Intergenerational Family Dynamics Research Articles

A Three-Generation Perspective on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior of School-Aged Children: A Scoping Review

ABSTRACT This scoping review assesses the different roles parents and grandparents play in supporting children’s physical activity and how their roles may interact to create a family climate conducive to physical activity. Systematic searches were conducted in the Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and EBSCO databases, following the PRISMA reporting standards. Selected studies (N = 11) examined the intergenerational influences on children’s physical activity (i.e. the child-parent-grandparent triad). Relevant studies were aimed at physical activity or sedentary behavior within a family context (n = 3); concerned with overweight or obesity (n = 5); discussed anthropometric indicators (n = 2); and presented intervention programs (n = 1). From these studies, it was apparent that children´s physical activity and sedentary behavior are formed through intergenerational family dynamics, with parents and grandparents providing distinct forms of support. However, more research is needed to better define the distinct family roles and processes implicated in the transmission of physical activity habits across generations.

“My children,” “my grandchildren”: Navigating intergenerational ambivalence in grandparent childcare arrangements in Hong Kong

AbstractObjectiveThis study contributes in‐depth knowledge about informal childcare and family processes in East Asian families in Hong Kong in a time of rapid economic and social development. We explore how families negotiate grandparent childcare and how parents and grandparents manage intergenerational tensions and conflict.BackgroundThe common way of understanding intergenerational relationships in childcare is to focus on the positive experience of taking care of grandchildren, but there is limited discussion on the tension and conflicts that also occur between the generations.MethodThis qualitative study is based on in‐depth interviews with 14 parents and 12 grandparents about childcare arrangements for 53 children within East Asian families in Hong Kong.ResultsTensions are found among the parents and grandparents in childcare provision, and considerable negotiation and ongoing emotional management of relationships is required.ConclusionGrandparent childcare is an important resource for many families, but it might not suit all. The issues of autonomy, seniority, power, respect, and different expectations of care are embedded in established family dynamics. Some intergenerational problems are unable to be settled by the family members.ImplicationsGrandparent childcare should be a care option provided for families with young children. However, it should not be a substitute for childcare services and supports outside the home. Professional family services also should be sensitive to intergenerational family dynamics.

‘The past should not affect the children’: intergenerational hauntings in the homes of Indo-European families

This article examines how the traumatic experiences of previous Indo-European or Indische generations shape future generations’ intergenerational family dynamics and practices within home environments. By analysing life story interviews with Indo-Europeans from the first, second and third generation within twenty-one families, we illustrate how intergenerational hauntings are embodied, expressed and negotiated among various generations within home environments. The Indo-European diaspora has multi-generational ‘mixed’ Dutch-Indonesian ancestry and collective memories of the colonial Dutch East Indies, the Japanese occupation of Indonesia during the Second World War, the Indonesian National Revolution, and families’ subsequent repatriation to the Netherlands. Shaped by their alleged success in having silently assimilated in the Netherlands, public narratives often neglect Indo-Europeans’ daily realities and histories. We argue that personal and collective histories of war violence, racialized violence and displacement are deeply ingrained in Indo-European intergenerational and gendered family dynamics and practices in home environments. These intergenerational hauntings are imbued in both presence and absence in the various atmospheres and social and physical spaces of home.

Contributors

Contributors

Fulfilling food practices: Applying the capability approach to ethnographic research in the Northern Netherlands.

Often, food practices are evaluated in terms of their healthiness or lack thereof, but fulfilling food practices based on other values and influenced by family members' capabilities are overlooked. This study analyses food practices in families with low socio-economic status, and aims to explain how family households come to prioritise one food practice over another. We conducted an ethnographic study using the capability approach as an analytical framework. In-depth interviews and observations concerning food patterns and health-related choices with family members from three generations were analysed. Two dimensions of fulfilling food practices which emerged from our study are having a healthy as well as harmonious meal. The families under study tended to prioritise having harmonious meals over having healthy meals, despite the attempts by mothers to serve healthy meals. This choice can be understood from the perspective of capabilities, such as being able to enjoy meals, eating what everybody else eats in the region, avoiding conflicts, creating good relationships with children and serving and organising meals with ease. Within the cultural environment, there prevailed a tendency not to care too much about nutritional outcomes, which also supported the preference for harmonious over healthy meals. In the decision about whether to have a healthy or a harmonious meal, children's agency often outweighed the voices of parents and grandparents. The capability approach helped unravel the complexity of family food practices and the role of intergenerational family dynamics in a setting of low socio-economic status. Acknowledging the multi-dimensional nature of food practices, and including dimensions beyond the food domain, such as harmony at the dinner table, contribute to a better understanding of this complexity. It also helps to shed new light on opportunity deprivation in households, for example in relation to agency, which should be accounted for in health interventions.

