Family Resilience in the Context of Migration: Exploring the Lived Experience of Filipino Migrants' School-Going Older Adolescent Children

Abstract

Using From a Walsh's Family Resilience Framework, this study explored the experiences of overseas Filipino workers' (OFWs) families as narrated by adolescent children of migrant parents. Ten (10) Filipino college-level older adolescents (five were female) served as participants in an in-depth interview. Their narratives explored key family resilience processes using a Deductive Qualitative Analysis using various domains of family resilience (i.e., family belief system, communication processes, and organizational patterns). The study found that: (1) The family adjusts belief systems to accommodate unsettling realities of international labor migration; (2) Roles change in the family to compensate for responsibilities fulfilled by the parent before leaving for another country; and (3) Communication processes were strained, but family members serve as moderators to ease tensions and maintain a pre-migration relationship. This study concluded that the family resilience framework is a robust lens through which migrant families' experiences can be understood. Families generally exert effort to maintain homeostasis and cope with migration's psychological and social costs. A resilience-focused model for addressing psychosocial needs is proposed. Processes more apparent to the Filipino family and opportunities for future research are also discussed.