Family Life Is More Than Managing Crisis: Broadening the Agenda of Research on Families Adapting to Childhood Disability

This chapter reviews efforts to broaden research on families adapting to childhood disability and delay. First, we briefly review and critique the longstanding emphasis in family research on crisis, stress, coping, and the restoration of emotional well-being. Second, to broaden family research to include capacities other than crisis management, we revisit what Rueben Hill (1949) called the “established routines” of family life and what families do to sustain them. Third, we review contemporary research on families adapting to childhood disability for evidence that sustaining a daily routine of life is a function distinguishable from those attendant to crisis and stress. Finally, we examine the intervention and research implications of the idea that an enduring family project is creation and maintenance of a sustainable daily routine of life.