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Research & Policy

Ties that stress: The new family imbalance
David Elkind

The author argues that society is placing extraordinary demands on children and youth, and he calls on parents, teachers, and health professionals to "reinvent adulthood" and value child and adolescent development. Adults have lost their sense of building the next generation, and the family has moved from modern "nuclear" to "post-modern permeable." The nuclear family provides a clear separation between private and public, home and workplace, and children and adults, but also emphasizes children's physical and emotional needs over adult needs, especially the mother's. The post-modern family gives more lifestyle options to parents - single, divorced, or blended families - and emphasizes parent and adult needs.

Stress - caused by the demands of family and work in an age of declining incomes and employment, loss of institutional support, mass communications, and rapid social change - has led to parents and society viewing children as needing less security and guidance, creating the new imbalance. Family life has gone from child-centered to parent-centered, and the value of togetherness has given way to autonomy. Childrearing, formerly based on parental intuition, now emphasizes techniques, and children are viewed as competent rather than innocent, while adolescents are characterized as sophisticated rather than immature. As a result, children and youth experience more stress than adults. The length of childhood has been shortened, and exuberant behavior once viewed as normal, is now classified as psychological dysfunction.

The author labels this the new morbidity. Its consequences include negative physical and psychological child development (obesity, malnutrition, lack of strength), poor academic performance, increasing ATOD use by children and at younger ages, rising teenage suicide rates, lower age of initiation of sexual behavior and teenage pregnancy, higher incidence of sexually transmitted diseases among youth, and greater juvenile crime and violence. A new family form: the "vital family," which balances adult and child needs and nurtures both, will hopefully overcome these new morbidities. Parents can re-establish responsibility for their children by setting standards and rules and by appreciating each child's uniqueness and specialness. Likewise, teachers can encourage group sharing of experiences. Society as a whole can learn to share adult spaces with children and adolescents and can make child spaces safe and accessible.

Harvard University Press
79 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
(800) 448-2242 or (617) 495-2480
Fax: (800) 962-4983 or (617) 495-5898
(1994, 260 pp.; $12.95 + $3.50 p/h)





 

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