Diverse family structures refer to the various forms of families in which children can find themselves dependent on life situations, environment, and place of birth. These family structures may include the single parents who were never married, separated or divorced, foster parents, adoptive parents, two-mom and two-dad families and also families that are headed by their grandparents (David & Cock, 2016). The current generation of the world is a pot of different personal practices, norms, and beliefs. Every child and family exist in communities with different people, values and experiences, therefore, the most important thing we can do to our children as they grow is to help them feel great and proud about the uniqueness of their families and learn to embrace every individual with their differences. The growing awareness of children about the diversity of families enables them to celebrate those living in their houses and also to understand their roles. As children develop into adolescents, they tend to develop a sense of curiosity which makes them want to explore more and know why things are the way they are. This paper provides an analysis of children in diverse family structures, development of behaviors and a link on how such families are related to counseling.
Adolescents' well-being in diverse family structures
Adolescence is a very critical stage of human development. This is the stage where an individual identifies and develops his/her personality and starts to realize his/her true identity. The environment very much influences these aspects one resides in. Therefore, the diverse family structures provide a great impact and influence a lot on the kind of person an adolescent will develop into. For example, children growing in families of single fathers will develop different attributes compared to ones living in single mothers’ families. This is because fathers in most cases tend to exhibit attributes and behaviors different from the mothers, e.g. bravery, drunkards, violence, and aggressiveness. This, therefore, means that an adolescent who has grown with a father is likely to acquire these attributes and personalities and vice versa unlike one who has grown with both parents having equal chances of acquiring both the mothers and fathers’ behaviors. Family structures impose a lot on adolescent's behavior and development because most adolescents tend to look up to some of their family members especially the parents as their role models and therefore will mostly try to live emulating them.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The diverse family structures also influence the socio-economic well-being and family relations of adolescents. Families headed continuously by single mothers are likely to have lowest incomes while divorced families and stepparents’ families are likely to have high levels parent-adolescent disagreements and low levels of parental supervision and parent-adolescent interactions. The social well-being of adolescents living with both parents is far much better compared to ones living with single parents the adolescent is able to acquire all the social, parental benefits from both genders of the parents.
Social control and Delinquency
Nye's social theory of 1958 explains that the influence of parents on their child's delinquency depends on the internalized control through the creation of a child's conscience, indirect control through affectional identification between the child and the parents and direct control of behavior through supervision, restriction, and punishment (Brown & Rinelli, 2010). Similarly, another social theory, Hirsch i's theory (2012) argues that the psychological presence of the parent in the mind of the child, communication intimacy between the child and the parent and the affectional identification of the child with the parent is likely the most influential factor of the family in a child's delinquency. Therefore, the physical presence of the parent or family members doesn't matter much because delinquency opportunities are many and it takes a short time to be delinquent. This is a clear indication that the family structure has little contribution to adolescents' delinquent behaviors and therefore the majority of such behaviors are acquired from friends either in schools or the neighborhood. Children/adolescents should develop a strong attachment to their parents because it has proven to be a protective factor against delinquent behavior according to Wells and Rankin 1988 (Widmer, 2016).
Adolescent sexuality
Adolescents being raised in stepfamilies, single-parent families, cohabiting or lesbian families have high chances of their sexual health and sexual behavior being negatively affected. However, with the exception of girls living in single-parent families, family structures have little contribution to adolescents' sexual debut. The sexual debut may be associated to the context of the family like a mother to child relationship, mother's attitude towards the discussion of sexual matters with the child and the level of interaction between the adolescent and the parent. The choice of sexual partners by sexually active adolescents is not affected by the family structure or the family context. Adolescents choose their sexual partners without the intervention of their parents or family members, and the two have little impacts on the sexual partnering of the individual compared to their friends.
Risk behavior victimization and mental distress
In the past have shown an increased risk with regard to social and risk behavior victimization especially among youths living with single parents. These risky behaviors include smoking, use of illicit drugs, alcohol, violent behaviors, and even prostitution. It is important to note that the variation of single-parent families in terms of the gender of the resident parent plays a vital role in establishing the type of negative behavior the children will acquire.
Adolescents in single father families are likely to engage in illicit drug use, alcoholism and violent behaviors which may, in turn, lead to mental distress. Similarly, adolescents with single mother families are at risk of engaging in prostitution compared to those living with single father families. The studies also found out that generally adolescents living with single parents are likely to face mental distress and engage in risky behaviors compared to their counterparts living in two-parent families (Jablonska & Lindberg, 2017). This is owing to the fact that the presence of both parents provides easy guidance, supervision, restriction, and punishment by either of the parents in case one is absent unlike the case of single parents which mean that absence of guidance, supervision, and punishment. Two-parent families or extended families also limits loneliness which is one of the contributing factors to mental distress.
Adolescent counseling on diverse family structures
Counseling of adolescents on diverse family structures is about equipping the adolescents with adequate knowledge and understanding on how to cope with the diverse family structures, which they may find themselves in. Also, to embrace the transitions which may occur in the families leading to change from one family structure to another due to factors such as death, divorce or separation.
One of the most important things is the great diversity in the response of the parents and children to divorce, death, and marriage. Most adolescents tend to suffer periods of psychological torture, emotional stress and disrupted functioning following changes in family structures due to divorce or fatalities. Others show delays in adapting to new family structures and reorganization. One major setback in trying to evaluate the long-term effects of transition of family structures and factors that may be employed to manage these outcomes is that sequences of reorganizing families following divorce or deaths vary significantly from family to family depending on the members. Adolescents should, therefore, learn to cope with these situations by learning to get over the family members who have left and being psychologically prepared to embrace and live along with new members who may be introduced or others in the new environment where they may be taken to live. This is because living in single-parent families after divorce or death may be temporary as 80% of men and 75% of women are likely to remarry. Remarrying of parents may mean change in environment for some adolescents as they may be taken to live with the grandparents or they may be forced to live with the new step mum or dad. In such cases, adolescents should show a lot of respect to the new step parents and take time to learn how to cope with their personalities for non-stress and peaceful co-existence. This will mean respecting the new rules of the house.
When counseling adolescents in diverse family structures, it means different approaches from the normal counseling approach will be given. The psychologist has to take into consideration various things about the family when counseling these groups of families. Many adolescents living in diverse families suffer depression that is sometimes contributed by lack of maternal affection or fatherly love. Socialization is most effective when biological parents of a child give it during childhood development. Counseling psychologist are mandated to predict the behavioral disorders that are linked with the type of diverse family structures and use them in counseling the adolescents.
Conclusion
Research shows that most adolescents living in diverse family structures have suffered at least one psychological disorder that is associated with the type of family they are in. These kinds of families are also susceptible to sexual disorders alongside psychological disorders. Counseling adolescents in these types of families involve going beyond the normal psychological practices and considering all the differences that exist between these adolescents and adolescents in nuclear families.
References
Brown, S. L., & Rinelli, L. N. (2010). Family structure, family processes, and adolescent
Smoking and drinking. Journal of research on adolescence , 20 (2), 259-273.
David, H., Demo, D. H., & Acock, A. C. (2016). Family structure, family process, and
Adolescent well-being. Journal of Research on Adolescence , 6 (4), 457-488.
Jablonska, B., & Lindberg, L. (2017). Risk behaviours, victimisation and mental distress among
Adolescents in different family structures. Social psychiatry and psychiatric
Epidemiology , 42 (8), 656-663.
Widmer, E. D. (2016). Family configurations: A structural approach to family diversity .
Routledge.
