DIVORCED FAMILIES

               Divorce normally eliminates some of the friction so damaging to the home climate. But unless the family lives in a community where divorce is common, such a rupture in the family pattern is likely to stigmatize all family members in the eyes of the social group.

             

               In most cases of divorce, the care of the children is awarded to the mother, and the damaging effects of living in solo home are compounded by the social stigma of being different and disgraced. Furthermore are usually given visiting privileges by the court when the divorce is granted, children experienced divided loyalties to their parents and develop the feeling of insecurity. They have three or four parents to adjust to, and they feel quite different from peers who have only two parents.

               Divorce often means downwards social mobility for all family members because the income of the family must be divided to support two households. To avoid this or to minimize this impact, many divorced women work outside the home, turn the care of younger children over to a relative or servant, and expect the older children to assume heavier home responsibilities than their peers are expected to assume.

              Variations ion the way family member adjust to divorce are greatly influenced by how much divorce upsets the accustomed patterns of family life, how the children adjust to a stepparents if their natural parents remarry, how old children are when the divorce occurs, how common divorce and stepparents are among families they are associated with, and many other conditions.

             That divorce is damaging to the personalities of many children is evidences by a higher incidence of problem behavior and juvenile delinquency among children of divorce parents. It is also evidenced by their poorer personal and social adjustments, during both childhood and adulthood, in their schoolwork, their vocations, and their marriages. 

                  Among parents, there are also marked differences in the   personality effects of divorce. Some find divorce to be a happy solution to an unpleasant experience, and their personality improved after the friction that led up to the divorce ends. If they remarry and find happiness in their remarriages, this also favors personality improvement. When, on the other hand, divorce lead to a radically changed pattern of life, to loneliness, and to social stigma in a group where divorce is frowned upon, the effect on personality will be damaging.

          

EFFECTS OF DEVIANT FAMILY PATTERNS

             

               In a culture where being different is widely regarded as being inferior, it is not surprising that people feel ashamed and embarrassed if their family patterns differ from those of the people with whom they associate. Among adults, such feelings are a carry-over from their childhood experiences.

           

               No family pattern is “deviant” unless it differs from other families in the group with which the person is identified in some conspicuous way. Divorce and remarriage may be considered deviant in one social group while, in other, they are so common as to be regarded as normal. Similarly’ in one group the majority of mother work outside the home, while in another only one or two mothers do.

               Being different affects people of all age levels, though the effects are greatest in late childhood and early adolescence. A brief discussion of a few deviant family patterns will illustrate what the effects are.

 Solo families- 

                                

                  When one parent is absent, due to death, divorce, desertion, separation, or some other cause, the home becomes a “solo” home, with one parent, usually the mother, playing the role of both parents.

             The solo home may be a source of embarrassment to all family members or it may be a source of pride. If the father’s absence is due to divorce or desertion, it will usually be a source of embarrassment. If he is serving his country overseas in the armed force or is engaged in the occupation that requires frequent and long absences from home, his absence will probably be a source of pride. Members of social group judge the solo home by the same standards as family members, and so their judgments reinforce those of family members.

               Since the child personality pattern is largely molded during the early years of life, the parent’s absence at this time leaves its mark on the child’s personality. When the father is away from home, then the mother tends to be more indulgent and less demanding in her child training. This encourages the child to be dependent and less mature than his age-mates conditions that jeopardize his social relationships and lead to unfavorable social judgments.

               Lacking a source of masculine identification, boys are more likely to be psychologically damaged by the father’s absence from the home than are girls. By comparison with boys from homes where the father is present, boys from solo homes are usually more dependent and less sex appropriate in their behavior. Their poorer personal and social adjustments often lead to aggressive behavior and to poor school work. As a result, they are unfavorably judged by others.

                The personality effect of a solo home is not limited to children. It is felt by parents as well as other family members. The father will have feelings of guilt about neglecting his children, even if supports them. He will be lonely and will envy fathers who can share their children’s lives. And he may be ashamed if he feels that he is unfavorably judged by outsiders.

                 Many wives resent the extra burden of work and responsibility placed on them in a solo home. They are lonely and often try to compensate for their loneliness by attaching themselves emotionally to their elder sons, whom they come to regard as surrogate husbands. Even more common, they are almost always anxious about their ability to play both the mother and father roles successfully. They try to overcome these unfavorable effects, in many cases, by remarriage.

