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Study finds unhappy families unhappy in two distinct waysPublished on July 16, 2010 at 6:00 AM No Comments

inShare4Contrary to Leo Tolstoy's famous observation that "happy families are all alike;every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," a new psychology study confirms that unhappy families, in fact, are unhappy in two distinct ways. And these dual patterns of unhealthy family relationships lead to a host of specific difficulties for children during their early school years.

"Families can be a support and resource for children as they enter school, or they can be a source of stress, distraction, and maladaptive behavior," says Melissa Sturge-Apple, the lead researcher on the paper and an assistant professor ofpsychology at the University of Rochester.

"This study shows that cold and controlling family environments are linked to agrowing cascade of difficulties for children in their first three years of school, from aggressive and disruptive behavior to depression and alienation," Sturge-Apple explains. "The study also finds that children from families marked by high levels of conflict and intrusive parenting increasingly struggle with anxietyand social withdrawal as they navigate their early school years."

The three-year study, published July 15 in Child Development, examines relationship patterns in 234 families with six-year-old children. The research team identified three distinct family profiles: one happy, termed cohesive, and two unhappy, termed disengaged and enmeshed.

Cohesive families are characterized by harmonious interactions, emotional warmth, and firm but flexible roles for parents and children. "Think the Cosby family," says Sturge-Apple, offering an example from the popular TV series about the affable Huxtable family.

Enmeshed families, by contrast, may be emotionally involved and display modest amounts of warmth, but they struggle with high levels of hostility, destructive meddling, and a limited sense of the family as a team. Sturge-Apple points to the

emotionally messy Barone family in the family sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond asa good example of an enmeshed family.

Finally, disengaged families, as the name implies, are marked by cold, controlling, and withdrawn relationships. The seemingly pleasant suburban family in the movie Ordinary People provides a classic illustration of a disengaged family, according to the authors. Reacting to the death of their oldest son, the parents inthe film retreat emotionally, creating a barren home environment in which feelings cannot be discussed.

Although the study demonstrates solid evidence of a family-school connection, the authors caution that dysfunctional family relationships are not responsible for all or even most behavior difficulties in school. Other risk factors, such as

high-crime neighborhoods, high-poverty schools, troubled peer circles, and genetic traits also influence whether one child develops more problems than another child, explains co-author Patrick Davies, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester.

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The new study builds on the long-established family systems theory, which consistently has identified the three types of families using clinical observations. This study, however, is the first to empirically confirm their existence across multiple relationships within the family: in the marriage, in child-parent interactions, and among all three together, says Davies. "We were really able to lookat the big picture of the family," he adds, "and what was striking was that these family relationship patterns were not only stable across different relationships but also across time, with very few families switching patterns."

The research found that children from disengaged homes began their education with higher levels of aggressive and disruptive behavior and more difficulty focusing on learning and cooperating with the classroom rules. These destructive behaviors grew worse as the child progressed through school.

By contrast, children from enmeshed home environments entered school with no more disciplinary problems or depression and withdrawal than their peers from cohesive families. But as children from both enmeshed and disengaged homes continuedin school they began to suffer higher levels of anxiety and feelings of loneliness and alienation from peers and teachers. The authors conclude that, "childrenin the early school years may be especially vulnerable to the destructive relationship patterns of enmeshed families."

In the study, families were assessed using parent and teacher reports and through direct observation in the lab. Families came to the lab each year for two visi

ts spaced one week apart. Both parents and the child played Jenga, an interactive game, for 15 minutes, and on alternate weeks each parent interacted alone withthe child for five minutes of play and five minutes of clean up. Parents were also asked to discuss two topics picked to elicit disagreement. The sessions werevideotaped and evaluated for behavior patterns.

The study examined how the parents related to one another, noting any aggression, withdrawal, or avoidance and observing their ability to work as a team in thepresence of the child. The researchers coded the emotional availability of the parent toward the child, whether he or she provided praise and approval or simplyignored the youngster during shared activities. Observers also followed how thechild related to his or her mother and father, noting whether attempts made toengage the parents were brief and half-hearted or sustained and enthusiastic.

