Top 6 common issues facing modern families
Helen Grange speaks to counsellors about resolving the most prevalent problems affecting us and our loved ones
FAMILIES today are under far more strain than in the past.
The tightening economy, fickle job market, unemployment, the uncertainty of South Africa’s future and the increasing stresses on teenagers are all taking a heavy toll on families, often to the point of breaking them up.
This is the experience of counsellors at the Family and Marriage Society of SA (Famsa). Yet the stigma of reaching out for help persists, despite the fact that many family crises could be averted with the assistance of even the briefest intervention.
International Day of Families is on Sunday, so Life identified via two family counsellors the six most prevalent issues facing families today. This in the hope people will seek help where it is needed, and see that reaching out is a strength, not a weakness.
Divorce
Many marriages are heavily burdened due to unemployment, financial pressure and the high cost of living.
“People are so caught up in life and its responsibilities, they don’t put enough time into their relationships at home. All too often it ends in divorce, so divorce mediation in our centre is huge,” says Claudia Abelheim, an educational psychologist and head of youth services at Famsa’s Family Life Centre in Joburg.
In the divorce mediations that the centre offers, the hardest reality divorcing couples face is having to set up two homes and splitting the family. “Sometimes, husband and wife have to continue sharing the same roof, because they can’t afford to live separately,” she says.
Counsellors help to negotiate the best solution for the family going forward, and to make it as easy as possible on the children to adapt.
Abelheim stresses that people need to examine their relationships more closely before taking the leap into marriage, and recommends they make use of the marriage preparation and enrichment services the centre offers.
“Discussions should focus on cultural differences, and expectations around gender roles, money, and how children should be raised, as agreement on these is critical, yet too often overlooked,” she says.
Blended families
Issues invariably arise when two divorced people with children remarry to create a “blended” family.
“For the new family members coming to live in another family’s home, adapting to the new dynamics can be very difficult. There may be resentment – children may resent the new partner taking their mother or father’s place, or the ‘step-mom’, say, is blamed for everything that goes wrong. These ‘blended family’ issues are common, and they create a lot of stress for the whole family,” says Abelheim.
Counselling here focuses on normalising the “new” family, and assuring all members that resentment, jealousy between new siblings, and uncertainty of roles is normal, and that a lot of blended families go through this.
“We help to re-strategise what the ‘new’ family looks like, to unpack each person’s role in the ‘new’ family, while assuring the children that nobody is replacing the role of their mom or dad. When things get clarified like this, it offers a very different perspective and a way forward.”
Teenage anxiety
Counsellors have seen an exponential rise in teenagers coming in, mostly because of high-anxiety levels, says Abelheim.
“Anxiety levels are higher in this generation because of various factors – pressure to perform at school, as getting into university is harder than ever, and living in an online world where they have access to everything at the press of a button, including things they shouldn’t have access to.”
Parents, she says, need to spend more face-to-face time with their children and put limits on screen time. “It’s also important to communicate with your children that today’s stresses do pass, and that the glamour and ‘good stuff ’ on social media isn’t the real world, for anybody,” she says.
Depending on the dynamics within the family, counsellors may chat to the parents as well. “It’s amazing how a third party can offer clarity to both a parent and their anxious teen,” says Abelheim.
Addiction
Addiction to alcohol or drugs comes up often in family counselling sessions, and can have a devastating effect on families, says Abelheim.
“An addict in the family means inconsistent parenting, where children are subjected to an unpredictable cycle of expectation, then disappointment. This push-and-pull dynamic, where children don’t know what will illicit a loving response or an angry one, invariably has a very damaging effect on all family members,” says Abelheim.
While Famsa clinics nationwide don’t counsel addicts, they do assist family members affected, by educating them about the disease of addiction, looking at how to separate the “addict” from the parent, to provide perspective.
“Every situation is different. Every now and then a family is so badly affected that there is the prospect of recommending the child be removed, but this is a drastic measure that is difficult to reverse,” says Abelheim.
Uninvolved fathers
Fathers who detach themselves from their families are commonly seen in Famsa’s satellite clinics, in communities where, ironically, the higher the unemployment rate, the more men tend to abdicate their family responsibilities.
“Women can manage to get jobs as domestic workers, so they are often the only breadwinners raising their families. For men without jobs, there is the problem of ego and the inability to head the household, so instead they choose to take a back seat or cut off from the family,” says Kolobe Mufhi, a Famsa councellor.
The good news is that Famsa has conducted a number of training programmes, focused on how fathers can play a role in their families, and why they need to. “There has been a marked improvement,” says Mufhi. “Fathers are starting to participate in our groups, and today we have 80 men attending our workshops about fathers and parenting. Even maintenance cases are less.”
Overburdened grandparents
A common phenomenon, again due to financial stresses and unemployment, is that the elderly are often required to do a second round of parenting and raising children, which compromises their own health and well-being.
“Some of our elderly have had to foster their grandchildren because of parents not working and not able to support their children. It’s expected that even if the grandparents go hungry, the children must be cared for. While admirable, these sacrifices mean that many of our elderly are eating unhealthily when they should be enjoying their retirement years,” says Mufhi.
To redress this, Famsa offers workshops for the elderly, looking at healthy diets, encouraging hobbies like sewing, and there are also exercise classes they can attend.
Resources
Famsa, with its head office in Bowden Road, Observatory, provides counselling, education, training and social development programmes. It has satellite offices in Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain, Factreton, Elsies River and Dunoon.
For more info, visit www.famsa.org. za or call 021 447 7951.