Awareness Of Social Status

                                A B V IIITM GWALIOR ( 30-march-2011)

            " sociempathic ability," the ability to perceive one's own and others' sociometric status, is at the basis of the influence that social acceptance has on personality. It determines the quality of the person's  behavior, his adjustment to social situations, and his social effectiveness.

              Up to the age of 4 or 5 years, the child is not clearly aware of how others feel about him. consequently , he is relatively uninfluenced by the degree of  social acceptance he enjoys . After that age , he gradually becomes aware of how people feel about others and also about him.This awareness he show by such comments as " She doesn't  like me so i don't like her ." In addition , the child begins to recognizes levels of preference . He recognizes that some children are liked better then others, some are disliked, and some are ignores. similarly he realizes that some people like him, some dislike him, and some ignore him.

              Each year as his social horizons broaden and as his opportunities for social contact increases , the young person's sociempathic  ability improves. the accuracy of this ability helps to determine how much and what type of influence the group will  have on him. If he believes, even incorrectly  , that everyone likes him, he will develop a pattern of behavior quite different from that which he would develop  if he believed everyone disliked him.

Importance Of Learning Opportunities

                                       A B V IIITM  GWALIOR MP ( 30-march-2011)


                   A person must have opportunities to learn how to behave in a socially approved way. If his attitudes toward people and social experiences are favorable, he will have the necessary motivation to take advantage of the learning opportunities . But motivation alone is not enough. His learning must be guided and controlled so that he will learn how to behave in a manner that will win social approval and acceptance. To be successful, guidance must help him learn how to get along with people and how to adjust his interests and desires to those of the members of the group with which he is identified. While a child may learn,through trial and error , how to behave in a socially accepted way, he may , before he is finally successful, have to do a lot of learning and unlearning . He may , for example, go through periods of being bossy, a poor sport, or a "crybaby" before he discovers that the methods he is using to make contacts with others are not socially acceptable.

                 Studies show that guidance contributes significantly to socialization. When preschool children play together without adult supervision or without the adults who are present actively seeking to guide them, their relationships are considerably more hostile than when they are supervised and provided guidance in playingf together in a friendly , cooperative way .                                           

                  Since the basis for social contacts outside the home in early childhood is the play group, the child must be accepted by members of the play group if he is to have continued opportunities to learn to be social.Guidance from adult  aids acceptance in many ways.it helps the children to play in a cooperative manner , helps him to acquire skills that make his play more helps him learn to play in a sex-appropriate manner.

                   One of the areas in which guidance can help the child to acquire skill is communication . In any play group, communication is essential  to group belonging . just talking is not enough ; the child must talk about topics that interest his friends and he must talk in a manner that wins their approval . Without guidance , the child may talk almost exclusively about himself, which is boring to other children , or he may constantly boast , ridicule others, or make derogatory comments, which is ego-inflating but irritating to playmates.

Traditional beliefs about bodily effects

There are many traditional beliefs about the influence of facial features, and body functioning on personality. Aristotle claimed that different facial characteristic, such as the color and texture of the skin and hair; the quality of the voice; the condition of the flesh; and the build of the body are related to certain personality characteristics. Facial features, he claimed, are the most accurate bodily indications of personality.

Through the years, the tradition that specific personality characteristics are associated with different body builds grew up. The rotund build, for example, was associated with the good “mixer”- the easy going person who gets along well with people, diplomatic, and lively. By contrast, people with third lankly builds were believed to be moody, introverted, and unsocial. As Shakespeare expressed these traditional beliefs through Caesar:

Let me have men about that are fat, sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o’nights.Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; he thinks too much, such men are dangerous.

Being able to classify people into personality types on the basis of facial features or body builds has a strong popular appeal because it provides an anchorage point for understanding and predicting behavior. As Hilgard has remarked, “if we know what to expect from fat people or from thin people or from red-headed people, then we can size up strangers and prepare ourselves to meet them on their own ground”.

Everyday observation of people reveal that there is a relationship between the body build of a person, his energy level, and his general health condition and the quality of his behavior. This has strengthened the traditional belief that there is a relationship between the body and the personality pattern.

This belief has been further strengthened by evidence from studies of atypical body builds and abnormal body functioning. Studies of the personality patterns of people with some atypical body condition, whether it be in structure or function, have revealed how close the relationship between the body condition and the personality pattern is. Even though present evidence indicates that the relationship is indirect rather than direct----in that the relationship pattern is influenced by social attitudes toward the body defect—the relationship is strong enough to justify the belief that the body plays a role of major importance in personality development.

