The Eight Stages of Family Life

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Recommended: Challenges faced in family life cycles

Stage I: Family Of Origin Experience
In order to successfully matriculate through the several stages of family life from one stage of development to the next requires the completion of certain developmental tasks. Couples and families who stop or become unable do so because of an alcohol or drug addiction to often become emotionally stunted and, therefore unable to move forward and achieve the desired outcomes through each stage of family life.
When a family reaches this type of devastating circumstance it often leads to heightened stress debilitating and cripples the channels of communication within the entire family. Social workers and counselors that work with these types of couples and families face an uphill battle to help the family begin to engage in significant conversations and strategies to confront these obstacles faced in achieving developmental tasks and transitioning to the next stage of family development (Ballard, 2012).
Stages of family life are a set of eight stages that track the growth and development of a family throughout its lifespan. Every individual has a certain set of developmental tasks in their lives that must be accomplished in order to move from one stage of development to the next, so too do families. The tasks that exist within a family developmental process are present at each stage of the family life cycle and must be achieved if the family is to continue to grow and matriculate from one stage of the family life cycle to the next (Ballard, 2012).
All families are different and challenges are most certainly not the same in every family and the family of origin experience, until the time at which a child leaves home, it is closely the parent’s responsibility to maintain a healthy nurturing relati...

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...ions, 6(1/2), 1-29. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=23003977&site=ehost-live
Mawson, D. (2005). The meaning and experience of voluntary childless for married couples. Unpublished dissertation, University of British Columbia.
Retrieved from https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/16879
Pelton, S. L., & Hertlein, K. M. (2011). A Proposed Life Cycle for Voluntary Childfree Couples. Journal Of Feminist Family Therapy, 23(1), 39-53. doi:10.1080/08952833.2011.548703. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=58667661&site=ehost-live Staff, Healthwise (Last Revised: January 3, 2013). Family Life Cycle
Medical Review: Anne C. Poinier, MD - Internal Medicine & Kathleen Romito, MD - Family Medicine
Retreived from: http://www.cigna.com/healthwellness/hw/medical-topics/family-life-cycle-ty6171

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