Understanding Stress and Life Satisfaction for Children of Clergy: A Retrospective Study

Because clergy children live within a unique family context, the goal of this study was to examine the individual and family stressors that adult clergy children experience while growing up and how individual and family coping resources, along with the adult clergy children's perceptions of the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Pastoral psychology
Authors: Toolin-Wilson, Cynthia (Author) ; Darling, Carol A. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science Business Media B. V. [2017]
In: Pastoral psychology
IxTheo Classification:KDD Protestant Church
KDG Free church
NCB Personal ethics
RB Church office; congregation
ZD Psychology
Further subjects:B Family Stress
B Family stress theory
B Adjustment (Psychology)
B Children of clergy
B Satisfaction
B Cabinet officers
B Clergy children
B Life Satisfaction
B Social Context
B Stress (Psychology)
B Clergy
Online Access: Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:Because clergy children live within a unique family context, the goal of this study was to examine the individual and family stressors that adult clergy children experience while growing up and how individual and family coping resources, along with the adult clergy children's perceptions of their experiences or sense of coherence, have affected the perceived life satisfaction. The present study examined the life satisfaction of clergy and non-clergy children, both retrospectively as adolescents and currently as adults, to determine the stability of their perceived life satisfaction over time. Compared to a sample of adult non-clergy children, adult clergy children experienced greater levels of individual and family stress along with a lower sense of coherence and less life satisfaction as adolescents. A path analysis of the model based on family stress theory indicates that sense of coherence provided the greatest total effect on participants' life satisfaction as adolescents, whereas life satisfaction as adolescents provided the greatest total effect on life satisfaction as adults. These findings provide several implications for research and practice.
ISSN:1573-6679
Contains:Enthalten in: Pastoral psychology
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s11089-016-0720-6