Personal observation and traditional beliefs about physical structures and functions and theories about how the body influence are as great as Aristotle claimed centuries ago, but that the influence are of a different kind that was formerly recognized. In the following pages of this chapter, the important findings of these studies will be reported, grouped according to kind of body influences.

Effect of physical and psychological self-concepts

Physical self-concepts are usually acquired before psychological self-concepts. The child thus has an image of his physical characteristics before he is aware of his abilities and disabilities, his wants and needs, his roles in life, and his aspirations. In building up his physical self-concepts, however, the child is not emotionally uninvolved. In discussing the physical self-concept, Jersild has stressed that “the body image is not just a photographic impression: in common with all other aspects of the way in which a person views himself, it is likely to be colored by feelings and attitudes”. Emotions also intrude on the development of psychological and self-concepts. In fact, this explains why physical and psychological self-concepts are so persistent and so difficult to change.

Gradually, the physical and psychological self-images fuse. When this happens, usually during late childhood, the feelings and attitudes accompanying the self-images will be fused also. Before the fusion, the young child perceives the physical and psychological aspects of him as quit distinct. Each year, as his intellectual capacities develop and as his experiences broaden, new qualities and new potentials are added to his gradually fusing physical and psychological self-concepts. By late childhood, when the fusion is completed he thinks of himself as one whole and single unit.

The physical self-concept begins to develop when the baby discovers the difference between himself and others. A fairly predictable pattern has been reported for the baby’s self-discovery from looking at himself in a mirror. At the age of 18 weeks, the baby notices himself in the mirror. Between 22 and 23 weeks, he plays with his image as if it were someone else. This has been called the playmate stage of self-discovery. Between the sixth and seventh months, the baby tries to relate his mirror image to himself. This he does by repetitive activity, such as opening and closing his mouth or by moving his hand or foot while observing his mirror image to see if there is a relationship between what he is doing and what he sees. The final stag, called the coy stage. Occurs around the ninth month when the baby seems to derive great pleasure from making faces and then laughing at them. By the time the child is a year old; his behavior shows true self-recognition. This is the basis from which his physical self-concept develops.

That a baby can distinguish himself from others even before he recognizes himself as a person is even before he recognizes himself as a person is apparent in the shyness he shows in the presence of others. Shyness appears first around the age of 6 months and may be accompanied by crying if some one frowns or speaks harshly to the child’s awareness of the difference between himself and others is expressed in negativism and in many other ways.

By comparing the size and shape of his own body with the bodies of other children and by hearing comments about his looks, the young child adds new meaning to his developing physical self-concept. Awareness of sex differences and of the clothing and hair styles associated with members of the two sexes comes around the age of 3 or 4 year. Also at this time, the child begins to identify himself as belonging to a certain ethnic or racial group, basing his identification on such physical characteristics as skin color and hair. By the age of 5 year, he expresses his self-concept in ethnic terms, such as white, black, Italian, or Jewish. When a child has parents of different ethnic backgrounds, he may not be able to identify himself as belonging to specific group.

Physical self-concepts change as bodily changes occur. When bodily changes are slow and relatively minor, as in later childhood ads early adulthood however the individual’s attention is focused in his rapidly changing appearance, and his physical self-concept changes from that of a child to that of an adult or near-adult. The person approaching old age likewise changes his physical self-concept. He may reluctantly give up thinking of himself as an adult in the prime of life and come to see himself as elderly and unattractive.

The psychological self-concept includes the person’s attitudes toward his abilities and disabilities, his special aptitudes, his roles in life, his responsibilities, and his hopes and aspirations. This self-concept develops later than the physical self-concept. Before it can develop, the person must have sufficient reasoning ability to be able to assess his capacities and abilities in terms of socially approved standards and compare him with others.

Social contacts with siblings provide the basis for the individual’s first assessment of his abilities. The child compares himself what he can do and how well he can do it with both younger older siblings. Later, he compares himself with children outside the home. Still later, as an adolescent and as an adult, he compares his abilities with those of his classmates in high school and college, of his coworkers in the business world, and of members of the community with whom he comes in contact in social activities.

