families."

I thought it was interesting that teenagers are less likely to turn to drugs and alcohol if they have regular family dinners. I have not found that to be the case (my family has dinners together regularly, and my siblings...)

But it makes sense that if teens don't get that family, that sense of belonging, that they would turn to something else. I've always heard this was true in terms of why some teens turn to gangs. That sense of belonging. I think it's important that not only as future parents we address this, but as future teachers. Give your students a place to belong so they don't need to turn elsewhere.