Source:

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.A few months back I was impressed with a paper that examined some serious chromosomal consequences that were possibly affecting cognitive development in some individuals. It struck me how important it was that something we havent had the too

ls to explore that effectively in the pastchromothripsiswas going to become more observed and better characterized. And it was going to offer at least some understanding in otherwise uncharacterized medical scenarios, which were hugely frustrating to affected families. These genomic catastropheevents might not be that commonbut for the patients and their families, the effects are profound. And often unique. Recently pulverizedchromosomes were also described in cancer cells. Its hard to imagine how to fix massive restructurings of this sort.

Another article today talked about the search for more of the underlying features of mental disabilities and it reminded me of that: Gene hunt is on for mental

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disability. This involves taking more genome sequencing into clinical situations. The focus is exome sequencing so far, which is different from that other analysis I was intrigued by, and they have found a decent number of leads for many ofthe people theyve examined with this strategy.

By comparing the childrens exomes with those of the parents, the researchers haveidentified new mutations potential causes of the disorder in as many as 40% ofthe cases. The other programmes are having similar success at making possible genetic diagnoses.This is going to be good news and bad news. When they can identify the likely issue, there are going to be a lot of cases where theres not much to be done at this time. Its still important to knowand may offer the families answers they havent hadbut will certainly continue to be frustrating that theres no actions available.Its going to be important knowledge, though, to drive future research which couldeventually lead to treatments someday.

But some cases will be completely unique, probablylike in the chromothripsis situations. And some families may not have any answers at all. Im glad to see the work is going on, though. And that the demise of whole genome explorations is rather unlikely at this point. Theres a lot we need to knowand there will be a lot of demand for this from people who want answers.

- See more at: http://blog.openhelix.eu/?p=11818#sthash.Wn9YQKGk.dpuf

August 2010 - Research from the University of Rochester and the University of Notre Dame published in Child Development analyzed relationship patterns in 234 families with a child aged six. Consistent with long-established family systems theory, researchers found three distinct profiles: one happy, termed cohesive, andtwo unhappy, termed disengaged and enmeshed. Specific difficulties were encountered in the first years at school depending on the type of dysfunctional profileidentified. This study is the first to confirm the existence of these profilesacross multiple relationships within the marriage partnership and between childr

en and parents.

Patrick Davies, professor of psychology, explained:

"We were really able to look at the big picture of the family, and what was striking was that these family relationship patterns were not only stable across different relationships but also across time, with very few families switching patterns."

Researchers explain that:

Cohesive families are characterized by harmonious communication, emotional warmth, and firm but flexible roles for parents and children.

Enmeshed families may be emotionally involved and display some warmth, but experience 'high levels of hostility, destructive meddling, and a limited sense of the family as a team'.Disengaged families are associated with cold, controlling, and withdrawn relationships.Researchers assessed families using parent and teacher reports and through direct observation. Participants came to the lab annually for three years, making twovisits one week apart. Both parents and their child played Jenga, an interactive game, for 15 minutes. On alternate weeks each parent interacted alone with thechild for ten minutes divided between play and clean up. Parents were also vide

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otaped discussing two topics intended to elicit disagreement.

The study evaluated how parents related to one another, noting characteristics such as aggression, withdrawal, avoidance and ability to work as a team in the presence of the child. Researchers assessed the emotional availability of parents,whether they provided praise and approval or ignored the child during shared activities. They also noted how the children related to their parents, noting whether attempts to engage them were 'brief and half-hearted or sustained and enthusiastic'.

The study found that children from disengaged homes started school with higher levels of aggressive and disruptive behavior and more difficulty focusing and cooperating with classroom rules. These behaviors tended to increase with time. Children from enmeshed homes began with no more disciplinary problems or depressionand withdrawal than those from cohesive families. However, as children from families with either type of destructive relationship pattern continued in school they began to suffer from higher levels of anxiety and feelings of loneliness combined with alienation from peers and teachers.

