Stress due to family problems

Some helpful ways kids and teens can ease stress might be:

• talking about what’s troubling you
• exercising every day
• eating nutritious foods, like protein and vegetables
• sticking to a daily routine
• getting enough sleep

If you’re an adult family relative . . .

Family dynamics can be complex and stressful at times.

When you visit relatives, consider:

• planning your visit so that you don’t stay too long
• having reasonable responses prepared for potentially stressful conversations
• communicating to children that it’s important to behave well
• going for a walk or taking a nap if you get upset

When relatives visit you, try:

• planning your sleeping arrangements, meals, and budgeting in advance
• accepting help with cooking and cleaning
• stocking the kitchen with food that’s easy to prepare
• keeping alcohol consumption to a minimum, especially if you tend to argue

If you’re a caregiver…

Caregiving is an important — but often stressful — role. Try these tips for managing caregiver stress in your family:

• asking for and accepting help when you need it
• taking the training you need to help your loved one
• making time to take breaks every day
• practicing self-care
• visiting friends and family outside the house, even on Zoom, for a pick-me-up

No matter how stressed your family may feel, there’s always a way to move toward each other and not away.

Consider reaching out to a family therapist. A counselor or therapist can help you work on communication and coping skills and help you find solutions you may not be able to see alone.

You can also turn your stress into a family bonding opportunity. Families for Depression Awareness has several stress-busting activities for families to try together, like:

• going for a hike
• throwing a frisbee around
• finger painting

You aren’t alone in facing family stress. The Healthy Family Connections podcast, hosted by family therapist Neil D. Brown, discusses solutions for parents, couples, and children in difficult family situations.

You and your family can learn to manage family stress. You might even end up closer.

6 Causes Of Family Stress And What You Can Do About It

When people say that relationships are difficult, they aren't just talking about romantic relationships. Life is stressful, and that can impact multiple areas of your life. One of these areas is within your family. Family relationships bring with them many different challenges because multiple people are involved. There are many different causes of family stress, and it can easily leave you feeling overwhelmed. But, there are things that you can do to help them.

These are some of the most common causes of family stress that American families are facing.

1. Financial Stress

This is a common cause of stress for both individuals and families. When you're in a family, you have other people than just yourself that you're concerned about being able to provide for. When you have children, this can add even more stress. Not only do you need to be able to have the finances that you need to give them the necessities like food, shelter, and keep them healthy, but there are also things that you want to be able to get them.

You may want to be able to go on family vacations or put your children into sports or extracurricular activities. You may want to be able to have one parent stay at home when your children are young but don't have the finances to be able to afford to do that.

Or, you may be a single parent trying to make ends meet. This can cause a lot of stress as you work hard to provide for them in necessity is that your family needs while still having time to spend with them.

2. Relationship Problems

Marriage is very difficult. And as a relationship progresses and children are added to the picture if it adds new levels of difficulty. For example, as schedules fill up, it's easy for couples to start to lose touch with each other. They don't spend time alone together, and they begin to forget why they wanted to be with each other in the first place.

Couples can also run into problems with how they handle their finances or what parenting style they use. Relationships are made up of two people who have different opinions about things and aren't always going to agree. When you have to run a family together, it's important to be able to work past these differences and establish a way to move forward. But, that doesn't mean that there's not a lot of stress involved.

If parents decide to split up, this can add even more stress to the family for both the parents and the children. It will be a stressful time of learning how to deal in a new situation and will be a stress for everyone involved.

3. Health Problems

If someone in the family has health issues, this can add stress to the entire family. It can make it either difficult for parents to work because they're ill or they are needed to take care of an ill child, which can then add financial stress to the family as well.

Stress can compact as the family has to find a new level of normal to keep operating in. Illness can wreak havoc to schedules that are already established and can leave everyone having to figure out how to adjust. It's a difficult time not only for the person that's ill but for the entire family as they learn how to operate in their new norm.

4. Death

Death within the family causes a lot of stress within the group. Grief is a difficult process to work through, and not everyone in the family will be working through it at the same time or in the same way. This can make it difficult for people to talk with each other and comfort each other.

Death of a parent can also leave the other parent having to figure out how to pick up the pieces of the family and hold everyone together. They have to learn how to fill both parenting roles. 

This isn't something that you will be able to move over from quickly either. You will have to go through the first of each holiday, birthdays, and other special events trying to learn what life looks like now without that person.

5. Moving

When a family relocates, it can cause a lot of stress within the group. Some may be excited about the move, while others are unhappy. There's a lot to do when getting ready to move, which means that everyone is going to see their routine interrupted. This can be difficult for people to deal with.