Concepts of the roles one is expected to play, of responsibilities, and of aspirations follow much the same pattern of development. They originate in the individual’s relationships with his parents and teachers, and are later molded by contacts with peers, by reading, movies, television, and other forms of mass communication, and by members of the opposite sex for whom the individual has a romantic attachment. As was pointed out earlier, a girl who thinks scientists make bad husbands will encourage her boyfriend not to enter a scientific career. Similarly, men’s aspirations are often influence by the aspirations of their wives.

Effect of Obstacles to Achievement

Many people who are willing and able to work are kept from achieving what they are capable of by obstacles over which they no control. For the most part these obstacles are environmental primarily unfavorable social attitudes based on sex, race religion or age. Women for example, rarely achieve the success they are capable of in are outside of home making. Prejudice against women exists in many occupations and in executive positions in the occupations in which they have been accepted.

Work dissatisfaction which contributes to poor achievement can come from other environmental factors than discrimination and unfavorable social attitudes. Students show that workers dissatisfaction comes mostly from factors peripheral to the job such as work rules, seniority, wages, and fringe benefits.

Academic achievement is often adversely affected by lace of social acceptance. Those who are well accepted perform better than those who are neglected and much better than those who are actually rejected. Poor academic work is common among those who are resentful because they do not receive the social acceptance they crave. Although some students try to compensate for lack of social acceptance by high academic achievement, this is a far less common source of motivate than is social acceptance.

Successful achievement is likewise hampered by subjective or personal factors. Theoretically, these are more easily controlled by the person than the objective or environment factors discussed above. In practice, however, they are so often the result of pressures from significant people- pressures to aspire unrealistically high- that the person is unable to control them. In addition, anxiety stemming form trying to achieve in unfamiliar situation or in situation which are associated with failure in the past militates against good performance even when the person is strongly motivated to achieve.

Poor achievement may come from the person’s unfavorable attitude toward self, from poor health from lack of motivation, and from many other subjective factors. Many people for example, accept the belief that with age they will reach a plateau in their achievements from which them less and less capable. This attitude deprives them of the motivation to work up to their capacities.

Many factors, both objective and subjective, obstruct achievement. When the person knows or suspects that he is capable of achieving more than he actually has, he feels guilty ashamed, and embarrassed if he believes that his lack of success stems from obstacles put in his path by members of social group, he feels resentful and martyred. In either case, his personality will be damaged.

Attitude toward brightness

While attitudes toward brightness are, on the whole, more favorable than attitudes toward dullness, they are by no means uniformly favorable but differ from group to group to group. They differ, for example, from one school to another and from one group within a school to another group. In a school that puts high value on going to college, the attitudes toward bright students will be more favorable than in a school where most of the students take jobs as soon as they graduate. If the popular members of the class put low value on intellectual achievements, the general social attitude toward bright students is likely to be negative.

In the middle and upper socioeconomic groups, brightness is generally more highly valued than in lower socioeconomic groups. Superior intelligence and academic achievement are generally less valued among girls than among boys, and social attitudes toward bright girls are less favorable. As one bright high school girl explained. If you’re taller than the boys, it’s bad enough, but if you’re brighter, it’s fatal.

In general, brightness is more valued in adolescence than in childhood. Recognizing that education and vocational success are closely related and that higher education is limited to those who are bright enough to get into college, most adolescents place a higher value on intelligence than they did earlier. In fact, most adolescents place a higher value on intelligence and intellectual achievement than they are willing to admit. This is evident when they state that academic achievement is one of their major “problems” and when they rate intelligence high as a criterion in choosing a life mate.

Social attitudes are less favorable toward very high intellectual ability than toward moderate brightness. While peers may admire those who are bright, they often regard those who are very bright as “threats”. They feel uncomfortable with the very bright because, by comparison, they themselves feel stupid and dump. Furthermore, acceptance of the cultural belief that high intellectual ability and abnormality go hand in hand makes the peer group suspicious of everything the very bright person says or does.

Knowing that they are considered “different” or strange, the very bright are uneasy about what others think of them. This makes them feel inadequate in social relationships and thus intensifies the popular belief that they really are “strange”. Furthermore, having little in common with their peers, many very bright children and adolescents concentrate their energies on intellectual pursuits. This they do, in part because they find such pursuits more satisfying than the play of their peers and, in part, because they hope to win social acceptance in a peer group where intellectual achievement is highly valued.

