Family · Assessment
Family Life Cycle Worksheet
McGoldrick's stages — symptoms cluster at transitions
McGoldrick and Carter's Family Life Cycle: families move through predictable stages, and each stage carries specific developmental tasks. Symptoms often cluster around transitions — knowing which stage you're in makes normal look normal.
The stages
- Leaving home / young adult
- Joining families through partnership
- Families with young children
- Families with adolescents
- Launching children & moving on
- Families in later life
Which stage(s) is our family currently navigating?
The developmental tasks of this stage
Where we are stalled or grieving
What ended (or is ending) that we haven't grieved
What we haven't stepped into yet
Cultural, financial, or health factors that changed our timing
One thing that would help us cross the next threshold
Symptoms cluster at transitions
If someone in the family flared up around a birthday, graduation, launch, illness, or death — it's the transition, not the person. Grieve the old stage explicitly to enter the new one.