Relocating to another city or state can also have long-term stress on the entire family. Each person will need to make new friends and connections. There could be new jobs and schools to go to. The weather and culture could be different.

It's a great time to connect in close with your family, but the stress of the move can leave people with short tempers and many mixed emotions.

Understand How Family Dynamics Play A Role In Stress

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6. Adding A New Family

Adding to your family is exciting, whether it's a new baby or adopting an older child. But, not everyone in the family will feel the same. If you already have children, they may experience feelings of sibling rivalry and jealousy. This can add stress to the family as children learn their new roles, and parents learn how to adjust to a new child in the family.

If you have a baby, it can add to the stress because you might not be getting as much sleep as you need, which can make a lot of things difficult.

These causes family stress or just some examples of the most common situations. This is not by any means an all-inclusive list. If your family is struggling and it's for the reason that's not listed here, it doesn't mean that you're alone in your struggle. A quick search online can be all it takes to find other families that are dealing with similar stresses to what you're dealing with.

You don't have to let the situations that are causing your family stress continue to get to you. It's important to address the stress that you're facing, because leaving it as it is can lead to additional stress, including heart attacks. Here are some things you can do that could help:

Talk To A Therapist

If you have a lot of stress that you're dealing with, the first thing you should consider is talking to a therapist. Some family therapists will meet with your entire family at once. But, if you don't want to go that route, simply talking to a therapist on your own can be exactly what you need to determine the best way to remove the stress from your family.

Don't think that you need to deal with your family stress on your own. Talking to an experienced therapist can go a long way in helping your family work through their stress.

Talk About It Together

If your family is under a lot of stress, it's not uncommon to want to avoid talking about it, especially if you don't like confrontation. However, getting the entire family on the same page can go a long way in reducing stress in the situation.

If there are going to be changed in your family, or if your schedule needs to be adjusted, it's important that everyone be on the same page. Having family discussions can give everyone a chance to voice their concerns and have questions answered. This can be a good way to add security within the family, so no one thinks that secrets are being kept. 

However, it's important that when you are talking together that there are rules and boundaries established to keep communication healthy. You don't want this to be a time that ends in fighting, shouting, and arguments.

Focus On Yourself First

You cannot control how other people are going to act, behave, and respond within your family. But you can choose your responses. This is why it's important that you learn to focus on yourself first. If you have children, it's also important that you set a good example for them.

Finding Things The Family Enjoys Together

Spending a positive time with one another can go a long way in helping you to overcome stress. Just because you're in a difficult situation at the time does not mean that you cannot enjoy spending time together. This could be as simple as renting a movie to watch together, going on vacation together, or playing a game in the backyard. Look for ways to spend time doing stuff together that everyone can participate in.

Family stress is completely normal. Don't feel like your family is alone in your struggle. But, don't allow yourself to stay there either. Look for ways that you can improve your situation and talk to a therapist to learn strategies to deal with stress together.

Other Commonly Asked Questions

What are examples of family stress?

What can cause stress in a family?

How do you deal with family stress?

What is family stress meaning?

Can family stress you out?

What are the two main types of stress that affect families?

What are some family problems?

What causes personal stress?

What are the effects of stress?

Why do I get so frustrated with my family?

Stress in the family and ways to cope with it

Many people strive for the perfect marriage and want to create a happy family. However, this does not always work out. Any family is faced with a wide variety of phenomena that can cause stress. A huge number of events in our life can cause disharmony: lack of love, lack of money, difficulties in solving a housing problem, long and persistent conflict between family members, the inability to have a child, etc. Stress as an experience of the difficulties of life is a reality.

Family stress occurs when real or perceived demands are made on the family that the couple cannot cope with. Signs of family stress are conflicts, increased use of alcohol, drugs, sleep disturbances, headaches, colds, jealousy, withdrawal from communication, etc.

With family stress, the family experiences general tension and negative emotions. Family members can plunge into experiences, engage in self-accusation, blame each other, complain, be offended by the “injustice” of life towards them, try to get away from the problem without thinking about it, “forgetting in a dream”, dissolving in alcohol, hiding behind competent people. Such behavior only contributes to the persistence of the problem and can lead to a family crisis, that is, to irreversible changes in the life of the family, when the usual roles become inadequate and the old patterns of behavior disintegrate.

In order to cope with a stressful situation, mitigate it, and possibly prevent it in a timely manner, special behavior is necessary. Such behavior creates the foundation of resilience, high viability of the family, helps a person to cope with a problem situation in ways that correspond to the characteristics of family members and the situation.

Productive ways to deal with family stress include:

• search for information, understanding of a stressful situation, events;
• seeking support from friends, relatives, environment, etc.;
• optimism, faith in the future;
• the ability of a family member to temporarily act as another family member;
• participation of all family members in resolving a stressful situation, using their resources and skills;
• invaluable open communication, exchange of feelings, desires, consideration of the position of family members.