As adults, those who are viewed by the social group as “intellectuals” or “eggheads” are aware of the unfavorable cultural stereotype of the unfavorable cultural stereotype of the very intelligent. Some try to disprove the stereotype because they feel socially isolate. Others become intellectual snobs as a form of compensation. This attitude leads them to engage in unsocial behavior, which tends to increase their unfavorable social image.

Effects of frustration on personality

How a person reacts to frustrations influences the judgments of others and in turn the way he judges himself. Furthermore a person’s manner of reaching to frustrations tends to be consistent and so he soon acquires the reputation of being an immature or a mature person.

One of the commonest and earliest-to-appear patterns of reaction to frustration is aggression in which the frustrated person strikes out at an offending person or object, either physically or verbally and with varying degrees of intensity. While most aggression is extra punitive, in the sense that it is directed toward other, some is intro-punitive, or directed toward the person himself. Most often, however, aggression is displaced. Instead of attacking the person or obstacle responsible for the frustration or blaming himself, the aggressive person directs his attack toward an innocent person or group.

Even intense frustration may not be expressed directly or displaced because the channels for expression are blocked by fear of punishment or social disapproval. The frustrated person then withdraws into himself and becomes inactive, inattentive, and apathetic. He gives the impression that he either is indifferent to frustration and lacking in emotional responsiveness or is “weak” or “spineless”.

Some people regress by not “acting their ages” when faced with frustration. They long for the good old days when they felt capable of meeting life’s challenges and were not frustrated by feeling of adequacy. The married woman who feels incapable of meeting the responsibilities of home and family runs home to mother for help. The man, feeling that running home to mother is “childish,” goes to his pals where he can get his gripes off his chest as he did during the gang days of childhood.

Frustration form thwarted drives has long been regard as a precipitating factor in personality maladjustment. But there has not been universal agreement about exactly how the personality is affected because frustrations are not expressed in just one way. Freud placed emphasis on regression to infantile modes of response as the usual reaction to frustration. Jung contended that continual thwarting resulted in a turning inward of the libido or life urge, thus causing the person to become self-centered and reflective rather than overtly expressive characteristic behavior of the extrovert. Adler maintained that thwarting leads to compensation in which the person is motivated to overcome barriers either by overt behavior or by symbolic expression in fantasy. More recently, Lewin has claimed that the person who encounters seemingly insurmountable barriers will insulate himself from his environment by withdrawing into himself and showing the characteristic behavior of the introvert.

These and similar observations of the behavior of people in frustration situation have emphasized two things: first that there are marked individual differences in the way people react to frustration, with has found to fit his needs best, and second, that most patterns of behavior learned in frustrating situations result in maladjusted forms of behavior.

It is important to recognize, however, that frustration does not always lead to maladjustment. Some people try to relive the emotional stress caused by continued frustration by making a rational attack on the problem. If they fail, they will probably resort to the use of defense mechanism. Under such conditions, ,maladjusted behavior develops with its unfavorable effects on personality.

Variations in family influence on personality

There is evidence that family relationships affect the personality patterns of the various members differently. A person who is quiet, introverted, and socially withdrawn is more influenced than is one who is extroverted and socially active. The former tends to brood over any unpleasant relationship, such as friction between parents or between siblings, while the extrovert has enough outside interests to turn his attention to other people when he finds relationships in the home unpleasant.

A person who is in poor health, regardless of age, is more influenced by family relationships than one who is healthy. He is less active socially and thus who is in poor health tends to brood more and to exaggerate if he were feeling better. A sick person may interpret a casual remark as a criticism, for example, while a healthy person would let it pass unnoticed.

Because girls and women spend more time in the home and with family than do boys and men, there is a sex difference in the effect family relationships have on personality. This difference is well illustrated in in-law relationships and grandparent-grandchildren relationships. Wives, it has been reported, are more influenced by their relationship with their mothers-in-law than with their father-in-law. Husbands are less influenced by their relationships with in-law of either sex than are wives.

Age differences in the effect of family relationships on personality are closely related to the amount of time people of different ages spend in the home and with family members. The more time spent in the home, the greater the influence of family members and vice versa.

The influence of different family members on the personality pattern of the individual depends on such conditions as the age of the person at the time, the amount of control a particular family member has over the person, the amount of time spent with the family member, and the emotional tie between the person and the family member.

