Discussion Board 1
Ryan Chrzanowski
CUOC601-B06
Liberty University
For this week’s discussion board, we are tasked with examining the intrapersonal and
interpersonal approaches to the family stage mode and relate it to which stage my family is
currently experiencing and then determine what the benefits and deficits are during this stage.
This is a little more difficult to do in my personal situation as my 13-year-old son lives in another
state with my ex-wife, so I will try to complete this as accurately as possible.
At 13 years old, my son is still very much on that cusp of interpersonal v intrapersonal.
He interpersonal in that he enjoys talking with both his mother and I about his day, hobbies, and
activities, however, as a budding teenage he is also very intrapersonal in that he has his days,
weeks, moods in which he does not want to discuss anything. This is a difficult time for parents
because we still want to make sure that our young adult is making sound decisions, even if it is
about him telling us if he honestly had homework that night or not, but we also want him to
make those correct decisions.
The family stage model is very similar Erikson’s 7 developmental stages in which an
individual encounters various life stages and must master the challenges accompanied with the
stage to progress to the next (Goldenberg, Stanton, & Goldenberg, 2016). Even as “mastery” is
referred to the family as a unit, each member will move at their own pace based on how
he/she/they perceive situations and interpret each experience. At the stage my son is currently at
and based on his behavior, mood, and interaction with his mother and I, I would say that he is
ahead of where someone of his age would be expected to be.
If we were being rated as a family unit, I would have to determine that, that could not be
said the same based on the level of communication between my ex-wife and I. We were never
good a communicating while we were married, and even less so now that we are divorced. This
could affect my son’s own personal growth, which is why my ex-wife made a rule to always
have open communication regarding our son, and to leave our own personal lives out of things if it
did not in some way affect him.
This effort, however, becomes difficult because who makes the decision about what
affects and does not affect our son? This is why it is so important to apply not only the Family Life
Cycle Framework; it is also important to apply theories like Erikson’s stages of development to
ensure that the individual within the family unit is still progressing properly and healthily. There is
always going to be a balance and struggle with interpersonal and intrapersonal, even as adults,
but as it applies to my family, my son is advanced and more importantly, happy.
REFERENCES
Goldenberg, I., Stanton, M., & Goldenberg, H. (2017). Chapter 2: Family Development. In
Family therapy: An overview (9th ed., pp. 29–59). essay, Cengage Learning.
