is attentive, empathic, and reads the infant’s cues accurately. Sensitive parents also avoid high intrusiveness and are emotionally responsive to infants (Solomon & George, 2008).
The birth of an infant often abruptly disrupts the routine patterns of parents in ways requiring concentrated attention to the needs of the newborn (Epifanio et al., 2015). Parents experience sleep disturbances because newborns often wake up every few hours for feeding. Because new mothers often leave the workplace, families with newborns can experience decreases in income, which may increase the stress of fathers as they take second jobs or work more hours to supplement family finances (Medina et al., 2009). The decreased time and energy experienced by marital partners often results in decreased marital satisfaction, less mutual expressions of love, and greater conflict between spouses (Lawrence et al., 2008). How parents manage these potential sources of stress may depend on how well they maintain marital relationships and successful co-parenting (or establish a parental alliance). High-quality marital relationships are predictive of effective co-parenting where parents work together to support each other’s parenting with competence (Bouchard, 2014). Competent parenting involves providing support, resolving child-rearing disagreements, dividing family duties fairly, and managing interaction patterns. Co-parenting involves providing mutual social support and helps reduce stress while increasing parents’ abilities to respond to infants with sensitivity (Schoppe-Sullivan & Mangelsdorf, 2013). Co-parenting also involves being responsive to infants, maintaining couple satisfaction, and diminishing parental stress (McHale & Lindahl, 2011).
Another example of a developmental transition occurs during the adolescent years, when greater stress may be experienced by parents when their role is expected to change toward granting autonomy to the young (Collins & Steinberg, 2006; Kagitcibasi, 2013; Liga et al., 2015). Consistent with normative expectations, parents in the United States often grant autonomy through a gradual process of relationship renegotiation that allows adolescents greater self-determination (Bush & Peterson 2008; Collins & Steinberg, 2006; Kagitcibasi, 2013; Peterson & Bush, 2015). This process of “letting go” in western cultures is not a sudden transfer of authority to the young. Instead, competent parents and developing teenagers engage in renegotiation processes that are necessary, mutual, and accelerate during adolescence (Collins & Steinberg, 2006; Kagitcibasi, 2013; Peterson & Bush, 2013). This letting-go process presents potential stressors, especially when parents resist granting autonomy to the young and resist the need to redefine gradually their roles as authority figures. This effort to delay youthful autonomy may erupt into heightened conflict and stress between adolescents and parents (Bush & Peterson, 2008; Collins & Steinberg, 2006; Peterson & Bush, 2015). Consequently, this desire of adolescents for greater autonomy may result in feelings of distress and separation anxiety by parents who resist this loss of control (Collins & Steinberg, 2006; Liga et al, 2015). Moderate levels of parent–adolescent conflict and distress may be normative energizers for growing autonomy. In contrast, parent–adolescent conflict that escalates to very high levels may lead to greater emotional distance, severe conflict, and greater stress for parents when the autonomy-granting process malfunctions (Collins & Steinberg, 2006; Peterson & Bush, 2015). Many families also experience multiple developmental transitions simultaneously, such as when Tiffany gave birth to Pamela, she was also going through the complexities of Matt’s transition into adolescence.
Nonnormative Stressors
Parents also face stressor events that are nonnormative through unpredictable occurrences that substantially disrupt the everyday pattern of parent–child relationships (Allen, 2017; Hill, 1949; see Chapter 1). Nonnormative stressor events are often sudden, dramatic occurrences that have high potential of disrupting the lives of parents and family members. Most often, these stressors are products of unique situations that are unlikely to be repeated very often. Examples include a natural disaster (e.g., Tiffany’s flood, hurricanes, tornados); the sudden death of a child; a sudden, disabling injury to a family member; or winning the state lottery. All are unexpected and have the potential to disrupt family relationships and require structural changes that can lead to greater stress for parents (Allen, 2017; Hill, 1949; see Chapter 1). These events, however, are not inherently stressful in exactly the same way for all parents. Instead, nonnormative stressors vary in their disruptive qualities depending upon the parents’ subjective interpretations and the resources (or vulnerabilities) they have available.
Off-Time Developments
People generally anticipate that certain life circumstances, such as retirement, the death of an elderly family member, and the advent of grandparenthood, will occur as part of normal family transitions at expected times of the life course (Boss, 2002; Hennon et al., 2009; Hennon & Peterson, 2007). However, when normal events occur at unanticipated times, they can become sources of disruptive distress for parents. For example, during children’s school-age years, the death of a parent or the death of a child is an off-time event and often is very traumatic for surviving parents and other family members (Murray et al., 2010). In similar fashion, parents often experience considerable upheaval and stress when learning about their teenage daughter’s pregnancy, the stigma she may face, how becoming a parent prematurely will disrupt her life, and the assumption of grandparenthood earlier than a parent expected. The premature transition of a young daughter into parenting roles also places her at risk for problems due to inexperience, maternal depression, and considerable parental stress. High levels of maternal depression, anxiety and stress can reduce the responsiveness of young mothers to infants and may have negative consequences for the development of young children (Devereux et al., 2009; Huang et al., 2014).
Initial Awareness or Diagnosis
Another type of nonnormative stressor for parents may result from acute situations involving the initial awareness or diagnosis of unexpected circumstances and deviant or abnormal child characteristics. Examples include initial awareness of delinquency, conduct disorders, attention deficit behavior, autism, physical illness, poor mental health, and birth defects (Ambert, 1997; Ben-Sasson, Soto, Martínez-Pedraza, & Carter 2013, Hennon & Peterson, 2007; Lambek et al., 2014; Ryan et al., 2007; Vernhet et al., 2019). The initial diagnosis that Pamela has autism, for example, was defined by Tiffany as an acute stressor that disrupted her life and the lives of her family members. Likewise, parents have greater tendencies to experience acute stress or crisis when their son phones home from jail stating that he has been arrested for shoplifting. When parents are initially confronted with their child’s delinquency or externalizing behavior, they often experience distress, worry, and feelings of great concern (Ambert, 1997, 1999; Caldwell, Horne, Davidson, & Quinn, 2007; Gavazzi, 2011; Mackler et al., 2015).
Chronic Stressors
Over time, as parents continue to be challenged by nonnormative stressors, these sudden, disruptive events may become converted into more moderate, chronic stressors as parents become more accustomed (or adapted) to these challenges. Chronic stressors are atypical circumstances that may be initiated by either the characteristics of children and youth or by other circumstances in the social environment. Stressors that are chronic continue over extended periods of time are difficult to amend and can accumulate.
Chronic Stressors From the Social Environment
Some of these persistent stressors result from the social context of families such as socioeconomic circumstances that compete with parenting roles. Chronic stressors such as work roles, poverty, immigration to a new culture, and marital conflict may have stressful effects, both for parents and their young. Included among such stressors are parents’ daily employment demands that compete with parenting due to long work hours, shift work, and unusually dangerous or stressful jobs (e.g., police work or combat military personnel) that contribute