In most homes, mothers spend more time with their children, have more control over them, and express their affection more overtly than fathers. As a result, mothers exert more influence over the child’s developing personality. A comparison of children from monomatric families, or families where the child is under the exclusive care of the mother, with those from polymatric families, where the care of the child is shared with another female, has revealed that, at the age of 6 months, babies form monomatric families are less irritable and easier to handle. At 1 year, they exhibit personality traits that make them better adjusted, both personality and socially, than babies from polymatric families. They are more active, are more emotionally responsive in their interactions with their mothers, and make social contacts with people outside the home more easily. They show the basic personality traits of well-adjusted people.

The monomatric relationship leaves its mark on the mother’s personality as well as the baby’s. The mother who assumes full care of her baby and continues to do so after the helpless months of babyhood are passed is more understanding and tolerant of childish behavior than is the mother who has shared her maternal duties with another female. She provides a healthier home climate for confident of her ability to perform her maternal role successfully, and this adds to her self-confidence and poise.

The effect of sibling relationships on the personality pattern of the sibling involved of varies according to their age, the control exerted by one sibling over another and the affection that exists between them. Younger siblings are as a rule, more influenced by older siblings than the reverse because the younger tends to hero-worship the older and tries to imitate him. Siblings of them same sex tend to have close emotional ties, while those of the opposite sex often have a frictional relationship because the boy develops a feeling of superiority, which his sister resents.

Of all relatives outside the immediate family, grandchildren and grandparents have the greatest influenced on each other’s personality patterns. Grandmothers have more influence on and are more influenced by grandchildren than grandfathers. Grandmothers and grandchildren spend more time together, grandmother exercise greater control over the grandchildren, and the emotional tie between the two is stronger than that between grandfather and grandchildren.

In summary, then, while it is evident that family relationships have a marked influence on the personality patterns of all family members, the influence is far from equal. That is why, in considering the effects of the family, one must remember that they very according to the kind of relationship that exists and the family members who are involved.

In the remaining sections of this chapter, some of the most important family relationships and the ones that have received the greatest research attention will be discussed. It is believed that this resume of the evidence will support the statement at the beginning of the chapter that family relationships play a role second to none in the development of the self-concept. First, a brief discussion of the effects of the home’s emotional climate on the personalities of family members will serve to emphasize the pervading influence of family relationships.

EMOTIONAL CLIMATE OF THE HOME

While emotional climate of the school has a strong influence on personality, as was discussed. It is much less important than that of the home. First, the individual spends a relatively short time in school as compared with the time spent in the home, and second, the school affects only the child or the adolescent, not the parents, the grandparents, or other relatives.

It is true that the effect of the emotional climate of the school can carry over to the home. But this effect can be counteracted or minimized by the emotional climate of the home, or if the two are similar, they may reinforce each other. On the other hand, the home climate is a prime determinant of the child’s adjustments to school. And the emotional climate of the school can do little to change the effect or the home on his pattern of adjustment.

Effects of home climate on personality

The emotional climate of the home directly influences the person’s characteristic pattern of behavior and his characteristic adjustment to life. If the home climate is favorable, the individual will react to personal problems and frustrations in a calm, philosophical manner and to people in a tolerant, happy, and cooperative way. If the home climate is frictional, he will develop the habit of reacting to family members and outsiders as well in a hostile or antagonistic way.

Indirectly, the home climate influences the person by the effect it has on his attitudes towards people. If the child perceives his mother showing favoritism toward a sibling, he develops an attitude of resentment toward people in positions of authority. Many who become radial nonconformists do so because their resentment of parental authority has developed into resentment against all in authority.

Conditions contributing to a favorable home climate

When family members are capable of empathy or of putting themselves in the psychological shoes of other family members and viewing situations from their frame of reference, they behave in such a way as to make family relationships pleasant and harmonious.

If you can learn a simple trick, scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You’ll never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

When everyone in the family realize how an aged parent feels about having to move into the home of a married daughter and tries to make him feel welcome, for example, harmonious relationships will be possible and the home climate will be far pleasanter than if empathy were lacking.

Empathy is greatly aided by communication between family members. The breakdown in communication between parents and adolescent children contributes heavily to home friction. Many parents face a dilemma when they must choose between allowing their teen-age children to communicate freely and imposing the rule that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.

A good home climate, fostered by communication between family members, is possible when there is respect for the opinions of others. Even if family members disagree, mutual respect helps to reduce friction. Open communication and respect for the opinions of other usually lead to reasonable expectations among family members. When the mother communicates to the members of her family why she needs their help more when she takes a second job and works outside the home as well as in, they show that their expectations for her contribution to family life are reasonable by assuming some of the duties she previously carried. If a person tries to conform to unreasonable expectations, friction is almost inevitable, and certainly tension and discontent will rise.

