The Family Journal

The purpose of this exploratory study was to understand how parents experience their child's autism spectrum disorder diagnosis and highlight opportunities for marriage and family therapists (MFTs) to apply their specific training and expertise to support these families. A thematic analysis was performed on data collected during the parents’ initial assessment to better understand the components of their experience. Four major themes emerged from the analysis: understanding, acceptance, coping, and emotion. Many subthemes were also identified across these major themes and while the majority of parents revealed positive experiences, a portion of parents expressed challenges with the diagnosis. Marriage and family therapists are equipped with specific training and expertise which can help identify difficulties in the diagnostic experience, help families improve their well-being through building resilience, and create a healthy environment for the treatment journey ahead in the context of individual, couples, or family therapy. We present recommendations for MFTs working with families with autistic children.

In order to enhance access to treatment and outcomes, it is imperative that counselors and therapists be aware of and confident in adapting their techniques in line with the needs of neurodiverse individuals. Specifically, an understanding of the current experience and confidence in working with neurodiverse individuals on the part of licensed counselors is a crucial starting point in the path towards ensuring these individuals receive proper socio-psychological help and appropriate and competent services. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the experiences of licensed counselors and other licensed mental health providers who work with neurodiverse adults. Many neurodiverse individuals never receive therapy due to the lack of trained professionals and limited training in professional counseling and other mental health support services specific to neurodiverse adult relationships. Findings from an instrumental case study to investigate experiential data derived from individual open-ended interviews with licensed counselors and other licensed mental health providers are presented herein.

Objective: This literature review focuses on Counselor Education and Supervision of female doctoral students. Issues of access and medical care coverage will be examined to give insight into the form of care that is available. Background: Previous literature has documented that age is the biggest predictor of fertility success. Females are disproportionately affected by infertility, especially women obtaining advanced degrees. Methods: An extensive review of the literature was conducted, and clinical implications were derived. Results: Students’ needs and goals are the links between education and realizing reproductive aims. Counselors are often initial resources for information and referrals and are well-positioned to impact clients. Conclusion: Therefore, it is important for counselors to understand the disparity in access to fertility care to help clients overcome barriers to care and advocate for change.

Belief systems guide an individual's perceptions, behaviors, and interactions. Understanding an individual's belief systems can be beneficial in assessment, treatment planning, and service delivery. Belief system development is impacted by different factors, including the belief systems held by an individual's family-of-origin. At this time, there is not an available theory or instrument that identifies the components and characteristics that are included within family belief systems. To fill this current gap, we developed a typology of family belief systems and an associated illustrative figure labeled as The Family Belief Systems Wheel. The proposed typology is presented followed by discussion of the practical applications for the field.

Parenting is a process made up of approaches, styles, and daily choices. Parents are often unaware of how much their parenting style can impact the choices they make each day related to parenting their children. This grounded theory study explored how parents’ self-awareness of their parenting styles influences parenting choices in a sample of parents with children ages birth-11. Seven main themes emerged from this study: (a) the role of comparison and impact of social media, (b) parents do the best they can based on what they have learned and experienced, (c) promoting mental health and wellbeing in what is typically an autopilot experience, (d) parenting is hard, and it can be lonely, (e) navigating the impact of childhood experiences, (f) pressure to be perfect; not enough time to get it all right, and (g) intentionality through self-awareness and reflection. Upon further reflection on the themes, the following theory emerged: Parenting is hard, and it can be a lonely journey. Parents do the best they can based on their experiences and comparing to others. However, when invited to reflect on their parenting choices, parents are more intentional through self-awareness and promoting their mental health and wellbeing. This study's findings offer implications for counselor education as they underscore the need for CACREP (2016) to implement a formal standard to guide counselor training programs to offer instruction relating to parenting styles.

From the lens of Bowen's systemic family theory, this study employed the actor–partner interdependence model (APIM) to investigate the mediating effect fear of intimacy has on the association between self-differentiating and both partners’ relationship satisfaction. One hundred and forty-four non-clinical married couples (N = 288) in enduring relationships were recruited. Results for actor effects revealed two mediating paths whereby, among both partners, self-differentiation was associated with their relationship satisfaction via fear of intimacy. Partner effect revealed that wives’ higher self-differentiation was associated with their lower fear of intimacy, which was linked, in turn, to husbands’ higher relationship satisfaction; unlike husbands’ fear of intimacy, which had no effect. Our results support Bowen's theoretical assumptions positing that self-differentiation indicates the ability for intimacy, which affects couple relationship satisfaction. Interestingly, the results highlight the role of the wives’ capability to establish intimate relationships on the husbands’ relationship satisfaction.

Trauma and trauma-informed care are crucial components for family counselors to know. Considering the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the counseling field is reinforced with this continued need to address trauma. This article will provide an overview of how trauma impacts the adolescent brain, how personality is shaped by trauma, and how integration of neuro-informed and trauma-informed family counseling can help young clients and their families. For practical purposes, this documentation will feature a hypothetical client with the pseudonym “Noah,” to further apply neuro-informed and trauma-informed family counseling for readers.

