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10 - Family Subsystems and Children's Self-Regulation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2009

By
Brenda L. Volling ,
Amy M. Kolak  and
Alysia Y. Blandon
Edited by
Sheryl L. Olson  and
Arnold J. Sameroff
Sheryl L. Olson
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Arnold J. Sameroff
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
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Summary

The family context plays a critical role in the early development of both normative and psychopathological outcomes (Cummings, Davies, & Campbell, 2000). Parents can be sensitive to their child's needs and express warmth in their interactions, or they can engage in intrusive, rejecting behavior that undermines the child's well-being. Similarly, married couples can communicate effectively, engage in mutual problem solving, and enjoy humorous exchanges, or they can get embroiled in coercive cycles of escalating conflict that can easily end with domestic violence. Fathers may be involved or psychologically unavailable. As these examples attest, the family is composed of a number of family subsystems (e.g., mother-child, marital, father-child, sibling) that can affect the development of children's self-regulation. The interplay among these different subsystems can alter developmental trajectories depending on whether family relationships act as risk or protective factors. For instance, the adverse consequences of marital conflict (a risk) may be buffered or dampened if the child has a close and supportive relationship with one parent in the family (a protective factor). In a two-parent family, the mother-child and father-child relationships can be concordant (both warm and sensitive) or discordant (one warm, one rejecting), and these differences within concordant and discordant families have consequences for the children involved.

The goal of this chapter is to discuss the development of young children's self-regulation in the context of multiple family subsystems.

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Chapter
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Biopsychosocial Regulatory Processes in the Development of Childhood Behavioral Problems , pp. 238 - 257
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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