Families and Stress

1. Families and Stress SocialSupport Relational PhysicalWellBeing Material Needs Communication DecisionMaking/Management

2. Today’s Objectives • Resources to build a healthy family that has the capacity to deal with stressors and to adapt • Questions that you can discuss with your own family or in your community • Review stress reaction of children and how to respond to these stressors

3. Seven Basic Resources • Physical well being • Material needs • Communication • Relational • Social support • Spirituality/faith • Decision making/management

4. Purpose of the Seven Resources Family Hardiness Family Resilience Ability of family to maintain its established patterns of functioning after being challenged Ability of family to recognize changes that need to be made and to make those changes • Shared commitment to work together to resolve problems • Family sees hardships as challenges • Family views itself as having a sense of control and influence over outcomes

5. Physical Well Being • The physical health of the family • Providing resources to meet an family needs: 1. Nutrition habits 2. Enough physical activity 3. Time to relax 4. Resources for ill family member • If a family member not healthy, entire family may be vulnerable

6. Material Needs • Basic needs being met such as food, clothing, shelter, safety… • If basic needs are not met it is hard to cope • Family needs safety plan in case of an emergency

7. Let’s Talk Questions and Responses • What does family physical well-being look like in your community? • How does a family get resources for an ill family member? • If a family builds a safety plan what should it look like?

8. Communication • Families appear to have two patterns of communication • Affirmative • Incendiary

9. Let’s Talk Questions and Responses • What does negative communication look like in a family? • What does positive communication look like in a family?

10. Communication of A Positive Family • Pattern begins with parents • Truthful • Do not withhold information • Listen to one another • Respect each family member and others • Include all members when age appropriate

11. Let’s Talk Questions and Responses • If you were talking to families in your community about healthy family communications, what questions would you ask them to find out how they are doing and to identify possible changes they could make?

12. RelationalThe way family members view themselves in relationship to the rest of the family

13. Positive Family Relational Patterns • Parents First: Husband and wife are foundation of the family unit • Equality: both males and females in the family are empowered to make decisions • Trustfulness: Family members believe that they can trust one another • Boundaries: a. External boundaries: there is time for your family. b. Internal boundaries : respect each family member needs some time for themselves • Right and Wrong: has built a shared sense of what the family values and what it believes is right and wrong

14. Relational • Family Time and Routine: A hardy and resilient family set aside time for family activities: • Simple as bedtime routine • Spending time with spouse • Time to laugh and play together • Family Traditions When under stress these are often forgotten; need to make effort to sustain and continue

15. Let’s Talk Questions and Responses • How do the “positive family relational patterns” just presented alight with your cultural patterns? If some do not align, do you think making changes would be beneficial? Why or why not?

16. Social Support • Critical to a family’s well-being • Family needs to work at building individual friendships and family friends within the community, work setting, and culture at large

17. Families During StressNeed Five Types of Support • Emotional support: sharing of information/caring • Esteem support : affirming values of family members and what they do • Network support: has a larger group where there is mutual responsibility • Appraisal support: helping them to understand and evaluate situation • Altruistic support: understand giving of one’s self for benefit of others Family may need additional resources to help give meaning to situation, develop coping strategies, and help family make any needed changes

18. Let’s TalkQuestions and Responses • What does positive social support look like in your culture? • Does your family have a strong support system? Does it feel that World Relief is part of that support system? • What could a family do to develop a strong support system? • If you were talking to families in your community about the importance of having a strong support system, what questions would you ask them to find out how they are doing and to identify possible changes they could make?

19. Spirituality/Faith • Helps family find meaning • Gives families hope – which is vital to a family’s resilience • Faith communities provide needed resources coping with stress • Physical care of families • Material needs of families • Communication, relational, social support - gives Biblical directions • Shapes worldview and values • Helps us in decision making and management

20. Let’s TalkQuestions and Responses • Is your family actively involved in your faith community? • Does your family understand that a crisis may cause you to rethink your faith?