Nothing is more devastating to a family than the death of their child. A sudden death due to a violent crime such as murder including school shootings can be life-shattering. According to socially prescribed and predictable scripts, children are supposed to outlive their parents. When a child dies before the parent, the blueprint for one's life journey is backwards, leaving no prescribed plan to guide the family through life. When the death occurs as a result of murder, it is even more devastating. This article explores this backward script of a child dying before his or her parents because of murder and the resulting journey the family faces. It first examines the incidences of murdered children and then explores some possible barriers to the healing process. Next, the concept of scripts is explored, exploring different death scripts. The effect of a murdered child on the marital role, the parental role, and siblings is also presented. Psychological reactions are discussed and counseling considerations are presented. Counseling implications are considered throughout. This journey is demonstrated through the experiences of Cameron's family, Cameron was a 16-year-old adolescent who was murdered. This case history is fictitious and was developed to illustrate points in the paper. It is in no way related to any individual or family.

The rapid transition to virtual learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic created unprecedented challenges that significantly impacted caregivers of young children, particularly those with developmental delays and children from non-English speaking households (Valicenti-McDermott et al., 2022). The current study aims to describe caregivers’ concerns regarding the COVID-19 pandemic in general and specific educational concerns following school closures, and to determine whether their concerns varied as a function of whether the child had a developmental delay or the parent's ethnicity. Results revealed that caregivers of children with DD endorsed a greater number of general and education-specific COVID-19 concerns compared to caregivers of TD children, and non-Latinx caregivers of children with DD reported more general COVID-19 concerns compared to Latinx caregivers of children with DD. With respect to education-specific concerns, caregivers of children with DD reported a greater impact from the loss and/or delay of services and reported feeling significantly less capable of conducting educational activities in the home compared to caregivers of TD children. However, almost all caregivers in the study endorsed some level of stress from remote instruction. These findings suggest there is a specific need for attention to caregiver mental health and an examination of long-term educational outcomes resulting from extended school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Stress among parents has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research prior to the pandemic indicates that parents of children who struggle with emotion regulation (ER) and who themselves are less mindful report more stress and diminished coping abilities. We know little, however, about these associations in the context of COVID-19. To prevent COVID-related deteriorations in parent well-being and child outcomes and to support parents during this potentially challenging time, it is important to understand the factors that are associated with increased stress as well as adaptive coping. This paper discusses the association between children's ER, mindful parenting (MP), parent stress, and parents’ coping with parenting during the pandemic in a sample of 217 caregivers of school-aged children (91.0% mothers). Results indicated that children's ER was associated with parents’ self-reported coping with parenting in the pandemic but was not associated with increased stress. Further, MP moderated the association between children's ER and coping, such that parents who were the most mindful and had children with better ER skills reported significantly greater ability to cope with pandemic parenting. Coping was lower for other combinations of ER and mindful parenting. These findings contradict those from before COVID, suggesting the relationship between children's ER and parent outcomes may differ in the COVID-19 context, and offering insights into which parents may be most likely to struggle with coping with pandemic parenting.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about many changes in family routines and introduced new stressors for parents. While stressors can lead to parental burnout, coparenting support may mitigate the effects of parental stress on parental burnout. The current study explored the effects of parental stress, COVID-19 stress, and coparenting support on parental burnout during the second year of the pandemic. Participants consisted of one hundred fifty-five parents in the USA (M = 39.6, SD = 7.38; female = 94.8%). Results suggested parental stress was positively associated with parental burnout while coparenting support was negatively associated with parental burnout. These findings highlight the importance of addressing parental stress and support to minimize the risk of parental burnout.

Resilience, or the ability to bounce back despite facing adversities, may influence parents’ abilities to handle the multitude of parent-specific COVID-19-related challenges that have faced them. This cross-sectional study examined (1) the relationship between parents’ resilience and their COVID-19-related family stressors; (2) parents’ perceptions of their greatest stressors throughout the pandemic; and (3) non-school-related challenges and their resultant impact on parents’ and children's resilience. Via an online survey, data was collected from 63 parents (M_age = 37.09; 82.54% female). A significant relationship was found between parents’ resilience and both their COVID-19-related stressors and family stressors. Parents described stressors challenging their resilience, including impacts on their mental health, managing occupational and educational responsibilities, social isolation, and economic setbacks, while also noting the impacts of social isolation, missing extracurricular activities, and lacking routines for their children. Overall, Ontario parents high in resilience are likely better positioned to adapt to pandemic-related stressors.

