In Support of Families

by Michael W. Yogman, T. Berry Brazelton

Overview

Families today are experiencing untold pressures and are expected to shoulder enormous burdens at a time when resources for support are becoming ever scarcer. This important book examines the effects of stress on both children and parents and explores various strategies for coping.

The authors—experts in child health and development and in business and social policy—emphasize that the problems of the family and of its members cannot be considered individually. They view the family as a dynamic system whose health is vitally related to its internal relationships and its interactions with other social networks. Stress in this context can be either a positive or a negative influence on the family’s effectiveness in raising children, depending on the personal and public resources available.

The strength of the book lies in its integrated approach to a many-sided problem. The authors provide reviews of research, clinical applications, and theoretical discussions, including several frameworks for understanding the constellation of factors within the family that affect children’s development. They examine specific situations that can present families with formidable challenges: unemployment, divorce, two-career families, single parenthood,teenage pregnancy, demands from the workplace. Some of these situations are traumatic but brief; others, such as chronic illness, require long-term coping strategies. The authors show the similarities that underlie these stressful situations—how they can affect the fabric of family life and the development of the young child.

The emphasis throughout the book is on policy implications: the urgent need for more enlightened and supportive corporate and government involvement. Unless we make the well-being of the family a priority, the number of children in adverse situations will continue to increase. This book will serve as an indispensable guide to psychologists, pediatricians, psychiatrists, educators, business executives, and government officials.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674447356
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	11/18/1986
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Michael W. Yogman is Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

T. Berry Brazelton is Professor Emeritus at the Brazelton Institute, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, Emeritus, at Harvard Medical School.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Family, Stressed yet Protected
Michael Y. Yogman and T. Berry Brazelton

I. Theoretical Overview: Stress and Coping in the Family System

1. Family Systems: Understanding the Family through Its Response to Chronic Illness
David Reiss

2. Stress on and in the Family
Jerome Kagan

3. A Developmental Perspective on Psychosocial Stress in Childhood
Felton Earls

II. Forces Within the Family: New Roles

4. Fathers: An Intrafamilial Perspective
Ross D. Parke

5. Single Mothers and Joint Custody: Common Ground
Richard N. Atkins

III. Forces Outside the Family: Work and Family Life

6. Working It Out: Effects of Work on Parents and Children
Ann C. Crouter and Maureen Perry-Jenkins

7. Family Life and Corporate Policies
Ellen Galinsky

8. Utilitarianism in the Regulation of Corporate and Family Life
Abraham Zaleznik

9. Supplemental Care for Young Children
Gwen C. Morgan

IV. Special Stresses
10. Family Adaptation to Divorce
Kathleen A. Camara

11. The Family and Chronic Illness in Children
John M. Leventhal and Barbara F. Sabbeth

12. Teenage Pregnancy
Lorraine V. Klerman

V. Policy Implications
13. Education of Families for Parenting
Bettye M. Caldwell

14. The Social-Policy Context for Families Today
Lisbeth B. Schorr, C. Arden Miller, and Amy Fine

References

Acknowledgments

Index

Editorial Reviews

Through poignant case histories, reviews of research, and policy analyses, the book demonstrates how support from all systems—educational, health care, and governmental—is vital to families… The strength of this book lies in its discussion of social policy, its well-defined approach to problems, and its delineation of successful factors in programs that have provided support for families and children. It is an invaluable resource for physicians, therapists, educators, and social workers interested in policy changes to help families.

New England Journal of Medicine

This readable and significant book should be of wide appeal to mental health professionals; one hopes that its message will also reach policy makers.

Readings

This book examines the impact of stress on the family and offers a new perspective on methods of coping… In Support of Families lives up to its title and is highly recommended for all professionals who work with individuals as well as with families. The family systems model provides a clear and pragmatic focus, and it is refreshing to see the strengths and resiliencies in families emphasized.

Hospital and Community Psychiatry

Offers a multidimensional survey of ways in which individual and family units cope with stress. The fifteen essays…present fresh slants on such subjects as single mothers, family life and corporate policies, teenage pregnancy, and education of families for parenting. Although targeted for therapists and specialists in family service agencies, this is also a helpful resource for laypersons interested in the changing status of families.

Cultural Information Service

Through poignant case histories, reviews of research, and policy analyses, the book demonstrates how support from all systems—educational, health care, and governmental—is vital to families…The strength of this book lies in its discussion of social policy, its well-defined approach to problems, and its delineation of successful factors in programs that have provided support for families and children. It is an invaluable resource for physicians, therapists, educators, and social workers interested in policy changes to help families.

New England Journal of Medecine

This timely and integrated anthology of papers from the field gives a humanistic and scholarly approach to the subject...Sensitive and insightful.

Yale Scientific

The 15 essays in this book, brought together by two Harvard-affiliated pediatricians oriented toward psychology and social science, survey and interpret recent studies on the family. Emphasizing child development and health, they examine stress and coping; new parenting roles; work and child care; the special stresses of divorce, chronic illness, and teenage pregnancy; and social policy. All the essays are solidwith particularly fine contributions being made by Jerome Kagan on stress, Ellen Galinsky on corporate policy, and Bettye Caldwell on educating for parenthoodmaking the volume as a whole one of the best compendia of family research available. With its emphasis on clinical and policy interpretations, this sobering work should attract a large audience. E. James Lieberman, The Family Institute, Washington, D.C.

Library Journal

Recommended as an excellent sourcebook for those interested in long-term coping strategies.

Choice - J. S. McCrary