Among adults, togetherness meets the needs of some family members more than others. The companionship of spouses, children, and relatives is more important for women than men. Adults who come from families with strong traditional religious values, as is true of those of the Catholic and Jewish faiths, stress togetherness more than those of protestant faiths of those whose interest in religion is weak.

Too much togetherness can intrude on the independence of family members and can thus be harmful. While most people believe they are capable of handling more independence than others give them credit for, a reasonable amount of independence keeps them form feeling that they being “bossed” or “regimented”. There would be less friction between mothers and teen-age daughters, for example, if the daughters were given more autonomy in choosing their own clothing. The right clothing means so much to teen-age girls that they often regard lack of independence in this area as no independence at all.

Independence can be carried to the pint where it jeopardizes family stability, however. At any age, to feel secure, one needs stability in his pattern of living and in his relationship with significant people. Especially during the early years of life, a frictional home climate, with constant threats, of disruption due to the divorce or separation of parents, can be so damaging to the personality disorders. All family members are affected adversely, but those who are very young are particularly vulnerable. This matter will be discussed later in the section dealing with deviant families.

Damaging as lack of stability in the pattern of living is to the home climate, lack of stability, or inconsistency, in family expectations is even more so. The child who does not know what is expected of him or the adult who is unsure of the role he is expected to play usually vacillates between one possibility and another. This vacillation, through its influence on family relationships, disrupts the pattern of family living.

Some friction is inevitable in family life. How disagreements are expressed, however, will determine whether the home climate will be favorable or not. The most common ways of expressing disagreements are criticism of the opinions and actions of others, attempts to reform another’s behavior or change his attitudes and beliefs, nagging, ridiculing, and a far less common method discussing different points of view in a calm, rational, and objective way to help others understand them.

There are also a number of ways of trying to solve a disagreement and, thus, ending a conflict having one family member give in for the sake of peace and harmony, and compromising, with each family member modifying his pint of view somewhat after he sees and understands the pints of view of the other members.

Only the last method compromise will lead to a favorable home climate. While a truce or a cooling off period will help temporarily, the friction is almost sure to recur. Giving in to another's demands for the sake of harmony is likely to encourage bullying tactics. The person comes to believe that he can dominate by “making a fuss”. This always leads to deterioration in the home climate.

Criticizing and ridiculing are ego deflation for the person attacked, and he bitterly resents them. In his resentment, he retaliates, and this strains the family relationship, how criticism of a family member affects the home climate is illustrated.

Effect of Excessive Love

Too much love leads to excessive mothering, or over, protectiveness, and is as bad psychologically as too little. As early as the turn of the century, Freud asserted that too much “parental tenderness” accelerates the child’s sexual maturity, awakens a “disposition” for neurotic diseases, spoils the child, and makes him unable to be satisfied with smaller amounts of love in later life. This point of view was echoed by John. Watson, who in the warned that too much mother love was damaging to the child’s personality development.

Later studies demonstrated that babies and young children showered with to much parental young affection developed personality patterns that ill-fitted them to face life alone. During World War II, the long- term effects of excessive mothering became the focus of scientific concern when it was found that more young men were being rejected by the armed services for psychological than for physical reasons. Strecker brought to public attention the damage caused by “momism” and “smother love” when he reported that overprotective mothers turn their sons and daughters into immature, dependent adults.

Further research has justified Strecker’s claims about the psychological damage of too much affection, especially during the early, formative years. The person who is smothered with affection by over demonstrative and over solicitous parents is likely to turn inward because he lacks motivation to express affection for others. Such a person focuses his attention on others, becoming spoiled, selfish, and self-centered. In time, he may rebel against such treatment and begin to rebutff demonstrations of affection, not only from his mother but from anyone else who tries to show affection for him. This leads to a generalized rebellion against authority and a negativistic attitude toward others.

The overmotherd child who does not rebel is likely to become submissive, gullible, conservative, and lacking in aggressiveness, self-confidence, and leadership qualities. He depends on others for attention, affection, approval, and encouragement in everything he undertakes, and he is lonely and unhappy when away from those who supply the affection he craves.

