Step Families Households example essay topic

The Need for a Study There is a tremendous gap in the information that is put out on step families and the way they live. There are countless studies done every year on how the stepparents handle situations and how the stepparents deals with discipline or even how to discipline. Every where you look there is help for the struggling stepparent. Now, that is a good thing, the abundance of help available. But the bad thing about all that help is it did not cover the children's point of view. Nearly all the studies done do not include children in the research.

That is the major flaw in all the help books and programs for stepparents. With the rise of step families, there needs to be more help offered that takes the child perspective into account. That perspective will be the focus of this study. The intent will be to get a better understanding of how children living in step families households define their family and how they perceive their relationships with other household members.

The Nature of the Study The intent will be to get a better understanding of how children living in step families households define their family and how they perceive their relationships with other household members. The sample population will be a family counselor (Psychology). I will plan to seat in 10 or so sessions as an observer. Information from the seat-ins will be developed and analyzed.

Research findings will be used to help future research. Assumptions The following are assumptions on which the study is based: 1. The purpose of the seat-ins is to get an understanding of how children living in step families households define their family and how they perceive their relationships with other household members. 2.

The use of a family counselor will give a wide array of step family access. 3. Conducting this small scale study will promote the need for future research. Research Questions The study will attempt to answer the following questions: 1. How do you define your family?

2. How do you perceive you relationship with others in the household? 3. Who do you count as belonging to your family? Methodology 1. Review of the literature on research with emphasis on children and the relationship with stepparents 2.

Based on information from review of literature and local family counselors, a format was developed. 3. The study will include 10 or more seat-in sessions with a local family counselor. 4. The families will be random and voluntary. 5.

The information gathered will promote the need for future research. Plans for Review of Literature The review of literature will include the following identifies: family practices, makeup and breakdown, parent involvement, discipline and point of entry. Computer and catalog searches will focus on research within the last 40 years and significant earlier work. The Chapman Library System online, the library at Mccord Air Force Base, EBSCO and SAA will be used for the initial information collection effort.

Literature Review The book Stepfamilies; History, Research, and Policy, by Irene Levin and Marvin B. Sussman contains precisely what the title suggest, a wide range of individuality valuable and stimulating chapters hat form a wonderfully rich menu from which I found exciting and a wealth of variety. Chapters include historical reviews from both the distant past and comparisons of the 1970's and the present. It takes a closer look at the variations of the step family, gives detailed accounts of how society view step families, detailed accounts of how step families view themselves; accounts of how children view their step families; the legal policy perspectives; and last a comparisons of step- and foster-families. The central theme emerging from this rich collection is whether step families should be compared to other forms of families, especially the popularity supposed 'nuclear family,' and whether step families might best be understood as developmental projects in themselves. The only let down in this book was that she did not track the progress of step families from a young age, or introducing of a stepparent at a young age. The book hints around the subject of age but does not follow-through (Pg. 45).

The next book I reviewed was Stepfamilies, A Multi-Dimensional Perspective, written by Roni Berger, Ph. D. This volume brings into sharp focus the reality of step families in our multicultural, mobile, rapidly changing global arena, where both children and extended families must navigate between new and old family units. The extraordinary social, emotional, and physical demands of sharing and shaping new family tradition with past family history is illustrated in text drawn from the author's own research, teachings, and clinical practice; which were no help to me, but a good reading. She addressed al the problems that arise in the step family; language, allegiance, rights, inheritance, obligations, custody, sexual abuse, visitation, and cultural traditions are just a few. Dr. Berger ha shown that step families are not made in one mold. Her research has provided a vital multifaceted perspective that liberates the step family from the common stereotypes of abnormal. Looking at wealth of in-depth case studies in the United States and Israel, she cogently describes step families' relational complexity.

She opens the view so the reader to experience the unique challenges of becoming a family and living life in a world that has been slow to recognize our (their) status, both legally and socially. "The more a step family resembled an intact nuclear family, the more successful it is considered. We now know that this is not so. Stepfamilies are a different "creature" with unique characteristics".

The quote above is what really drew me to read this book. The last book I reviewed, Stepfamilies, Love, Marriage, and Parenting in the First Decade, was not a book I finished. The book could not offer me any more incite into the question I had nor point me down the path to find helpful research. Basically a waste of paper on the subject of step families, parenting in a step family and how successful or unsuccessful a step family can or will be. My other more current literature was gathered from the Internet.

Some of my primary sources were the U.S. Census Bureau, Stepfamily Association of America. My secondary were sites such as Stepfamily. com, U chicago. edu, and the Stepfamily Network, which had a lot of personal experience and problem solving themes.