While the study identified a clear connection between family characteristics andbehavior at school the researchers caution against concluding that dysfunctional relationships are responsible for the majority of difficulties encountered. They point to other relevant risk factors, including high-crime or deprived neighborhoods, peer pressure and genetic traits.

Lead researcher Melissa Sturge-Apple, an assistant professor of psychology concluded:

"Families can be a support and resource for children as they enter school, or they can be a source of stress, distraction, and maladaptive behavior. This studyshows that cold and controlling family environments are linked to a growing cascade of difficulties for children in their first three years of school, from aggressive and disruptive behavior to depression and alienation. The study also finds that children from families marked by high levels of conflict and intrusive parenting increasingly struggle with anxiety and social withdrawal as they navigate their early school years."

August 2010 - Research from the University of Rochester and the University of Notre Dame published in Child Development analyzed relationship patterns in 234 families with a child aged six. Consistent with long-established family systems theory, researchers found three distinct profiles: one happy, termed cohesive, andtwo unhappy, termed disengaged and enmeshed. Specific difficulties were encountered in the first years at school depending on the type of dysfunctional profileidentified. This study is the first to confirm the existence of these profilesacross multiple relationships within the marriage partnership and between children and parents.

Patrick Davies, professor of psychology, explained:

"We were really able to look at the big picture of the family, and what was striking was that these family relationship patterns were not only stable across different relationships but also across time, with very few families switching patterns."

Researchers explain that:

Cohesive families are characterized by harmonious communication, emotional warmt

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h, and firm but flexible roles for parents and children. Enmeshed families may be emotionally involved and display some warmth, but experience 'high levels of hostility, destructive meddling, and a limited sense of the family as a team'. Disengaged families are associated with cold, controlling, and withdrawn relationships. Researchers assessed families using parent and teacher reports and throughdirect observation. Participants came to the lab annually for three years, making two visits one week apart. Both parents and their child played Jenga, an interactive game, for 15 minutes. On alternate weeks each parent interacted alone with the child for ten minutes divided between play and clean up. Parents were also videotaped discussing two topics intended to elicit disagreement.

The study evaluated how parents related to one another, noting characteristics such as aggression, withdrawal, avoidance and ability...Continues fo

It is said that the family molds a person. Hence in everything an individual does he or she reflects the other members of his or her family. It is believed so because it is in the family where one first learns to speak, to think, and to act. It is where one is first taught with lifes values, morals, and ethics. It is where one first experience to manage his or her emotions; like how and when to behappy or be unhappy. Therefore, the society judges and blames the family owing t

o the individuals misbehaviour and misconduct. This has mostly been the after effect of the problems that the Filipino families face today.

In the many problems that the Filipino families face nowadays, money and liberation of youth are observed to be two of the most common roots. Money being the root of all evil is also the root of disagreement among the members of the family.A common scenario of this includes a married couple arguing due to the feelingof inferiority of the husband when he earns less than his wife. Another scenariois siblings fighting over the inheritance they can claim from their parents. Arecent example of money problems in the Filipino family is the case of a Filipino personality making a name in the sport of boxing. He is said to have a feud with his family, with his father in particular, because of mismanaged money. Nevertheless, this story of the Filipino boxer has ended well. Despite the issue bein

g broadcast to the whole world, they still managed to patch things up for theirfamily. This attests that in the Filipino family there are no permanent enemies.They may at times experience a rocky relationship but at the end of the day Filipino families are still a happy family.

Concerning the problems faced because of the liberation of youth, it is assumedto stem from the changing view of society to different genders and the various exposures of the youth to different media presenting sex, drugs, vices, and the like. These bring about coming outof...

January 26, 2013The Causes of Unhappy FamiliesStorming out of the living room crying, Josh shouts out, I hate you guysHes yellinthis out to his family. As many of you are wondering why someone would be yelling such hurtful words to his very own family? Not only does this kid say this but many other children out there do the same because they are unhappy. How many people out there feel like their family is unhappy? People wonder why their family is very unhappy occasionally. Many families have opportunities to have a strong happy family and many others do not. They are a few causes in unhappy families, but can also be fixed if families are willing to make the sacrifices into beco

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ming a better healthy family. Sometimes these things just happen naturally but nothing can stop a family into becoming a happy one. There are many forces that create unhappy uncommunicative families. Some of those forces to cause a family to be unhappy are financial problems, stress problems, and drinking problems.

