Family Crisis.

Hi there!

It’s time for another post. This week we will be discussing family crises and the various responses to stressful events.

Can you all think of a moment in your life when you have experienced a family crisis? What was the nature of that crisis? Reuben Hill began to study the stress endured by families during the war. He developed the ABCX family crisis model to try to analyze different strategies in coping. Let’s say that A is the stressor event and the hardships it causes. B is the management of the stress through coping resources that the family has. C refers to the family’s definition of the event. A, B, and C interact to produce X, the crisis.

However, McCubbin and Patterson proposed a Double ABCX model. They relabeled the A factor as family demands. There are three components to family demands. One is the stressor. The second is the hardships that accompany the stressor. Third, there are pileups, which are the residuals of family tension that linger from unresolved prior stressors or that are inherent in ongoing family roles such as being a parent or spouse. This model has been shown to explain the differential adaptation of women with severe physical disabilities or the ways families react to their children’s cancer. It is important to recognize the place of pileups or prior strains. A stressor occurs in the context of ongoing life. Clearly, we need to know something about what is going on in a family at the time of the stressor event to fully understand its response to that stressor.

Pauline Boss argued that families today are under more pressure than those of the past. There are daily hassles that are qualitatively different from those of previous generations: the traffic, the hectic schedules of children, the high cost of housing, the threats of violence and terrorist activities, and so on.

As we discuss the stressor events that can bring about a family crisis, it is important to keep in mind that the events per se are not sufficient to cause serious problems. As the model indicates, the context in which the event occurs, the way the family has dealing with it are all crucial to the outcome.

Something that has always been so helpful for my family is to have open communication. I remember having weekly family meetings where trials were discussed. We grew up knowing that we were called to go through hardship as a family, as a whole, and never alone. We had family prayers, family fasting, and family scriptures study to know how to overcome a specific crisis. Then we kept studying on our own, and after a few days, we would come back to discuss various ways to deal with the problem. Having this clear and defined family dynamic has helped me to see that the best way to deal with a family crisis is to turn to family members. Nevertheless, people react in different ways.

Whatever the type of crisis faced, different families will have somewhat different reactions. Some people deny or will not believe what they observe. They refuse to accept the fact. When denial becomes a long-term pattern of ignoring the problem, it is destructive. The family that continues to ignore the reality will inevitably reap a bitter harvest of emotional damage. Another way to cope is scapegoating. Sometimes people admit a problem but feel they have to find someone or something to blame. Scapegoating is an insidious way to respond to a crisis. It boils down to selecting one of the victims of the crisis and further victimizing that person. It is a way of shifting responsibility for resolving the crisis.

Whether people deny or blame, a crisis can and will change family dynamics and equilibrium. However, I’m beyond grateful for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, who taught me that families can be together forever, no matter what happens. Having that testimony and assurance help me to know that I don’t have to go through this life by myself, but I will always have my family side by side.

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