Family Structure and Family Functioning

Marital relationship

Marital fighting

Marital fighting occurs when the needs and desires of spouses diverge and are thus
incompatible When marriage communication breaks down, feelings are hurt, emotions run
high, and solutions seem out of reach. There is little doubt about the adverse effects of
parental conflicts on kids. (Emery 1989) was suggested four main processes that may
constribute to childhood disorder due to marital fighting which is the children model
ineffective conflict resolution styles (examples like withdrawal and anxiety), parents practice
more inconsistent disciplinary actions (using their experience of uncontrollability, which
lead to anxiety), parental conflict disrupts parental bonds with their children and parental
conflict serves as a general stressor to a child's environment, threatening the child's sense of
security. Children with anxiety disorders are likely to be more susceptible to marriage issues
due to the elevated overlap between parental and child anxiety disorders. Children respond
with even more more fear when when the subject of inter-adult conflict is child-related.
(Grych, Seid, & Fincham, 1991).
Adolescent-reported family conflict (including parental, sibling and child-parent conflict
has been connected with improved adolescent anxiety over time, while anxiety has not been e
xpected by either latest or earlier divorce. (Mechanic and Hansell (1989).
The impact of parental divorce on the anxiety of kids has disappeared over time, whereas if p
arents did not divorce but kids stayed in elevated conflict settings, the anxiety of kids has bee
n preserved over time.

Marital quality is evaluated by the examination of relationship interactions or the emotions of 
the participants about their relationships and their evaluation tends to build up the the
attitudes of children that have always been connected with marriage. Parents’ marital
satisfaction estimated child anxiety at age four in a survey when their kid was one year old
(McHale and Rasmussen ,1998). Marital quality affected by the attitudes of the parents
towards marriage which affects the attitude of the child towards love , friendships and
marriage. No variations in marital self-report between parents of kids with clinically
important anxiety illnesses and a standard control group were discovered. (Siqueland,
Kendall, and Steinberg, 1996). Future research should explore actual and not self-reported
marital issues in parents of kids with anxiety disorder or study marital satisfaction in parents
of kids with anxiety disorder in community samples.

Co-parenting covers only the parenting elements of the marriage partnerships. Co-parenting
also relates to the behaviors that parents show to the kid encouraging or not
encouraging the other parent, whether the parent is present or not, such as encouraging affecti
ve interchange between the other parent and the child, or making a remark to improve the abs
ence of the parent's mental image of the kid. Significant correlations between rater-
observed hostile-removed co –parenting (composed of negativity as well as withdrawal
and withdrawal) and parent accounts of infant anxiety / depression in their pre-school.( Katz
and Low,2004). Parent reports of co-parenting at age 4 could be anticipated by real co-
parenting at age 1, and some self-reported co-parenting behaviors were closely linked to
teacher reports of child anxiety. Co-parenting focuses on the degree of cooperation,
affirmation and support among adults who raise kids for whom they share accountability.
Co-parenting also gives the attention on the common goal raising the kid.

Family size and order of birth are associated ideas and should therefore not be handled 
separately. Parents may set greater demands for their first-born and only kids and may
become more vulnerable to social failure as a consequence. Secondly because they have
disadvantage in strength, later-born kids may need to gain social skills better to manage
private requirements in sibling relationships. Lower first-born anxiety compared to middle
and last kids and also compared to single kids (Howarth ,1980). Younger siblings’ anxiety
issues were anticipated across a connection with an elderly sibling with less intimacy and war
mth and more bad remarks from the elderly sibling. Children with anxiety disorder felt that
their parents favored their siblings more frequently than ordinary control kids. (Lindhout et
al., 2003). Younger siblings’s anxiety issues were anticipated by a connection with an elderly
sibling with less intimacy and warmth and more adverse remarks from the elderly sibling.
Family functioning is can be seen as a unity of interacting characters that coincide
with an ongoing framework that is maintained and modified by interaction. (Burgess, 1926)
This is possibly difficult as variables such as absence of sleep or being on college holidays ca
n result in daily behavioral variability and as such observational results can only provide a res
tricted snapshot of the behavioral repertoire of a parent and child as opposed to stable estimat
es of interest behaviors.In 1974, Minuchin created the key metaphor of family structure
composed of interpersonal 
and subsystem limits, ranging from diffuse borders (which he called "enmeshed"), clear boun
daries, and inappropriately stiff borders (which he called "disengaged") at the other end of the 
continuum. The family system test is a figure placement method for the spatial depiction of
cohesion and hierarchy (structure) in the family and its subsystems. Higher family cohesion
has been correlated with child social anxiety
and fear of adverse assessment, while lack of family adaptability has been associated with fea
r of strangers. .(Peleg-Popko and Dar (2001) . Poor family communication and absence of
family support for automony linked to anxiety about child testing. (Peleg-Popko, 2002) .In
comparison , in this research ,absence cohesion increased the danger of child
depressive disorder fourfold. Children may view the environment as less hostile and
threatening,which may make them feel safer and more protected. Besides,

Family functioning in which a parent has anxiety disorders (Ben-Noun, 1998). It was

discovered that among 100 mothers with psychiatric illnesses (including anxiety
disorders), anxiety-disordered mothers reported more FAD family dysfunction than other
disordered  other mental disorders mothers. (Fristad and Clayton ,1991) .Systematically
surveyed 11 member families recognized as having an anxiety disorder and discovered
that anxiety disorder families showed marked failure in differentiating the functioning of the 
subsystem (e.g. parent-child coalition). (Frey and Oppenheimer ,1990)

Consequences of marital relationships an adult may be stressed that they will have to create
compromises and sacrifices to get a good marital status..In addition, the person may create
a feeling of stress because he has a great deal of accountability ahead of him. Moreover, the p
eople in the relationship may be disturbed by the reality that they have to make sure that their 
relationship does not have any betrayals and that it is held loyal throughout the life of the cou
ple. Marriage stress can also lead to enhanced cocentrations of blood sugar and enhanced risk
of type two diabetes .Long-term psychological stress or unresolved disputes may lead in
enhanced blood glucose concentrations over a extended period of time.