21. Decision Making/Management Skills There will always be stress so two basic strategies: • Reduce the stress by changing your environment • Managing stress through effective coping

23. Avoid the Problem • Works once in a while • Often does not work because you let problem continue without dealing with it • Can create a family “pile-up” so high that one small stressor collapses the family unit or creates significant problems

24. Alter the Problem • Address the issue and problem solve • Family communicates about what needs to be done and family in control to makes change • Rule of three

25. Accept the Problem • Family identifies the stressor and determines what control they have over it • Identifies changes individual family members have to make to cope with stress • Identify changes whole family has to make • Family being flexible is key to dealing with stress • Family having hope is key to dealing with stress

26. Let’s TalkQuestions and Responses • Identify a time when you were able to avoid a stressor. • Identify a time when you were able to alter a stressor. Explain what you did. • Identify a time when you had to accept a stressor. What changes did your family have to make? Of the seven resources that we have discussed, which ones helped you to cope with the change?

27. Benefit of Other Resources If have other resources in place it is easier to accept and deal with changes: • Physical well-being • Basic material needs • Communication • Relational – family members see themselves as important part of family unit • Spiritual/faith • Social support

28. Stress Reaction of Children Three most common responses: • Fear of event recurring • Loss of trust in adults • Sleep disturbances

29. Children 5 and Under • What does this look like in your culture?

30. What to Do • Need a lot of reassurance and physical comfort • Opportunity to express their feelings (play, art, story-telling…) • Re-establish comfort routines • Make sure have adequate nutrition - need oral satisfaction • Involve in physical activity

31. Children 5 to 11 • What does this look like in your culture?

32. What to Do • Expressions of their experience need to be encouraged through story-telling, play, art, dance, song, music… Always end on a positive note • Physical activity to relieve tension • May need to temporarily relax routine expectations, resuming to normal routine as soon as possible

33. Children 11 to 14 • What does this look like in your culture?

34. What to Do • Ample opportunity to express concerns and fears • Physical activity to relieve tension • May need to temporarily relax routine expectations, resuming to normal routine as soon as possible

35. Age 14+ • What does this look like in your culture?

36. What to Do • Ample opportunity to discuss feelings individually or in groups with peers and adults to reduce sense of isolation and to normalize feelings • Encourage to participate in community rehab if relevant • Classroom activities that relate situation to ongoing course study

37. Families and StressWhat happens to this home if one or more of these resources are removed? SocialSupport Relational PhysicalWellBeing Material Needs Communication DecisionMaking/Management

38. References 1997 American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences Commemorative Lecture delivered by Hamilton I. Mccubbin (June 22, 1997). Families Under Stress: What Makes Them Resilient? Retrieved September 17, 2008 from: http://www.cyfernet.org/research/resilient.html Antonovksy, A (1985). Health, Stress, and Coping. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Bubolz, M. & Sontag S. (1993). Human Ecology Theory. In P. Boss, W. Doherty, R. LaRossa, W. Schumm, & S. Steinmetz (Eds.), Sourcebook of Family Theories and Methods (pp, 419-447). New York: Plenum Press. Care International Safety and Security Handbook (200). Retrieved August 1, 2008 from: http://ngosecurity.googlepages.com/English_CARE_International_Safety_and_Security_Handbook.pdfTraits David Baldwin’s Trauma Information Page. Emotional Health Issues for Families of Disaster Workers by the American Red Cross. Retrieved July 10, 2008 from:http://www.trauma-pages.com/h/arcwkfm.php Durran, D. (1983). Traits of a Healthy Family. San Francisco: Harper & Row Publisher Fawcett, J. (Ed.) (2003). Stress and Trauma Handbook. Monrovia, CA: World Vision

39. Headington Institute (2007). Online Training Modules. Retrieved July 6, 2008 from: http://www.headington-institute.org/Default.aspx?tabid=2258 Kloosterhouse, V.H. (2000). Families Use of Religion/Spirituality as a Psychosocial Resource. (Doctoral dissertation, Michigan State University, Lansing, MI) Pan American Health Organization (2001). Insights into the Concepts of Stress. Retrieved August 1, 2008 from: http://www.paho.org/english/ped/stressin.htm Rosberg, G. & Rosberg, B. (2000). The 5 Love Needs of Men & Women. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.