Sign-up and
How to Cope with Change
Tell a Friend
All of us should cope with the change in order to have a good family through positive parenting. This in turn, contributes to our metaphysical personal development. Let me share this with you:
In life change, cannot be avoided because life is full of unpredictable events that will challenge your established family structures. If your family is flexible it can evolve and adapt together finding new structures for stability that will give you the strength to cope with future challengers.
Families that are rigid and refuse to change and desperately try to cling to the old order – often by denying that any change has occurred- tend to suffer far more stress than flexible families who accept both the joys and difficulties of accommodating change in their lives.
Check your family’s flexibility
Do you think your family can cope with change? Use the questions below to prompt discussions about how well you think you handle change, Which do you think would be most difficult for your family?
- Is moving house exciting or traumatic? Would your family clam up, argue about the move, or enjoy discussing the decorating?
- If you were offered a new job in a different country, how would you and your family react?
- How did your or would your parents react to your decision to marry? How would you react if one of your children decided to marry someone from a different social or cultural background?
- Faced with unemployment, would you see it as a disaster or a blessing in disguise, perhaps as an opportunity to move on to new pastures?
- If a family member got divorced and remarried how would you behave toward the outsider?
Patterns of Change
When something happens to change the family’s established routine, such as the birth of a first child, the initial strategy of parents is often to behave as before, But it is no longer possible for the parents to focus just on each other, They may need to turn to friends with children or to their own parents fir support and advice and they may have to cut back in their leisure pursuits. As long as these changes are willingly incorporated into family life the new structure will be stable, If, however one family member cannot accept the change resentments can build up leading to conflict at a later time
Shifting families
There is constant movement in a family. There are times when a member leaves o joins the family group this can cause great stress in the family and each individual may be affected differently as his or her role shifts in response to the change. The birth of a new baby can cause a toddler to feel anger and jealousy. However these feeling usual subside as the toddler learns to live with the new child.
On the other hand family relationships are impaired and an individual’s development may be inhibited when change is blocked - for example by parents who are reluctant to let a teenager leave home because of their own fears.
Accepting Change
Change inevitably happens in the family and when you are a child, it is often outside your control. The way your parents coped with change will have taught you how to cope with it yourself. If your childhood impression was that change meant disintegration and anxiety, then you are likely to feat change in your own life and avoid it, even when this means losing opportunities.
Families with overwhelming problems might try to ignore them. The danger of this approach is that problems can resurface with far more devastating effects later on. It is far better to face the anger, regret, guilt, or loss associated with, for example, bereavement, because working through the pain can be extremely healing. In this way, family members can overcome the pain or crisis and reach a new and often better, understanding of each other and of themselves.