The first cause in creating unhappy uncommunicative families is financial problems. Financial problems not only bring stress to the family but also bring lack of bonding. Many families go out once in a while but when having financial problems its hard to do so. For example, going out for a nice family dinner every Sunday night can bring families closer together and can be a great way to communicate, but its hard to even do that when there is no money for it. Another example ofwhy financial problems makes families unhappy is because families like to go outonce in a while to have fun, especially if there are very young ones in the family. Kids love to go out and have fun, but not being able to take your kid out to have fun is unhappy to the kid and hurting for the parent. Couples argue frequently over financial problems. The wife wonders were all the paycheck went, andalways says the money was not spent wisely, when its time to pay the house bills.That...Continu

Is it really over two months since I started reading Anna Karenina? Yes, I suppo

se it must be. I had expected to have finished it by now, but I see I am still only about half way through it. This is partly because, for reasons I need not gointo here, the past few months have been quite fraught, and I have had less time than usual for my reading; but it is also because I am relishing this book somuch that I have no desire to rush ahead: I am reading it slowly, often pausingat intervals the better to take in what I have just read, and often re-reading individual pages or chapters, just for the sheer delight of it. This has long been one of my very favourite works of literature, but reading it again, it reallyis even better than I had remembered it. Theres so much in it, and every single thing Tolstoy attempts, he pulls off.I am fascinated especially by his long term pacing, and by his ability to structure the vast material: the opening part well over 100 pages is one continuous narrative arc, introducing all the major characters, themes, and milieux; thereaft

er, the various strands go their own ways, and the subtlety with which Tolstoy balances them and makes them counterpoint each other is breathtaking: this reallyis the sort of thing one does not can not notice at first reading. As ever, Tolstoy enters fully the mind of each character; and because we know why it is theyact as they do, we do not condemn any of them. In the hands of any other author, Karenin would appear merely a pompous, emotionally desiccated bureaucrat, whois smothering his wife in a loveless marriage; but Tolstoy will have nothing todo with such simplistic nonsense. The passages where Karenins situation becomes too painful for him even to think about, and, turning his mind gratefully back tohis work, expends his inarticulate fury on matters quite unrelated to what is really tormenting him, are simply extraordinary: we suddenly see a very vulnerable man. Anna, meanwhile, has to force herself into seeing her husband as a heartless man, as she cannot bear the thought of causing hurt to a man who can actuall

y feel the hurt: to bear her sense of guilt, she has to convince herself that her husband is incapable of feeling; she has to convince herself that her marriagereally is utterly loveless. Tolstoy takes us into the minds of both, and dissects their psyches with the most disconcertingly direct of touches: but he does not pass judgement, he does not condemn.Karenin has to turn to his work to hide from himself what is truly hurting him;and Levin, after being initially rejected by Kitty, does the same. (Its one of the many subtle and unexpected parallels that hold together the disparate elementsof the novel). Exactly half way through the novel, Tolstoy brings all the various strands of the novel together: Karenin is present at the party in Oblonskys ho

