Stress

       There are different ways for family to react to stress. Most are going to react negatively. It is the natural thing to do!
        There was a nifty little equation that we learned which was kind of cool. It is:

               A+B+C=X or in other words:
the Actual event + Both recourses and reactions + Cognition (how family sees things)= total eXperience. This is a way to help you see how different people react to their stressors. One example from my family is:
                We had to move to Utah from California (actual event). The oldest children were not happy about this at all and because of that we hated Utah (reactions). We did not think this was a good thing at all and had very negative attitudes about it all (cognitions). So the total experience was awful because we refused to make friends with anyone from Utah (how could they be good people? They had huge hair and they were snobby...or so we thought). But high school was miserable and the whole three years we were there were the most pathetic three years in mine and my twins life yet. All because of the way we perceived the move and we refused to change our paradigms.