REFLECTION PAPERS on the movie "Hitch"
memozee1020
soc315ch11131.pptxParenting & Crisis
Chapters 11 & 13
Adjusting to Parenting
Why is transitioning into parenthood more difficult than most (if not all) other transitions in life?
Parenthood can’t be “undone”
Is an immediate 24/7 job
Unrealistic expectations can lead to disillusionment – parenthood might be romanticized due to lack of previous experience
No instruction manual for parenting
Parenting changes the couple’s relationship – marital satisfaction after the first baby’s birth has been found to be 42% lower
Changes New Parents Might Expect
Carolyn & Phillip Cowan identified changes new parents typically experience:
People think about themselves differently – are full-fledged adults, responsible for one of life’s most important responsibilities
Adjusting to new roles between partners
Alters the relationship with their own parents
Adjustments within the career
Parenting Approaches
Baumrind identified 3 approaches to parenting:
Authoritarian – parents are repressive, controlling, and unreasonably strict
Working class parents tend to be more authoritarian
Parents tend to be cold and unsupportive, discourage verbal give-and-take, and often use physical force to control behavior
Children in these families tend to be more moody, less cheerful, more passively hostile, and more vulnerable to stress
Permissive – parents are warm and reasonable
Few rules & regulations
Authoritative – parents are both strict & controlling, and also warm & supportive
Tend to use positive reinforcement rather than punishment
Show awareness of the child’s feelings & encourage open communication, independence & self-reliance
Children show self-reliance, curiosity, and creativity in dealing with new situations
LeMasters & DeFrain’s 5 Parenting Styles
Martyr – parents makes big sacrifices for their children, and exercise little or no authority over them
Spoil children with material things
Children rarely learn to be self-sufficient
Pal – parents let children set their own goals, rules, and limits
Police officer – authoritarian & repressive style where parents insist that their children follow rules, and punish them when they don’t
Risk of rebelling in adolescence
Teacher-Counselor – parents intensely focused on guiding children’s behavior
Put needs of the child before those of the parents
Athletic Coach – parents set rules for the house, teach the children rules, and apply penalties for infractions
LeMasters and DeFrain feel this is the most effective style (similar to Baumrind’s authoritative approach)
Principles of Effective Childrearing
Positive reinforcement – helps encourage both positive social behavior and a positive self-image, as well as a feeling of comfort about engaging in love relationships in adulthood
Instilling values & a sense of responsibility
Practicing good communication
Avoiding physical punishment
Children exposed to spanking are more apt to lie, cheat, or be mean to others, to be disobedient in school, experience depression, drug abuse, or suicide in adolescence, and to be linked to dating violence and child-to-parent violence
Grandparenthood
What defines a grandparent?
Biology
Emotional bond
Closeness to family
3 grandparenting styles:
Remote – largely symbolic, little if any direct contact
Companionate – focus more on leisure activities and friendship
Involved – take a more active role in the lives of grandchildren, often more of a parental role
Finding Meaning in Aging
Older people recognize their lives are coming to an end, and spend more time in reflection
Neurgarten (1971) identified 4 ways of coping:
Disintegrated & disorganized – marked by despair; can’t come to terms with aging
Often found in nursing homes or hospitals
Passive-dependent – little confidence in their ability to cope with daily life; seek help even if they don’t need it
Defended – living independently but fearful of aging; try to shield themselves from reality of old age. Fight to stay youthful.
Integrated – cope well with challenges of aging
Key to successful aging lies in keeping personal dignity & self-confidence while accepting growing old
Internal vs. External Stressors
Internal stressors – those events that begin inside the family
Expected over the normal family life cycle, events that are sought out (like a new job), and situations of long duration (diabetes, chemical addiction, etc.)
External stressors – those that begin with someone or something outside the family
Natural disasters, economic downturns, winning the lottery, etc.
Infidelity
Affairs seem to be primarily related to 2 variables: Premarital sexual permissiveness and unhappiness in the marriage
Men and women who have a strong need for sex and who have permissive sexual values plus some dissatisfaction in their present relationship are more inclined to seek extramarital relationships
Short-Term Involvements:
Men: is often sex without love (prostitutes or a one-night stand)
Apt to have an affair for the feeling of conquest and sexual excitement
Women: affair usually involves love as well as sex
Apt to have affair because they’re angry with husbands and seek revenge
Long-Term Involvements: 4 Types
Marriage-Maintenance – affairs that provide something missing from the relationship, like unusual sex
Some argue that these types of affairs can actually help to sustain a marriage
Intimacy Reduction – involvements by a spouse who feels uncomfortable with too much closeness in his/her marriage
Reactive – engaged in by partners who are seeking reassurance about their youthfulness & sexuality
Hedonistic – acts of playfulness by partners who are often sexually fulfilled and happy in their own marriages
“Just for fun”
Violence
Men:
More likely to say that they have beat up the woman they were dating, or threatened her with a gun
Date rapists tend to hold traditional views about women and sex, to show hostility towards women, to have been sexually promiscuous as adolescents, to report a great number of sexual experiences, to have a propensity for jealousy, and to have difficulty expressing their feelings
Women:
More likely to say they’ve been pushed or slapped by a man they were dating
College women who have been date-raped reported higher levels of sexual dysfunction, anger, depression, and anxiety than did comparable women who had not been date raped
Cohabiting couples are more likely to be physically violent – mostly grabbing pushing, and slapping
In homosexual relationships, lesbian victims and gay male victims are more likely to fight back than is the case with straight women
Gay men are less abusive than heterosexual men, but lesbians are more abusive that heterosexual women toward their partners
Marital Violence
2 Kinds of Marital Violence:
Patriarchal Terrorism – violence by men who feel that they must control “their” women by any means necessary
View women as property
Want to keep them “in their place”
Common Couple Violence – violence between partners arising from everyday disputes that have gone too far
Motivated by the need to control the situation
Generally, domestic violence is found more frequently among young, low-income, blue-collar couples where alcohol and/or drugs are abused, and where the man tends to believe in traditional gender roles, is jealous, and believes violence is acceptable
Spillover – the effect of participation in one of life’s domains (like work) on other domains (like family)
Child Abuse & Neglect
Children of single parents had a 77% greater risk of being harmed by physical abuse, an 87% greater risk of neglect, and 80% greater risk of suffering serious injury or harm from abuse and neglect
Children in large families are physically neglected 3x the rate of those who come from single-child families
Children from low-income families more than 22x more likely to experience maltreatment, 18x more likely to be sexually abused, and 56x more likely to be educationally neglected
Girls are sexually abused 3x more often than boys, but boys are at greater risk for emotional neglect and serious injury
Dealing with Stress
Defense mechanisms – unconscious methods for denying, excusing, disguising, or changing the behaviors that cause anxiety and frustration
Repression – unconscious blocking of whatever is causing stress
Denial – refusal to believe info that provokes anxiety
Rationalization – assertion that the reasons for illogical behavior are rational and good
Displacement – redirecting one’s feelings from the true target to something less threatening
Projection – attribution of unacceptable impulses or characteristics to other people
Reaction formation – people presenting themselves as the opposite of what they truly feel
Regression – relapse into a more childlike type of behavior
Sublimation – socially constructive behavior that’s formed to disguise unacceptable behavior
ie, hostile impulses channeled into seeking a career as a police officer