Behavior that helps to cope with a stressful situation contributes to solving the problem, reducing the level of tension, anxiety, discomfort, elation and joy of overcoming, as well as the acquisition of something new, both by an individual family member and the family as a whole.
If the situation cannot be resolved directly and in a short time, a person can take the situation for granted, begin to evaluate it or himself in this situation in a new way. Family support, a change in the attitude of family members to the problem, a positive assessment of what is happening, learning from experience (“it could be worse”; “this is a lesson to all of us, we will be smarter in the future”) can help in reassessment.

It is important to remember that the behaviors that help a particular family in a given situation may not work in others, therefore, in a new stressful situation, it is necessary to choose such behavior that takes into account its characteristics, as well as the characteristics of family members, is associated with an active responsible position of a person.

Family stress

The concept of family stress is a very important concept in family psychology. Family stress is a reaction to negative external or intra-family factors that somehow arise in the process of family life. Family stress can occur in different ways and have different degrees of intensity. Numerous difficulties that arise before the family and threaten its life, according to the strength and duration of their impact, are divided into acute and chronic. An example of the former is the death of a family member, the news of adultery, sudden changes in fate, material or social status (the arrest of a family member, a large property loss, loss of a job), an unexpected and serious illness. Chronic difficulties: excessive physical and mental stress at home and at work, difficulties in solving the housing problem, long-term and persistent conflict between family members, inability to have a child, etc.

The impact of difficult life situations on the family, the occurrence of family stress , affects various areas of its life and leads to disruption of its functions: educational, household, sexual and erotic, etc. These violations inevitably affect the well-being of family members, do not allow them to satisfy their needs, cause a state of internal tension and discomfort, serve as a source of somatic, neuropsychic and behavioral disorders, hinder the development of the individual. The significance of the situation for the family as a whole and for each of its members primarily depends on how far-reaching adverse consequences it has. For example, childlessness for a woman who married only to have a child in marriage, and then found that her husband could not have children, will lead to more disastrous results than for a woman who married for love. In the same way, the loss of a breadwinner husband is more tragic for a woman with small children than for a woman with adult and independent sons.

All families face life's difficulties and react differently to family stresses . For some, the consequence of adverse effects will be an increase in disturbances in family life: increased conflict, decreased satisfaction with family life, illness, divorce, etc. Others, on the contrary, will increase their cohesion and increase their efforts to overcome the crisis and preserve the family.

The unequal resistance of families to difficulties is explained in different ways. Most often they talk about a certain mechanism that ensures success, about a way to cope with family stress , about families that own this mechanism, able to cope with the problem (to identify it, analyze it, put forward versions of the solution and select the most successful one from them). Family resources - family features that allow it to more easily adapt to adverse conditions - include: flexibility in relationships between relatives, an average degree of clarity in the formulation of role expectations, family cohesion, openness in the perception of the world around. Psychological research and psychotherapeutic experience have confirmed that developing the family's ability to cope with the difficulties it faces and preparing for them increase its resistance to stress. At the same time, a constructive solution to problems depends not only on the intellectual capabilities of family members, but also on their personal characteristics: the ability to self-restraint, reduce the level of consumption, readiness to take on heavy loads, strong-willed qualities, the desire for mutual understanding and compromise.

Most psychologists consider family stress as a critical life event that disrupts a stable and measured family life. Such an event requires a long-term effort to adjust and even change the family system. However, family stress can also be seen as a sequence of daily stressful events that a person must deal with in daily life in order to keep the family together. Such daily irritants can be: for fathers - quarrels with his wife, children, work colleague, lack of money; mothers have their own illness, a quarrel with a child, their own future, an excess of production duties; their children have quarrels with their parents, a brother or sister, a friend or girlfriend, an excess of school homework. At the same time, the type of family determines the choice of constructive behavior to solve the problem family stress . A positive decision strategy is more inherent in families of a flexible connected type , , that is, families with balanced levels of cohesion and adaptation.

Families cope worse with family stresses where the level of cohesion of its members is not very high, or where there is a so-called hidden family disorder. This is a violation that does not have a significant negative impact on family life under normal conditions, but plays a significant role in difficult life situations, determining the family's inability to resist them. Both in the norm and during a crisis, family members communicate, experience certain feelings for each other, distribute rights and obligations among themselves, and perform various family functions. Under normal (and even more so "hothouse") conditions, certain violations in all these areas are quite acceptable (not too significant complications in mutual understanding, moderate conflict, reduced ability of family members to regulate the level of requirements for each other) and do not negatively affect the life of the family as a whole .

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