Inverse socialization with technology: understanding intergenerational family dynamics

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the inverse consumer socialization processes, differences in technology adoption and changes in extended family dynamics occurring between adult children and their middle-aged and elderly parents when technology is consumed.Design/methodology/approachSix focus groups, segmented into parents (50 to 75 years old) and adult children (18 to 35 years old) and grouped by gender and marital status, were conducted. Research questions examined consumption patterns, technology use, family structure and interactions between parents and adult children when consuming technology.FindingsThis study acknowledges different levels of technology adoption coexisting in extended families between adult children, who act as influencers, and their parents, who model their technology consumption after them. It further reveals a limited inverse consumer socialization process, as parents’ resistance to change hinders them from acquiring from their adult children significant knowledge, skills and attitudes regarding new technologies. This process is complicated by frustrations resulting from the parents’ limited ability to learn new technologies and their children’s lack of knowledge regarding andragogy (the art and science of teaching adult learners). Finally, this study reveals intergenerational alterations in extended family dynamics as aging parents depend on their adult children for their expertise with technology and children gain authority in an asymmetrical, two-way process.Originality/valueThis research reveals important limits in the inverse socialization process into technology between adult children and their parents, with attention to its effects on families and society.

DACAmented Homecomings: A Brief Return to Mexico and the Reshaping of Bounded Solidarity Among Mixed-Status Latinx Families

This study builds on the intergenerational family dynamics literature among mixed legal status families. Through in-depth interviews with beneficiaries of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) who traveled to Mexico and their undocumented parents who stayed in the United States, we uncover how their journey back to their country of birth influenced their roles within their families and the immigrant community. DACA recipients experienced feelings of guilt when traveling back to Mexico and leaving their parents behind, but they adopted a new role of family ambassador and transnational mediator. Through this experience, they developed a greater empathy toward their parents’ sacrifices and reshaped their bounded solidarity with their parents and the immigrant community. As a result, they justify a movement away from personally identifying with the traditional Dreamer narrative.

The Inner Working of Trauma: A Qualitative Assessment of Experiences of Trauma, Intergenerational Family Dynamics, and Psychological Well-Being in Women With HIV in South Carolina.

Women with HIV are more likely to have a history of traumatic and stressful life experiences. The current study examines experiences of traumatic and stressful life events, issues co-occurring with experiences of trauma, and intergenerational family dynamics regarding trauma and psychological well-being in women with HIV. The study was guided by the theoretical approach of an integrative translational model that incorporates trauma-related factors into a psychosocial framework. Data were collected from interviews with 20 women with HIV and analyzed for thematic categories. Thematic analysis indicated that traumatic life events of women with HIV included experiences of loss, sexual assault, and homelessness. Women with HIV also experienced issues co-occurring with trauma, including substance use and mental illness. The current study adds to the existing body of research by including an analysis of intergenerational family dynamics and psychological well-being. Implications for health care professionals and recommendations for translating research into practice are also discussed. [Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services, 57(4), 23-31.].

Essay on Practice: Advising Family Enterprise in the Fourth Decade

Researchers and advisors in the field of family business have focused on a sequence of topics over the 30 years since the first dedicated conferences and the emergence of Family Firm Institute, Inc. (FFI) and family business review. This essay reviews the issues that have received the most attention from family business advisors across this time period (succession, governance, and intergenerational family dynamics). Then the author proposes a particular focus for intervention in the coming decade—family human capital utilization—and discusses four areas of consultation that may be increasingly valuable to client families.

The Influence of Intergenerational Family Dynamics on Suicidal Behavior: Conceptualization, Assessment, and Intervention

Suicidal behavior is often conceptualized as an intrapsychically- determined phenomenon. This article illustrates the value of conceptualizing suicidal behavior from a psychodynamic theoretical perspective that includes a comprehensive understanding and formulation of intergenerational family dynamics, in addition to the individual's intrapsychic determinants, and emphasizes that family therapy, informed by psychoanalytic principles, is an important treatment modality for suicidal patients and their families. A conceptual framework that delineates the psychodynamics of familial transmission of suicidality is presented along with an assessment and intervention protocol.

Narratives of ‘Innocent Irish Childhoods’: Return Migration and Intergenerational Family Dynamics

There is growing recognition of the significance of circular and return migration in contemporary global migration flows. Although many return moves involve adults accompanied by their children, these migrant children are a relatively invisible and under-researched group. In this article I explore the experiences of children who have moved to Ireland with their Irish return-migrant parent(s)—a group who were born and spent part of their childhoods in Britain, the US and elsewhere, and who, as part of the Irish return-migration phenomenon of the late 1990s–2000s, have moved ‘home’ with their parent(s) to a country with which they have strong, yet often ambiguous, ties. Using participative research methods with children and parents in some of these families, I explore the interrelation of notions of childhood, identity and place in the return narratives of both the parents and the children. Irish return migration is often constructed in terms of home-coming and is assumed to involve the unproblematic reinsertion of Irish nationals in their home country. I argue that, related to this, the notion of ‘innocent Irish childhoods’ permeates familial narratives of return migration. Adult return migrants construct their own and their children's migrations around this particular idyllisation. I reflect on the ways in which children in return-migrant families relate to this notion, and may challenge but also reproduce these idealised narratives of return. In this way, I show that involving children as active research participants can highlight internal dynamics in migrant families and challenge hegemonic constructs of return migration.

What does the lord require of us?

Contextual therapy is a heuristic approach to intergenerational family dynamics. This article sets forth the main tenets of that approach and explores the contribution that it makes to the pastoral care and counseling of families. The concept of relational justice, which is a focal point in contextual therapy, is brought into dialogue with the biblical concept of righteousness and the theological concept of justification by faith.