Family Development Applications

Teachers in the classroom, workers in the community, parents in family settings, and others working directly with families rely largely on others like themselves for the knowledge and skills they need. Teachers attend in-service workshops where they exchange insights with other educators. Ministers and social workers meet other service-oriented professionals from time to time. Parents pick up what they can at PTA meetings, from popular magazines, newspaper stories, and in interaction with other mothers and fathers facing similar situations in the neighborhood. Meanwhile specialists in family research and theory publish substantial reports of their findings that but rarely trickle down to the grassroots where families live. Professional associates discuss with one another the essential concepts and interpretations of their work, often agreeing on recommendations that would be pertinent for parents and other practitioners to know; with but infrequent opportunity to relay their findings to those who might put them to practical test in families. The Family Coordinator attempts to bridge this knowledge gap by translating from time to time those conclusions from family research and theory that have immediate applicability to practitioners in family life education, family service, and family living. Every once in a while a research monograph appears with such relevancy that an essay-review is published outlining the high points of its findings for those who might implement them. Such a volume is Family Development in Three Generations. 1 The three generations reported in this research monograph were (1) young married couples, (2) their middle-aged parents, and (3) their aging and aged grandparents, all of whom were interviewed intensively over a period of several months in their homes in the greater Minneapolis area. The major focus of the investigation was long-term financial planning, decision-making, and consumption. Data also were reported on intergenerational continuity, similarities and differences in education, income, religious activities, childbearing and childrearing practices, husband-wife roles, conflict resolution, interaction, mutual help, and visiting between the generations, family mobility by stage of the life cycle for each generation, the time it took for each generation to acquire, furnish, and equip its home, and the value stance for each generation

Psychoanalysis · demographic modeling and climate adaptation · Family Dynamics and Relationships · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics · Psychology