-This contribution focuses on the family as the major context for children's development, it includes concepts of the family as an institution for the transmission of meaning on the one hand, and it formulates implications for new theoretical and methodological approaches in the field of family research on the other. The idea of transmission of a society's meaning system via the family is discussed under the perspective that the socialization of children in the family provides a continuous basis for the aggregation of common knowledge over generations. The systems approach is taken as a promising model for dealing with the complex continuity and change issues during development. Data will be presented from two longitudinal studies, in which parent-child communication behavior was analyzed over time during two critical developmental periods, during the first two years after the birth of a second child and during the transition from childhood to adolescence.

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This research involves an interactional analysis of the family system as it changes with the arrival and development of a second child. In a longitudinal-observational study 16 families expecting their second child at the beginning of the study were observed over a period of 2 years in their homes. Observations consisted of a total of 26–28 videotapes (30–60 min each) per family. In addition, parental interviews dealing with biographical and child-rearing information were conducted. Data analysis involved the use of hermeneutic techniques with an emphasis on data fit and wholistic interpretation rather than early data quantification. Using such an approach, general patterns of changes in family interaction coinciding with developmental changes in the second child were delineated. The major result described here is the articulation of a three-phase process through which families progress as they change from a triadic to a tetradic system. These phases are seen to result from the interaction of structural features within the family and developmental changes in the second child.

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