The emotionally dependent person rarely achieves up to capacity. In school, the parent dependent child looks to his teachers for special attention, approval, and affection. If he does not receive it, he does poor work and thus becomes even more dependent on his parents for affection. He also tends to become intellectually rigid and to have difficulty adjusting to new situations and people.

Parents who smother their child with love generally have unrealistically high levels of aspiration for him, and so he develops strong feelings of guilt, inadequacy, and resentment when he falls below their expectations. He may wind up biting his nails, stuttering, blinking his eyes, etc. he generally lacks emotional control, has a low level of frustration tolerance, and is afraid to act his age because of lack of self-confidence.

The firstborn child is more likely to be the victim of excessive mothering than the later-born. And a boy is more likely to be overmothered than a girl. The firstborn child experiences a high-pitched emotional relationship with his mother at first. Normally the intensity of the relationship steadily diminishes as the family grows and as the child him-self begins to assert his natural desire for independence. Excessive mothering is more common in the upper socioeconomic groups and among mothers who have experienced marital adjustment problems or who were deprived of affection in their own childhood.

Cogent and effect of Suicide

It is rare adolescent, who does not, at sometime or other, think of killing himself because he is a “failure” or because he believes world is “unfair” to him. Relatively few adolescents go beyond talking, though some do try to commit suicide, if for no other reason than frighten their parents or teachers in to treating them better in the future.

When threats or suicide attempts occur frequently, they are one of the most serious danger signals of maladjustment. They not only show how self-reject ant the person is but also how hopeless about his life situation. Sometimes suicide attempts are impulsive and sometimes premeditate. Sometimes the person hopes that, by showing other, how great his self rejection is he will get them to help with his problems and will, certainly, get them to treat him more sympathetically.

Suicide is in most cases, a sudden precipitous reaction to stressful situation resulting from frustration, depression, overt or masked or rebellious act against a restraining figure, a loved one. It is intended to frighten and to cause the restraining person to change an attitude or behavior towards the victim. It is often intended as a warning to parents or loved ones as an expression or dissatisfaction or displeasure which existing unpleasant situation and as a plea for improved relationship.

Personality patterns of suicide victims
Clinical studies of people of different ages who commit suicide, who attempt to do so, or who meet their daily problems by talking about suicide reveal that they are strongly self-reject ant. Sometimes this self-reject ant attitude comes from accumulated failures, often failures which they have convinced themselves are due to no fault of their own, and sometimes it comes from the loneliness which results not from environmental isolation but from social isolation.

Regardless of the cause of the self-reject ant attitude, the personality pattern associated with it is characterized by depression and anxiety: by feelings of extreme inadequacy and inferiority; by a belief that the situation is so hopeless that the person is completely helpless to cope with it and is, therefore, a martyr by the belief that he is the victim of prejudice: by the belief that members of the social group consider him “useless” and by marked feelings of guilt and shame which have led to self-contempt. Most people who are suicide-prone have long histories of gloominess, withdrawal, anxiety, and other problems. They have suffered from personality sicknesses which in greater and greater self-rejection.

Danger periods in suicide
There are certain predictable times when suicide and suicide attempts are more likely to occur. These danger periods coincide with those times in the life span when adjustments are especially difficult and when emotional stress is most common. A person who is poorly adjusted finds if particularly difficult to adjust to the problems that are normal for person of his age. When he sees his problems mounting, he becomes increasingly self-reject ant, feeling that he is more of a failure than he was earlier.

Adolescence, with its myriad adjustment problems, is one of the peak danger periods. While the suicidal impulse may have developed earlier, often in later childhood, it is strongest between the ages of 14 and 18 years. This is the most difficult time in the adolescent span for the young person to adjust to his new status and to new social expectations. If he adjusts with reasonable success, suicide-proneness decreases.

For women, another critical period comes at middle age, usually between 45 and 54 years. This is a time when women have many difficult adjustments to make, owing to their role-status change as their children grow up and as they find satisfying employment difficult to obtain. The feeling of uselessness and futility which these adjustment problems give rise to intensify any already-existing maladjustment they may experience.

Men, by contrast, do not reach a critical period until they face the problems that retirement gives rise to, at the age of 65 or later. If, in addition, they suffer from poor health and feel that their days of usefulness are over, they too experience a feeling of futility. This, combined with any existing maladjustment, predisposes them to think of suicide as the best solution to their problems shows the critical periods for suicide and suicide attempts.