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use when Levin is finally accepted by Kitty. But even as one happy family is forming, an unhappy one is breaking apart: even as Levin floats on waves of joy, Karenins world seems to disintegrate. The chapters describing Levins elation are wonderful: its the most difficult thing in the world to depict happiness, but its hard to read these chapters without breaking into a smile. But immediately afterwards, Tolstoy gives us some of the most agonising scenes in literature scenes thatwouldnt be out of place even in a Dostoyevsky novel. He takes us to Annas bedside, immediately after she has given birth: she is feverish, and, seemingly, on thepoint of death. And suddenly, and very unexpectedly, all three main characters Anna, Vronsky, Karenin- seem to enter a different, heightened, plane of consciousness. Karenin, to his own astonishment, finds access to a reservoir of love andtenderness within himself that even he or, perhaps, especially he had not suspected; Vronsky, meanwhile, for the first time in his life, feels shame, and he cannot cope with it. I could hardly bear to read the chapter in which, barely knowing what he is doing, he attempts suicide. And I was surprised as well in discovering how few pages all this is crammed into: for some reason, these extraordinary scenes had seemed to me to comprise a large chunk of the novel. But they arent: its the sheer intensity of these chapters, and not their length, that makes them loom so large in the imagination.Once the crisis has passed, Karenin is aware that, for some reason that he cannot grasp, he cannot continue to love and to forgive: there are present mysteriouspowers that are stronger than his love. His perplexity in the face of what he cannot even begin to understand is painful to read. And the brief scene in whichhe meets with Anna in which Anna, her hair cropped after her fever, is unable to

look her husband in the face, and, fixing her attention instead on a swelled vein in Karenins hand, finds herself, to her own shame, physically revolted is simply extraordinary.Yes, I am reading this very slowly indeed, but I am gasping in wonder and in astonishment in just about every page. Tolstoy, despite his reputation for didacticism, does not judge: Tolstoy once said that fiction is most effective when the author is not seen to take sides. This may seem strange coming from an author renowned for his didacticism, but he lives up to his principle: here, instead of judging, he explores. He questions incessantly the extent to which these characters are responsible for what they do, for being who they are. As he enters the mind of each of his characters, it appears that they cannot act otherwise: and yet,each is morally responsible for their own actions, and this remains, right to the end of the novel and beyond, a terrible unsolved paradox. Each of these chara

cters is trapped within their own selves: they cannot even begin to understand their own complex psyches, and, to their terror, appear to rush headlong towardsa doom they can vaguely sense, but cannot avoid. The sense of the tragic is intense: never has the terror in our everyday lives been expressed with such disconcerting power.Anna Karenina is often coupled with Madame Bovary as the two great 19th centurynovels about adultery, but this coupling is generally unthinking, and not, I think, very helpful: although it is true that adultery is, in terms of plot at anyrate, central to both, they really could not be more different. While it is Tolstoy who is renowned for his didacticism and Flaubert for his detachment, it is,ironically, Madame Bovary that seems to me the more didactic work of the two. Tolstoy in his novel explores his characters without preconceptions: Flauberts work, on the other hand, is steeped in the authors conviction of the sheer futility a

nd pointlessness of life. Of course, it is not Flauberts conviction of pointlessness that makes Madame Bovary so great an achievement: its greatness is, rather,rooted in the profound underlying sadness that life should be so. But Flauberts authorial stance is apparent in every page of Madame Bovary. There is, however, no comparable authorial stance apparent in Anna Karenina, no insistence on an underlying principle that governs everything. In his famous essay The Hedgehog and the Fox, Isaiah Berlin had characterised Tolstoy as an author who wanted desperately to discover an underlying truth to everything, a principle that holds everything together, but, instead, found himself dazzled by the sheer variety and diversity of life, by the sheer plenitude of it all; and, given such variety, it was

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impossible for him to discover any underlying unity, any principle that knits together all the diverse elements. Levin and Vronsky, Anna and Kitty and Dolly andKarenin, may all be governed by forces beyond their control or their understanding; but in each individual case, these same forces lead to very different destinations: no one size can fit all.And yet, artistically, some sort of unity must be found: otherwise, the centre would not hold, and things would fall apart. The challenge was immense: Tolstoy had to find a unity despite depicting diversity; he had to hold his divergent material together with the grandest yet subtlest of architectural designs. And evenon the umpteenth re-reading, it is not clear to me just how Tolstoy pulls it off: I can spot some, at least, of Tolstoys stratagems, but the achievement remainssomething of a miracle.***The famous opening line of this novel seems to me a sort of challenge: All happyfamilies are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way*. Did Tolstoy really believe this, I wonder? Could the author who could, perhaps more than any other author, see the infinite variety of life and of humans, really think that two families, happy or not, could ever be alike? It seems unlikely. Rather, we should, I think, see this opening line as a sort of challenge a statement thetruth of which will be tested in the crucible.Of course, the story of Levin and Kitty is essentially a happy one: this strand,though often ignored by those who wish to see this novel as essentially a romantic tragedy, is given just as much space and attention as the story of Anna, Vronsky and Karenin. But even in this happy story, we see the characters driven by

