The Family

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 Lecture Overview
▪ Understanding the Family
▪ Parental Socialization during Childhood
▪ The Influence of Siblings and Sibling Relationships
▪ Diversity in Family Life
▪ Down the Hidden Side of Family Life: The Problem
of Child Abuse

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 Understanding the Family
▪ Socialization
– Process by which children acquire the beliefs,
motives, values, and behaviours deemed
significant by a culture or subculture
– Occurs through many institutions
▪ The family is a social system.
– Most important function is to socialize children

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 Understanding the Family
▪ The family is a network of reciprocal relationships.
– Parents influence children and children influence
parents.
• Reciprocal influence
– Traditional nuclear family
• Coparenting
– Extended family

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Figure 16.1 A model of the family as a social system. As implied in the diagram, a family is bigger than
the sum of its parts. Parents affect infants, who affect each parent and the marital relationship. Of
course, the marital relationship may affect the parenting that the infant receives, the infant’s
behaviour, and so on. Clearly, families are complex social systems. As an exercise, you may want to
rediagram the patterns of influence within a family after adding a sibling or two.
Source: From “Early Human Experience: A Family Perspective,” by J. Belsky, 1981, Developmental Psychology, 17, pp. 3–23. Copyright © 1981 by
the American Psychological Association. 5
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 Understanding the Family
▪ Families are developing systems.
– Constantly developing—dynamic
– Embedded within larger culture
• Culture is also changing

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 Understanding the Family
▪ Changes in larger culture
• Single adults
• Later marriage
• Decreased childbearing
• Women’s employment
• Divorce
• Single-parent families
• Poverty
• Remarriage

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Parental Socialization during Childhood
▪ Dimensions of parenting
– Acceptance/responsiveness
• Receptivity, support, warmth, and affection
– Demandingness/control
• Supervision, regulation, and limits

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Parental Socialization during Childhood
▪ Patterns of parenting
– Baumrind’s research with preschoolers and parents
• Authoritarian
• Authoritative
• Permissive
– Maccoby and Martin (1983) added uninvolved

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Figure 16.2 Two major dimensions of parenting. When we cross the two dimensions, we
come up with four parenting styles: accepting/controlling (or “authoritative”),
accepting/uncontrolling (or “permissive”), aloof/controlling (or “authoritarian”), and
aloof/uncontrolling (or “uninvolved”). Which parenting style did your parents use?
Source: Republished with permission of John Wiley and Sons, based on “Socialization in the Context of the Family: Parent-Child Interaction, ” by
E.E. Maccoby & J.A. Martin, 1983, in E.M. Hetherington (Ed.; P.H. Mussen, General Ed.), Handbook of Child Psychology, Vol. 4: Socialization,
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Personality, and Social Development, 4th ed. New York: John©Wiley
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Ltd through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.
Parental Socialization during Childhood

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 The Effective Authoritative Parent
▪ Authoritative parenting is associated with
positive social, emotional, and intellectual
outcomes.
▪ Authoritative parents
– Warm and accepting
– Exercise control rationally
– Tailor demands to child’s ability to regulate

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Parental Socialization during Childhood
▪ Behavioural control or psychological control?
– Behavioural control leads to better outcomes.
▪ Parent effects or child effects?
– Child-effects model
– Parent-effects model
– Transactional model of family influence

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Parental Socialization during Childhood
▪ Variations in child-rearing
– SES effects (group trends)
• Family distress model
• Occupational expectations
– Cultural variations
• Authoritarianism in Chinese and Canadian families
• “No-nonsense” parenting in African-American families

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 The Influence of Siblings and Sibling
Relationships
▪ A new baby
– Early sibling rivalry
▪ Influences on later sibling relationships
▪ Conflicts can result in constructive problem-solving.
▪ Sibling conflicts
– Marital conflict
– Parental monitoring
– Equality of treatment

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 The Influence of Siblings and Sibling
Relationships
▪ Positive contributions
– Caretaking
– Emotional support
– Models and teachers

▪ Only children
– Positive self-esteem and achievement motivation
– More obedient and intellectually competent
– Very good peer relations

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 Diversity of Family Life
▪ Adoptive families
– Most are highly successful.
– Child’s history, match with family important
– Access to birth mother generally satisfactory
▪ Donor insemination families
– Psychologically well-adjusted children
▪ Gay and lesbian families
– Myths
– Children psychologically well-adjusted

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 Diversity of Family Life
▪ Impact of divorce
▪ Conflict before divorce
– Direct and indirect effects of marital discord
▪ Crisis and reorganization
– 1+ years of crisis
– Custodial issues
– Parenting quality
– Effects on children
• Age, sex, temperament
• Some long-term negative effects

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 Diversity of Family Life
▪ Remarriage and blended families
– Remarriage common
Complex versus simple stepparent families
• Ownness effect
– Mother–stepfather families
• Boys benefit more than girls
– Father–stepmother families
• Boys benefit more than girls

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 Down the Hidden Side of Family Life:
The Problem of Child Abuse
▪ Child abuse
– Umbrella term
– Includes physical, emotional, and sexual abuse
and/or neglect
– Includes a pattern of abuse and risk of harm

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 Down the Hidden Side of Family Life:
The Problem of Child Abuse
▪ Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child
Abuse and Neglect 2008
– Four out of one hundred children in Canada
involved in maltreatment investigations
• Investigations resolved as substantiated, suspected,
unfounded
– No way of knowing about unreported cases
• 90% of victims do not report

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Down the Hidden Side of Family Life:
The Problem of Child Abuse
▪ Who is likely to abuse?
– No single personality profile
– Some patterns
• Emotionally insecure
• Alcohol or drug problems
• Victims of abusive relationships themselves
• Parenting viewed as unpleasant
• Favour authoritarian control
– Approximately 30% of maltreated children abuse their own
children.
– A number of ecological factors play a significant role.

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 Down the Hidden Side of Family Life:
The Problem of Child Abuse
▪ Who is at greater risk for abuse?
– Infants and children who are emotionally unresponsive,
hyperactive, irritable, impulsive, sickly
– Children with intellectual disabilities
– Children who are immigrants or refugees

▪ Combination of high-risk parent and high-risk child

increases risk of abuse

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Down the Hidden Side of Family Life:
The Problem of Child Abuse
▪ Social-contextual triggers of abuse
– High-risk neighbourhoods
• Few community services
• Few informal support systems
• Unemployment
– Cultural influences
• Permissive attitude toward violence
• Acceptance of physical punishment

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 Child Abuse

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 Down the Hidden Side of Family Life:
The Problem of Child Abuse
▪ Consequences for children
– Physical abuse
• Hostility, aggression, social problems
– Neglect
• Academic problems
• Lack of close friends
• General lack of academic and social competence
• Lack of empathy

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 Down the Hidden Side of Family Life:
The Problem of Child Abuse
▪ Three major approaches to prevention
– Offender management
– Identification of risk factors
– School-based education programs
▪ Little evidence to suggest these approaches are
effective
▪ Instead, family support programs appear
effective.
– Example: Better Beginnings, Better Futures
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 Down the Hidden Side of Family Life:
The Problem of Child Abuse
▪ Controlling abuse
– Comprehensive programs needed
• Parents: emotional support, parenting skills, coping skills
• Children: good daycare, psychological help
• Resources for parents and children
▪ In some instances, coercive intervention is
necessary.
– Children do not generally want to leave their parents.

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