Despite an increasing interest in how adoptive parents deal with situations appraised as stressful, there is a lack of research regarding adoptive parents’ adjustment to the challenges posed by the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic. The current study explores similarities and differences between adoptive and non-adoptive mothers in terms of risks (i.e., COVID-19-related stress) and individual (i.e., sense of coherence [SOC]), couple (i.e., partner's support), parent–child (i.e., parent–child relationship satisfaction), and social (i.e., friends’ support) resources in the face of the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the present study was aimed at predicting which variables discriminate more effectively between the two groups. Participants were 445 Italian mothers (40.9% adoptive mothers), who were asked to fill in an anonymous online survey between May 2021 and October 2021. Results showed that adoptive and non-adoptive mothers reported different resilience resources to face the stressors posed by the health emergency. Specifically, COVID-19 traumatic stress symptoms, parent–child relationship satisfaction, and SOC were found to contribute most in discriminating between the two groups. Findings are discussed in relation to future research developments and practical implications.

Stress is inherent to romantic relationships. Current relationship scales measure individual stress, relationship conflict, and relationship happiness. However, no known empirically supported scale exists that comprehensively measures romantic relationship stress. We reviewed the extant theory, empirical findings, and measures within the broad category of relationship stress. Using this information, we created the Romantic Relationship Stress Scale (RRSS)—a three-part, 29-item measure. We administered the measure to married individuals (N = 296) in either a proximal or long-distance relationship, in the context of a larger study. An exploratory factor analysis was performed on RRSS responses, using principal axis factoring with an oblique rotation. A three-factor solution was derived, representing the factors of relational negativity, stressful relationship events, and relational positivity. These factors explained 67.7% of the variance in RRSS responses, and were correlated in the expected directions. The overall scale alpha was 0.93, and subscale alphas ranged from 0.65–0.91. The RRSS demonstrated convergent validity; scores were positively correlated to scores on a widely used measure of individual stress. The RRSS discriminated between those in proximal versus long-distance relationships. Overall, the RRSS appears to be psychometrically sound, and can be considered for use in both research and clinical settings.

Eighteen lesbian, gay, and transgender partners (gender, romantic, and sexual minority, acronym GRSM, for this article) responded to two questions about their experience with the Marriage Checkup (MC): (1) the helpfulness of the checkup and (2) what they would like added to the checkup. Participants included six lesbians, six gay males, and six individuals in relationships where at least one partner identified as gender diverse. On the helpfulness of the checkup, the Likert scale offered three choices: helpful, a mix of helpful and not helpful, and not helpful. Of 18 participants, 17 chose “helpful.” One participant chose “a mix of helpful and not helpful.” Regarding what to add to the MC topics, top responses were “defining and managing roles,” “coping with discrimination and prejudice,” and “handling relationship disclosures.” In responses to open-ended questions, participants explored both topics in more depth. Two topics emerged to add to the MC: aging and adding additional time.

There are only a few instruments that assess for parentification in adults and even fewer that examine current levels of parentification among adolescents. The original Parentification Inventory (PI; Hooper, 2009) was developed to assess for parentification—a family caregiving process abdicated by adults to children—among adults in the United States. The current study evaluated the psychometric properties of an adapted version of the PI scores for its use in Polish-speaking adolescents (N = 272). The results of the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the current PI holds its original three-factor structure among the current sample and thus supports its use in Polish adolescents.

This study was conducted to test for method bias stemming from mixing positively and negatively worded items in a widely used measure of family functioning, the Systemic Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (SCORE). Data were collected from a community sample of 377 U.S. adults with children in the household, with 32% reporting greater family difficulties than a clinical pre-therapy average and 66% reporting greater difficulties than a clinical post-therapy average. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were performed to test two models: Model 1, a unidimensional model in which items represented a single theoretical construct and Model 2, a multidimensional model in which items represented a method dimension (i.e., positively worded or negatively worded) as well as an underlying theoretical construct. Fit indices showed that Model 2 fit the data better than Model 1 for all dimensions tested, suggesting that method bias had detrimental effects on the factor structure of dimensions of the SCORE.

Family functioning (FF) is one of the crucial family factors investigated by researchers; however, the FF studies in Malaysia are still at an early stage compared to those in Western countries. To develop studies in FF, a systematic review is done to understand the measurement of FF in Malaysia. A systematic search of literature published between 2011 and 2020 was conducted in several international and local databases. A total of 31 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in this review. Through this review, eight FF scales, most of which were developed based on the Western culture and two newly developed scales that have not been used/validated elsewhere have been identified. This review also highlights that the most widely used FF scale in Malaysia is the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale. From the Malaysian context, as the first FF scale in Malaysia, the Malaysian Family Functioning Scale stands out as the most suitable FF scale for measuring FF among Malaysians. In addition, issues surrounding the FF measurement, for example, the weaknesses found in Western FF scales when used in a non-Western context and the need for adolescent-specific FF are also discussed with recommendations for future research in this area.

The Walsh Family Resilience Questionnaire (WFRQ; Walsh, 2016) attempted to operationalize family resilience in three domains: belief systems, organization patterns, and communication/problem-solving. However, neither the reliability nor validity of the questionnaire has been established. This study examined the WFRQ among 603 adults from a community-based sample with a focus on (1) descriptive statistics and (2) factor structure. Preliminary results suggest that most WFRQ items are suitable for measuring family resilience. Findings also suggested that there are two additional domains that may comprise family resilience. Recommendations for future evaluation and use of the WFRQ are provided.