forces beyond their control, and beyond their understanding. For those of us re-reading the novel, we know that Levin, even at his happiest, has to hide away ropes and guns and knives in case he is tempted to kill himself; we know also thatthe chapter entitled Deaththe only chapter in the novel that is given a title ocurs in Levins story, not Annas. These two seemingly contrasting stories have notbeen spliced together arbitrarily: the forces that drive Anna, Vronsky and Karenin, are also the forces that drive Levin and Kitty. And yet they are not the same. For all the dark shadows, for all the terror, and despite the shadow of deaththat is cast over all our lives, Levin and Kitty are happy in their marriage ashappy, perhaps, as it is possible for humans to be. But throughout, their storyis counterpointed insistently with the story of Anna, Vronsky and Karenin, andthe effect of this counterpointing, though remarkable, is hard to articulate. There is no underlying moral principle to which life can be reduced: for all the c

larity of Tolstoys presentation, there remains at the heart of it all a tremendous mystery.***Recently, I have been wondering about the nature of our personal tastes, and ofthe various things that mould them. My own taste in literature has been mouldedby Tolstoy more than by anyone else: I discovered his two great novels as a teenager, and have been reading and re-reading them ever since. And, looking over mypersonal likes and dislikes, it seems clear to me that I, wittingly or unwittingly, measure all fiction by the yardstick provided by Tolstoy. This naturally has problems: the further any fiction is from Tolstoys aesthetics, the less I findmyself able to enter into its spirit; and yet, if any authors aesthetic values docome close to Tolstoys, that author almost inevitably falls short. Perhaps my discovery of Tolstoy at such an early and impressionable age was not such a good t

hing after all. But I dont regret it: there are, I suppose, worse tastes to be saddled with. Art, as we all know, is not a competitive sport, and there is no such thing as the greatest. Yes, I know, I knowAnd yet, at the same time, when I think of the most enriching and wonderful experiences I have had from reading fiction, it is War and Peace and Anna Karenina that first come to mind; only then do Ithink of all the others.

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All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.~ LeoTolstoy, Anna KareninaThis, the opening line to Tolstoys novel, Anna Karenina, is packed full of meaning, and the rest of the book expounds in story form what he means. We read of one miserable family owing its pain to the self-absorption of the husband. In another, its because of the internal angst of a middle-aged wife that drives her into the arms of a young man. In another, its the insatiable desire for success ofthe politician husband. Each family is truly uniquely miserable in its own way.But is it true that all happy families are alike? Is it true that there is a model for how to be a family, and the degree to which a family resembles that model dictates the level of happiness the family will experience?My hunch is that Tolstoy is correct. I believe that God has created families torelate in a certain way. Happy families relate to one another the way the Godhead relates to itself. Happy families love one another the way God loves others. They are full of sacrificial love and concern for the well being of the eachother. Their relationships are rooted in commitment, and the culture is one ofhonesty and grace. In these systems, health, not perfection, is possible, and happiness can emerge.The problem that Tolstoy so eloquently highlights through his story-telling is that the happy-familymodel is unnatural for us. We dont just fall into it. We have to work at it. Monogamy is a commitment we have to stick to, and it requiresthe disciplining of our passions. Sacrificial service towards our spouses and our children is inconvenient and at times demands the delaying of our dreams. Lo

ve often times looks more like death than it does like lust. Following the happy-familymodel is hard work and it takes discipline.But as I read through Anna Karenina and see the truth about families in its pages, its obvious that this hard work is well worth it. Whenever we veer from Gods path of familial happiness, the pain is inevitable, if sometimes delayed.