Family Life Cycle

Parenting: Babies Through Adolescents

Making the decision to have a baby

At some point in your marriage, you and your spouse will decide if you want to have a baby. Some couples know going into a marriage that they do not want children. Parenting is one of the most challenging phases of the family life cycle.

The decision to have children is one that affects your individual development, the identity of your family, and your marital relationship. Children are so time-consuming that skills not learned in previous stages will be difficult to pick up at this stage. Your ability to communicate well, maintain your relationships, and solve problems are often tested during this stage.

Introducing a child into your family results in a major change in roles for you and your spouse. Each parent has three distinct and demanding roles: as an individual, a spouse, and a parent. As new parents, your individual identities shift along with how you relate to each other and to others. If you have not learned compromise and commitment in the previous stage, you may not possess the skills you need to transition well into this stage.

Along with the joy that comes from having a child, you may feel a great deal of stress and fear about these changes. A woman might have concerns about being pregnant and going through childbirth. Fathers tend to keep their fears and stress to themselves, which can cause health problems.

Discussing your emotional or physical concerns with your family doctor, obstetrician, or counsellor can help you deal with these and future challenges.

Parenting young children

Adapting children into other relationships, including your marriage, is a key emotional process of this stage. You will take on the parenting role and transition from being a member of a couple to being a parent. While you are still evolving as individuals, you and your spouse are also becoming decision makers for your family. Continuing to express your individuality while working well together as a couple results in a strong marriage.

Your child's healthy development depends on your ability to provide a safe, loving, and organized environment. Children benefit when their parents have a strong marriage.

Caring for young children cuts into the amount of time you might otherwise spend alone or with your spouse. If there were skills you didn't learn in previous phases, such as compromise for the good of the family, your marriage may suffer. Divorce and extramarital affairs often occur during the raising of small children when the parents have not learned proper life skills.

However, for those who have the proper tools, this can be a very rewarding, happy time, even with all of its challenges. Optimally, you develop as an individual and as a member of a couple and a family.

Specific goals when young children join your family are:

• Adjusting your marital system to make space for children.
• Taking on parenting roles.
• Realigning your relationships with your extended family to include parenting and grand parenting roles.

Parenting adolescents

Parenting teenagers can be a rough time for your family and can test your relationship skills. It's also a time for positive growth and creative exploration for your entire family. Families that function best during this period have strong, flexible marriages developed through good communication, problem solving, mutual caring, support, and trust.

Most teens experiment with different thoughts, beliefs, and styles, which can cause family conflict. Your strengths as an individual and as part of a couple are critical as you deal with the increasing challenges of rearing a teenager. Strive for a balanced atmosphere in which your teenager has a sense of support and emotional safety as well as opportunities to try new behaviours. An important skill at this stage is flexibility as you encourage your child to become independent and creative. Establish boundaries for your teenager while at the same time encouraging exploration.

If you properly developed your individual identity in earlier stages of your life, you will be much more secure about the changes your child is going through. However, if you did not fully develop the needed skills at earlier stages of life, you may feel very threatened by your child's new developments.

Flexibility in the roles each person plays in the family system is a valuable skill to develop at this stage. Responsibilities such as the demands of a job or caring for someone who is ill may require each person in the family to take on various, and sometimes changing, roles.

This is a time when one or more family members may feel some level of depression or other distress. It may also lead to physical complaints that have no physical cause (somatization disorders such as stomach upsets and some headaches) along with other stress-related disorders.

Nurturing your marriage and your individual growth can sometimes be ignored at this stage. Toward the end of this phase, a parent's focus shifts from the maturing teen to career and marriage. Neglecting your personal development and your marriage can make this shift difficult.

You also may begin thinking about your role in caring for aging parents. Making your own health a priority in this phase is helpful as you enter the next stage of the family life cycle.

Specific goals during the stage of parenting adolescents include:

• Shifting parent-child relationships to allow the child to move in and out of the family system.
• Shifting focus back to your midlife marital and career issues.
• Beginning a shift toward concern for older generations in your extended family.

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Author:	Ralph Poore Sydney Youngerman-Cole, RN, BSN, RNC	Last Updated: April 25, 2007
Medical Review:	Kathleen Romito, MD - Family Medicine Donald Sproule, MD, CM, CCFP, FCFP - Family Medicine
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