Family Crisis and Coping Skills

            There are many life events that put families’ relationships and systems under stress, things such as secrets, distrust, blending families, the death of loved ones, financial uncertainty, different faiths in the household, and other resentments, thus becoming a crisis. A single case may not be enough to apply a consequential amount of stress in a family for it to be considered a real problematic matter, but the sum of every said condition does. In other words, when a family is already under certain daily stresses, a single event has the potential to completely tip its balance. Knowing what is already going on in a household assists in determining how the family responds to a crisis. However, the most effective way to deal with difficult family matters is to have, or use, good coping skills.

Crises are equal to the family management of stress plus their definition of said events along with their resources, and responses. However, many families in crisis are usually already dealing with multiple strains before a more brunt force is added to the equation. Pauline Boss, educator, Ph.D., and researcher, asserted that these multiple variables ultimately become too strong, more than what many families can handle. As a result, the entire relationship of the household members can change drastically.

Koos's “profile of troubles” sheds more light on how Boss’ theory explains why there are different end results of a crisis for a family. He graphically represented the idea of how family relationships are affected by these events in the long run. He focused on how families tend to either resist, worsen, improve, or partially to fully recover from crises. Therefore, the key to which of these five possible alternate end results depends on the stress-coping skills of individuals and the family as a whole.

Good communication is one of the keys. Being able to fully express feelings and thoughts will unlock the possibility of outside help to come in. Optimally, the people involved in this method will be the wedded couple and their kids, but other people can also help if they fully understand the situation, like professional family therapists. Fostering problem-solving and conflict management results in accordance. Thus, husbands and wives will have a tendency to work together on things, rather they are about good or bad things. Early financial management will also be a great tool because many life problems worldwide are more easily solved with good monetary stewardship. Avoiding financial worries will also alleviate some pressure from the total stress.

Events have a direct relationship with a person’s thoughts about them, which then have a direct relationship to the emotions concerning them. One thing leads to another, eventually leading to certain patterns of behavior. One family may define a stressor differently than another one. As a result, it leads to different responses. In better words, perception becomes another key to positively managing crises. Koos's graphical theory explains that for a certain period of time, every relationship quality and satisfaction falls during crises, but the recovery point is where there are many variants. Hence, there will always be many inevitable hardships for families to deal with throughout the years. However, being able to use challenges in a way that will improve the family relationship is the best possible outcome.

In short, crises can always be dealt with, if family members are able to use good coping methods. Avoiding twisted thinking such as overgeneralization and the negative effects of magnification can lead to better behaviors like clear communication and accordance, and family unity through any bad times. Substantially, controlling one’s thoughts and emotions towards an event results in better behavior to deal with the problem.