Your Family Ties: The Family Life Cycle Chapter 19 Your Family Ties: The Family Life Cycle

Families Today Nuclear Family: consists of a husband, wife, and children. Single-parent Family: headed by one parent. Blended Family: when a single parent remarries. Extended Family: grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins.

Family Functions Nurture: providing care and attention needed to promote development. Meeting Physical Needs Promoting Intellectual Development Meeting Emotional Needs Encouraging Social Skills Socialization: learning how to interact with other people. Instilling Moral Values

What Is The Family Life Cycle? The process of growth and change a family goes through over the years.

What Is The Family Life Cycle? Throughout the years families experience many changes that affect the family as a whole. The family life cycle is a model that was created to show the five different stages of the cycle. While it is very accurate in most cases, all families are different and the model can’t reflect ALL variations, but it does give a general picture of how families must adapt to changing situations and priorities.

Stage One: Beginning Beginning Stage: Traditionally, the family life cycle begins when two people marry. Priorities at this stage include building a relationship, working out respective roles, and setting goals for the future.

Stage Two: Parenting Parenting Stage: When the couple become parents, their priorities focus on raising children. As they devote time and effort to caring for children, they have less time for activities as a couple.

Stage Three: Launching Launching Stage: This time of transition occurs as the children begin to leave home and become independent. They must adjust to new responsibilities, just as their parents must learn to relate to them as adults.

Stage Four: Middle-Age Middle-Age Stage: After children leave home, parents have more time to focus on being a couple again. The may reassess their careers, take up new hobbies, and become more involved in community activities. Preparing for retirement becomes a more immediate concern.

Stage Five: Retirement Retirement Stage: Retirement gives more time for leisure activities. A couple may move to a smaller home or to a retirement community. In this stage, aging related issues such as health and independence are more likely to be major concerns.

Variations Just like the variations with types of families, there are always exceptions to every rule. For instance: Some people marry and never have children. Other people become parents later in life when most are retiring. Still in other families, the parenting and launching stages may be occurring at the same time. Some people retire and continue to work part-time, and/or become substitute parents to their grandchildren.

Making Connections What other courses do you have in school that talk about certain types of cycles? There is one major cycle you learn about in elementary school and re-visit in middle school and high school. It, much like the family life cycle continues to go round and round. It has 4 stages as opposed to 5, but is still very similar. What is it………………?

THE WATER CYCLE The water cycle occurs in the following pattern: Evaporation Condensation Precipitation Collection And then it starts all over again with the first step.

Making Connections In much the same way, the family life cycle occurs in the following pattern: Beginning Parenting Launching Middle-Age Retirement And it starts all over again with step one.

Quick Review Stage One: Beginning Stage Two: Parenting Stage Three: Launching Stage Four: Middle-Age Stage Five: Retirement

Trends Affecting Families Roles and Responsibilities Smaller Families Divorce and Remarriage Single-Parent Households Longer Life Spans Increased Mobility Advances in Technology

Strengthening Families Respect Communication Trust Emotional Support Sharing Support System: all the people and organizations a family can turn to for help.