Family Life Cycle

Any fam­i­ly is a social sys­tem that is always in inter­ac­tion with the out­side world. The fam­i­ly will main­tain its func­tion­ing when it is sub­ject to the basic laws that are inex­tri­ca­bly linked: the law aimed at main­tain­ing fam­i­ly sta­bil­i­ty and the law of its devel­op­ment. It will not be super­flu­ous to note that the life cycle of a fam­i­ly is accom­pa­nied by a peri­od­ic and con­sis­tent change in its stages.

As you know, the con­cept of a fam­i­ly that was recent­ly cre­at­ed and spous­es who have lived togeth­er for many years dif­fers in the same way as the life cycle of a fam­i­ly.

Objec­tive events and age-relat­ed psy­cho­log­i­cal changes of part­ners in the fam­i­ly are able to deter­mine the devel­op­ment of the life stages of each fam­i­ly.

Family life cycle stages

In psy­chol­o­gy in the 40s of the 20th cen­tu­ry. the idea of ​​the stages of the life cycle of the fam­i­ly arose. Ini­tial­ly, there were about 24 of them. At the moment, it is con­di­tion­al­ly divid­ed into the fol­low­ing stages:

1. care stage.
2. Liv­ing with­out chil­dren.
3. The tri­ad stage (the appear­ance of chil­dren).
4. mature mar­riage.
5. The stage in which the chil­dren leave the house.
6. “Emp­ty nest”.
7. The final stage, in which one of the spous­es is left alone after the death of a part­ner.

Each stage sets the spous­es to per­form cer­tain tasks. So, a fam­i­ly that suc­cess­ful­ly over­comes the dif­fi­cul­ties that arise, the set inter­nal and exter­nal tasks, is called func­tion­al. Oth­er­wise, dys­func­tion­al. The right deci­sion for a dys­func­tion­al fam­i­ly is to seek help from a psy­chol­o­gist. The life cycle of fam­i­ly devel­op­ment involves a cri­sis tran­si­tion from one phase to anoth­er, and part­ners are not always able to see the oppor­tu­ni­ty to adapt to a new envi­ron­ment in fam­i­ly life.

The main stages of the family life cycle

The phas­es of the fam­i­ly life cycle have their own dif­fi­cul­ties and prob­lems, we will con­sid­er them in detail.

1. In the peri­od of courtship before the wed­ding, the main goal is the desire to achieve mate­r­i­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal inde­pen­dence from the parental fam­i­ly, deter­mi­na­tion with the choice of the future hus­band, busi­ness and emo­tion­al inter­ac­tion with him.
2. There are young cou­ples who are in no hur­ry to over­come this peri­od. The rea­son for this is the fear hid­den inside their fam­i­ly (par­ent). And oth­ers, on the con­trary, strive to cre­ate their own fam­i­ly as soon as pos­si­ble, thus free­ing them­selves from the close rela­tion­ship between par­ents and chil­dren. Some can­not mar­ry due to finan­cial and eco­nom­ic trou­bles.
3. Dur­ing the peri­od when a mar­ried cou­ple lives with­out chil­dren, changes are estab­lished relat­ed to their social sta­tus. Inter­nal and exter­nal fam­i­ly bound­aries are deter­mined, inter­fer­ence in the fam­i­ly life of rel­a­tives is allowed or not. Dur­ing this peri­od, part­ners spend a lot of time estab­lish­ing nego­ti­a­tions with each oth­er on var­i­ous issues. Emer­gence of emo­tion­al, sex­u­al and so forth prob­lems is not exclud­ed.
4. Dur­ing the appear­ance of small chil­dren in the fam­i­ly, the spous­es are divid­ed into roles. This is due to father­hood and moth­er­hood, adap­ta­tion to men­tal stress, insuf­fi­cient stress to be alone. In the event that an unwant­ed child appears, then prob­lems arise relat­ed to the dif­fi­cul­ties of upbring­ing and the under­stand­ing of the spous­es that part­ing will be dif­fi­cult due to the appear­ance of a child.
5. The cri­sis of the mid­dle of fam­i­ly life falls on the peri­od when chil­dren leave the parental “nest”. In com­plete fam­i­lies dur­ing this peri­od there are a lot of divorces. This stage is char­ac­ter­ized by a high lev­el of anx­i­ety. Spous­es need to decide on new goals, pri­or­i­ties, etc.
6. At the last stage of the life cycle, the restruc­tur­ing of the role struc­ture in the fam­i­ly takes place in the direc­tion of the deci­sion to pre­serve health, the cre­ation of a sat­is­fac­to­ry stan­dard of liv­ing for the well-being of both spous­es.

So, the fam­i­ly in the peri­od of its devel­op­ment goes through a cer­tain life cycle. The most impor­tant thing dur­ing this peri­od is to over­come dif­fi­cul­ties, step­ping toe to toe with your part­ner.