Divergent Realities: The Emotional Lives Of Mothers, Fathers, And AdolescentsFamily dysfunction has been blamed on many causes - the absence of fathers, mothers working outside the home, lack of money or social supports. But, argue the authors of this original and provocative book, it is often presence rather than absence that lies at the heart of troubled families. In fact, they show that it is common for family members to be in the same room and yet be oblivious to each other's thoughts and feelings. Family life breaks down because members experience the same event in different ways and are unable to bridge the gap. How can adolescents and well-meaning parents be so out of touch? What are the daily sources of conflict between husbands and wives? What windows of opportunity does contemporary life provide for family members to talk with and appreciate each other? To answer these questions, the authors used the unique Experience Sampling Method. Fathers, mothers, and adolescents carried electronic pagers for a week and provided reports on their activities and emotions at random times when signaled by the researchers. Already employed to great effect in studying individuals (the method served as the basis for Larson and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book Being Adolescent and the latter's Flow), this is the first time this technique has been used to uncover the dynamics of family life. The result is an unprecedented study revealing the hour-by-hour emotional realities lived by families in middle America: the daily clash between fathers, who experience their family life as a refuge, and working mothers, who arrive home each evening to a six o'clock "crash"; between the world of young adolescents, whose emotions can be perilously out of check, and their parents, whoselives focus on emotional equilibrium. The authors demonstrate that these and many other divergent realities provide a breeding ground for dysfunctional family processes, and they discuss creative ways for families to surmount the emotional hazards of everyday life. |
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Page 123
... spent too much family time doing chores and not enough doing fun things . This finding repeats a theme that comes up again . and again : that the social is more important for women . Men care less about how this time is spent , perhaps ...
... spent too much family time doing chores and not enough doing fun things . This finding repeats a theme that comes up again . and again : that the social is more important for women . Men care less about how this time is spent , perhaps ...
Page 279
... spent more time with neighborhood friends and older students spent more time with friends known through school or organizations . Within the 7:30 A.M. - 9 : 30 P.M. period covered by the study , there was no age difference for boys in ...
... spent more time with neighborhood friends and older students spent more time with friends known through school or organizations . Within the 7:30 A.M. - 9 : 30 P.M. period covered by the study , there was no age difference for boys in ...
Page 291
... spent with their children may be somewhat greater for younger fathers , having jobs of lower socioeconomic status , in families with no preschoolers . Other researchers have found that the amount of hours a man works at his job ...
... spent with their children may be somewhat greater for younger fathers , having jobs of lower socioeconomic status , in families with no preschoolers . Other researchers have found that the amount of hours a man works at his job ...
Contents
A BREW OF EMOTIONS | 1 |
CYCLES OF WORK AND LEISURE | 17 |
INTERWEAVING WORK AND RELATIONSHIPS | 49 |
Copyright | |
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active recreation adoles adolescent's Andrew Collins anger angry Anne appendix arena of comfort average emotion beeped beeper behavior boys conflict correlated couples Csikszentmihalyi Cyndi Lauper daily daughter depression Developmental Psychology distress early adolescence effect emotionally employed women experience family members family's fathers felt friends girls Glenna grade happy healthier families household housework husbands husbands and wives interac interactions irritable Journal kids Larson leisure less lives marital marriage men's Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi mothers and adolescents Murray Bowen needs negative emotion Newbury Park pager parents pattern percent versus Pleck positive emotion positive moods Psychology puberty realities Reed Larson relationship reported feeling Richards rience role Roxanne sample Selman shared social spend spent spouse stress study reported suggest talking teenagers teens tion two-parent unhappy United Media warmth watching TV week well-being Wendy Wendy's wife wives young adolescents Z-Score