Rethinking discourses of family instability.

Abstract

Recent research suggests that an increasing number of children around the world live with parents who experience serial romantic relationships. Studies of these increasingly common family transitions has focused almost exclusively on the association between “family instability” and elevated levels of stress leading to children’s poorer social, cognitive, and academic outcomes. In this paper we challenge the use of the term “family instability” which pathologizes relational family patterns that have become normative. Specifically, we review evidence from studies of families in transition to discern: (1) children’s individual coping strategies used to deal with their parents’ serial monogamy; (2) external protective processes which improve children’s experiences of these transitions (children’s resilience); and (3) whether family transitions confer possible advantages to children’s psychosocial development. Three case examples will be used to challenge the validity of labeling family transitions as “family instability”. Evidence suggests that there is a need to distinguish aspects of family transitions which cause stress and instability from normative – and potentially beneficial – changes which occur when a child experiences different adult caregivers over time. This shift in discourse may help to advance an applied research agenda that has pertinence to the resilience of modern families.