Wednesday, April 4, 2012

The Impact of Stress on Today's Family

Stress is the emotional impact of surrounding events to a person's mind. It is the response of both physical and psychological sensation to the outside world.

In today's family life, stress has become the major source of tension and frustration which leads to conflict in many cases. The traditional extended family structure in eastern society imposes many situations where a family member feels stressed. Parents may get stressed as they have to manage the costs and living of the elders. A child may get stressed due to the limitation of resources in the huge family. A mother may get stressed due to the work load she has to complete. Grandparents may get stressed due to their security problems (financial, health, future). Traditional norms, values and beliefs also cause stress in the family. Its results might be tension, irritation, anger, aggressive feelings, reduced work efficiency, frustration, headache and other health problems.

As the emergence of nuclear family in the society, many new causes and cases of stress have been identified. Misunderstanding between the spouse, growing rate of divorce, little care to children, financial problems, job security, teens problems, unfulfilled sex desire are some of the sources of stress in a nuclear family. Its impact on family members might be health disorders, drug abuse, degrade on performance at school,depression, loss of appetite etc.


Stress in today's family has various adverse effects on its members. It degrades the mental and social development of children along with affecting them physically (health problems). Feeling of loneliness and helplessness may get into a child's mind. It also reduces concentration and memory power of a child. Negative thoughts and attitudes may arise on teens. Parent may get health problems such as sleeping disorder, agitation, tiredness, cardio-vascular problems, hormonal disorders, social isolation, sexual behaviour etc. Besides it, members have decreased efficiency, punctuality, interest and co-operation at their work. A stressed person can't make prompt decision, may involved in bad habits such as gambling, smoking, drinking etc.

How can we manage stress?

Stress is one of the major component that should be taken in to account in a family. A proper management of stress is a must for a good family.

Some of the steps that can be taken to manage stress in today's family are as follows:

1. Parents should show a warm and cordial relationship between them in ront of their children.They should not argue in front of them.

2. All emotional, mental and physical demand (that does not harm children) of a children should be fulfilled by their parents.

3. All elder members of the family should be aware of the family problems such as financial, mutual understanding etc.

4. All members of the family should gather together around same table each day, for eg: at the time of dinner, at discussing problems etc.

5. Regular exercise and meditation would definitely reduce the stress.

6. Watching funny movie, books and other humorous behaviour which facilitate laughing would lessen stress.

Thus the impact of stress on today's family should be reduced to make a healthier and better society.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dhiraj_Bikram_Khadka

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