Family Life Education for Families Facing Acute Stress: Best Practices and Recommendations

Abstract

Acute family stress in this article is defined as the sudden or unexpected onset of moderate to severe discomfort or disequilibrium and feeling of inadequacy among family members in light of perceived insufficient available resources. Historically, there has been some ambivalence about stress—especially acute stress—and family life education. More recently, authors have suggested that the important issue determining appropriateness is not the topic but the approach used by the professionals. Several approaches are presented here that have been used by professionals to help children and families dealing with acute stress. They include care for self, identify acute stress, support caregivers and central figures in social networks, help families understand stress and coping, help adults talk with children, connect families with the familiar, collaborate with other professionals, and advocate for families.

Historically Underrepresented Graduate Students' Experiences During theCOVID‐19 Pandemic

“…Similar to the research on the supports needed for racial and ethnic minoritized STEM students' persistence, Myers‐Walls (2020) stated that important considerations for people during times of acute stress, as would be experienced in this pandemic, include identifying acute stress; having supportive social networks; understanding stress and coping; having a sense of safety, calming, connectedness, hope, and connections with the familiar; having advocates for families; and collaborating with other professionals. To be most effective, such supports must derive from a multitude of systems.…”

“…Acute stress has been defined as “the sudden or unexpected onset of moderate to severe discomfort or disequilibrium” (Myers‐Walls, 2020, p. 663). Although by definition it would seem that acute stress would have only a negative impact, one study completed in Spain compared students' test scores and grades from 2019 to 2020 with surprising results.…”

Meaning of the family and family communication — Experiences of Hikikomoris

“…Frameworks that address stress, coping and resilience might be useful to increase family members' knowledge and help them build skills required in supporting each other. [75] This is not to say that individual therapy interventions or peer support are not required.…”

Best Practices in Family Life Education Programming for Midlife and Older Adults

“…Today, multiple disciplines are represented in FLE, including family science, sociology, psychology, history, health sciences, counseling, biology, anthropology, medicine, social work, economics, and law. Topical areas of interest have also expanded to include marriage and relationship education (Adler‐Baeder & Higginbotham, 2020; Stanley et al, 2020), financial and time management (Dew et al, 2020), stress reduction (Mancini et al, 2020; Myers‐Walls, 2020), as well as emotion regulation, anger management, conflict resolution, and communication (e.g., Bredehoft, 2009; Schramm & Becher, 2020). In its most recent iteration, the Framework for Life Span Family Life Education (Bredehoft & Walcheski, 2011) outlines nine content areas of FLE with suggestions for key curricular concepts and topics in the content areas for the childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and later adulthood life stages.…”