Lecture
Family conflicts are one of the most widespread forms of conflict. According to experts, conflicts occur in 80-85% of families, and in the remaining 15-20% quarrels arise over various matters.
The uniqueness of family relationships determines not only the specific ways in which conflicts arise and unfold in the family, but also affects in a particular way the social and mental health of all its members. This topic examines the features of family conflicts, their classification, and other issues that reveal the essence of this complex phenomenon.
Family conflicts are confrontations between family members based on a clash of opposing motives and/or views.
Family conflicts have their own features, which must be taken into account in preventing and resolving such conflicts.
1. First of all, family conflicts differ in their special subject, the specific nature of which is determined by the uniqueness of family relationships. The most important feature of family relationships is that their main content consists both of interpersonal relationships (love, blood kinship) and of legal and moral obligations connected with the performance of the functions of the family: reproductive, educational, household-economic, recreational (mutual help, maintaining health, organizing leisure and rest), communicative and regulatory.
2. Family conflicts also differ in their causes. The most important of these are:
When analyzing the causes of family conflicts, it is important to take into account social factors of the micro- and macro-environment. Factors of the micro-environment include: deterioration of the family's financial situation; excessive workload of one or both spouses; the impossibility of normal employment for the spouses or other family members; a long-term lack of housing; the impossibility of placing children in a childcare institution, etc.
3. The features of family conflicts are manifested in their dynamics, as well as in the forms they take. In general, the dynamics of family conflicts are characterized by the classical stages (emergence of a conflict situation, awareness of the conflict situation, open confrontation, development of open confrontation, resolution of the conflict, and emotional experience of the conflict). But such conflicts are distinguished by heightened emotionality, the speed with which each of the stages passes, the forms of confrontation (reproaches, insults, quarrel, family scandal, breakdown of communication, etc.), and the ways of resolving them (reconciliation, reaching agreement, adjusting the relationship on the basis of mutual concessions, divorce, etc.).
4. An essential feature of family conflicts is also that they can have serious social consequences. They often end tragically. Very often they lead to various illnesses of family members. Family conflicts have particularly severe consequences for children.
The variety of family conflicts is presented in Table 1.
Table 1 Classification of family conflicts
|
No. |
Basis of classification |
Type of conflict |
Main cause |
|
1 |
Parties to the conflict |
Marital conflicts |
The whole range of causes of family conflicts |
|
Conflict between parents and children |
Shortcomings of child-rearing; rigidity of family relationships; age-related crises of children; personal factor |
||
|
Conflict of relatives |
Authoritarian interference of relatives |
||
|
2 |
Source of the conflict |
Value conflicts |
Opposing interests and values |
|
Positional conflicts |
Struggle for leadership in the family. Unmet need of one of the family members for recognition of the significance of the "self" |
||
|
Sexual conflicts |
Psychosexual incompatibility of the spouses |
||
|
Emotional conflicts |
Unmet need for positive emotions (lack of affection, care, attention and understanding from one of the family members) |
||
|
Household-economic conflicts |
Opposing views of the spouses on running the household and on the participation of each of them, as well as of other family members, in this process. The family's difficult financial situation |
||
|
3 |
Behavior of the conflicting parties |
Open conflicts (open conversation in a pointedly correct form; mutual verbal insults; smashing dishes, etc.) |
Individual psychological characteristics of the family members; level of upbringing; content of the cause of the conflict |
|
Positional conflicts (demonstrative silence; sharp gestures and looks expressing disagreement, etc.) |
The causes are the same as in the previous case |
When analyzing family conflicts, especially marital ones, it is important to take into account the crisis periods in the development of the family.
The first crisis period in the development of the family is observed in the first year of married life. During this period the spouses adapt to each other. The probability of divorce in this period is up to 30% of the total number of marriages.
The second crisis period is connected with the appearance of children. The birth of a child is a serious test for many families. The spouses acquire new, difficult duties of caring for the child and raising it. As a result, their opportunities for professional growth and for pursuing their interests are significantly limited. Clashes of views between the spouses and their parents on questions of raising the child are possible. In this period, the wife's fatigue from caring for the child may lead to a temporary disharmony in sexual relations.
The third period of crisis in the family coincides with the middle marital age (10-15 years of life together), which is characterized by satiation with one another and the emergence of a deficit of feelings.
The fourth period of family crisis begins after 18-24 years of married life. The main cause of the family crisis in this period is related to the wife's growing emotional dependence and her worries about her husband's possible infidelity.
Prevention and resolution of family conflicts should be regarded as the main types of activity for managing such conflicts. Often the services of a mediator are used in resolving family conflicts.
The prevention of family conflicts depends on all family members and, above all, on the spouses. It should be borne in mind that some minor family quarrels may have a positive effect, helping to reach agreement on disputed issues and to prevent a larger conflict. But in most cases family conflicts should not be allowed. The main ways of preventing family conflicts depend on the potential parties to the conflict interaction (spouses, parents, children, relatives, etc.). For each specific case, useful advice can be found in the recommended literature. Here we will name only the most general ways of preventing family conflicts, following from the socio-psychological patterns of family development. Such ways are:
Family conflicts can be resolved by reaching agreement on the disputed issues. This is the most favorable way of resolving any family conflict. But there are also other ways of resolving such conflicts that are not constructive. Examples include children leaving the family, deprivation of parental rights, and so on. Such a resolution places a heavy burden on parents or children and causes them severe emotional and psychological distress.
A special form of resolving marital conflicts is divorce. For many people, divorce brings liberation from accumulated problems. But often it satisfies the interests of only one of the parties and causes severe nervous and mental distress for the other. Divorce has particularly negative consequences for children. In addition, one should bear in mind that as a result of divorce society acquires an incomplete family, and this in turn gives rise to crime, drug addiction and other forms of deviant behavior among adolescents.
1. A family conflict is:
2. The causes of family conflicts include:
3. The micro-environment factors that give rise to family conflicts include:
4. The macro-environment factors that give rise to family conflicts include:
5. Value-based family conflicts are:
6. Emotional family conflicts are:
7. Positional family conflicts are:
8. Sexual family conflicts are:
9. How many crisis periods in the development of the family do sociologists identify:
10. The first crisis period of the family occurs:
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