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The Cost of Growing Up in A Dysfunctional Family

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The Cost of Growing Up in A Dysfunctional Family

A dysfunctional family is where negligence, conflicts, and misbehavior are persistent and
ceaseless (Ubaidi, 2017). These families experience numerous emotional uproar incidences, and
dysfunctional family members assume that the circumstances are normal since they regularly get
exposed to such family context. Being raised in a family dysfunction can leave one emotionally
scared and lead to a lifetime of issues. Various dysfunctional family types include the
emotionally detached family, the conflict-driven family, the substance abuse family, the violent
family, and the authoritarian family. This paper will focus on violent families and their impacts
on these families' failure in achieving necessary milestones in life. These types of the family can
create specific problems that can be carried on into adulthood.
Children in dysfunctional family settings are blameless and have no power over their
family life's toxic setting. These children grow up with numerous scary emotions due to
continuous trauma and pain from their violent parents' actions, attitudes, and words. Numerous
individuals anticipate that they will leave their family and their childhood challenges once they
leave their homes. However, similar problems are often experienced with similar emotions and
relationship patterns throughout their life after leaving their family situation. Preferably, a child
is raised in an environment that helps learn the importance of expressing an individual's feelings
and needs, making them feel valuable and worthwhile (Arora, 2020). Family environments that
are supportive to children help them to form healthy and open relationships during their
adulthood. However, most of the children's physical and emotional needs may fail to be provided
by many families. Additionally, families' communication patterns may adversely affect the
children's needs and emotions, making them acquire low self-confidence and feel that their needs
are invaluable. As a result, these children may create unproductive relationships during
adulthood.
Causes of Dysfunctional Family
The causes of dysfunctionality in the family, leading to creating a hostile family
environment for the children, include addiction, violent behavior, religious fundamentalism,
authority, and financial situations (Goidani, 2019). A family where one or both parents are
addicted to drugs, gambling, or alcohol tend to avoid their responsibilities. For this kind of
people, family contacts and love are not issues of concern because they tend to be in a detached
world distant from the truth. Violent actions in a family can occur when family members break
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the family basis. This instills fear in others for being emotionally and physically hurt, thus
avoiding interaction due to distance between them. Besides, money is a vital element required for
people to have a happy family. Being incapable of meeting the monetary necessities by the
parents can lead to cracks hence family dysfunction. Dysfunctionality in a family can also occur
when caregivers hold strong religious principles. Such parents can be rigid, imposing their
beliefs on children, restricting them from developing into normal people. Ultimately, one
individual having control over other family members impairs the environment in the household.
These individuals may unleash oppression, making others lack an option, thus curtailing their
freedom (Goidani, 2019). As a result, family members may dislike each other.
Violent Family
Approximately 5 to 15 million children are exposed to physical violence in their homes
every year. Growing up in a violent volatile family is a horrific experience that is not deserved
by any human being. Family violence is physical and comprises psychological abuse, sexual
abuse, verbal abuse, or any misbehavior that makes one feel unsafe. According to Rudlin (2020),
similar devastating effects of experiencing abuse can affect children who witness the abuse.
Children who grow up in violent families experience a smaller hippocampus, reduced volume in
the cerebellum, excessive activities in the amygdala, and the decreased volume in the prefrontal
cortex.
It is no secret that children growing up in violent families will have different growth and
nurture. These individuals assume parenting roles while missing essential parts of their
childhood. Lack of childhood enjoyment eventually leads to harmful effects that extend to adult
life (Rudlin, 2020). Mistreated grownups tend to escape their past trauma and victimization by
involved in more disparaging activities like increased drug abuse, alcohol use, or resolve to
repeat the maltreatment they experienced during their childhood. Besides, some adults have felt
some inner nervousness and feelings without identifying the reason behind such situations. Such
individuals have commonly experienced challenges in developing and sustaining their
relationships, having trust issues with others, denying their realities, maintaining positive self-
esteem, and experience distress in controlling their losses. Generally, problems experienced in
the dysfunctional family tend to be long lasting because children are deprived of their essential
needs. Thus, they get dominated by the negative, pathological behaviors of their parents even
during their adulthood.
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Violent family can cause abuse and neglect, which inhibit children's trust among
themselves and others. These individuals find it problematic to believe others' words and
behaviors, their sense of self-worth, or their judgments and actions even in their adult life. The
problem may extend into their relationships, academic works, and their very identities.
Mistreated and abandoned family members often find it difficult to interpret their family as
normal (Martin, 2018). They often try to make the family condition appear normal, but they end
up misinterpreting themselves, thus developing negative self-concepts.
The Impacts of Dysfunctional Family.
Children get a sense of safety by relying on a consistent and attuned caregiver to thrive
physically and emotionally. Dysfunctional families seem frightening, chaotic, and unpredictable
for children since their caregivers are neither consistent nor attuned to them (Martin, 2018).
Children develop a sense of security when they can count on their providers to reliably satisfy
their emotional desires like comfort and recognizing their state of mind. They also feel safe when
their physical needs, like food, shelter, and protection, are met. On most occasions, these do not
happen in dysfunctional families due to the parents' failure to fulfill their basic responsibilities
for their children. However, one of the children is forced to take on adult roles during their early
ages.
Children require to know what to expect by having a proper structure and routine to
develop a sense of safety. However, children's dysfunctional family needs are often neglected,
and there lacks no realistic expectations or clear rules. There are arbitrary or overly harsh rules
with minimum supervision in some incidences, and sometimes the guidelines or rules for these
children are never considered. Moreover, children raised in dysfunctional families find their
parents' behaviors as unpredictable and erratic. They fear upsetting their parents or unleashing
abuse and rage from their parents. For instance, these children often describe feeling anxious
about going to their parents at home from school because they are not aware of what awaits
them. In such families, adults seem to be much thought about personal difficulties and
discomfort, thus failing to fulfill their children's expectations, for instance, unconditional love,
safety, and consistency. The children end up being overwhelmed with a lack of love, anxiety,
and stress.
Individuals that grow up in dysfunctional families do not know how to overcome their
emotions healthily. Caregivers dealing with their problems do not have emotional intelligence,
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time, and energy to support, value, and pay the required attention to their children's feelings,
leading to emotional neglect of the children. Of course, this damages the self-esteem of children,
making them feel insignificant and worthless. As a result, children in the context of
dysfunctional families do not learn how to value, identify, and deal with their own emotions.
Instead, they focus on identifying and dealing with other individuals' feelings whom they feel
their wellbeing depends on them. Sometimes, these children try to escape their parents' wrath by
becoming highly attuned to their behaviors, like hiding under the bed when they start arguing.
Tuning under the feeling of other individuals makes these children suppress their feelings.
Besides, ignoring the emotional needs of children damages their self-esteem. These incidences
get to stick with children up to their adult life, affecting their necessary livelihoods (Goidani,
2019).
All families have experienced family dysfunction in one way or another. Individuals from
dysfunctional families seem to have higher incidences of behavioral disorders. No family is
perfect. Therefore, it is essential to identify early signs and symptoms of a dysfunctional family.
They include low esteem, uneasiness, and isolated feelings around authority figures, less
attraction to caring individuals, difficulties in expressing personal feelings, and hopelessness due
to persistent denial, and so on.
Overcoming the Negative Effects of a Dysfunctional Family
Overcoming dysfunctional families' impacts might seem challenging, but it is possible
(Goidani, 2019). It is important to acknowledge and recognize dysfunctional family habits and
behaviors once identified. Ways of dealing with dysfunctional family habits include taking
responsibility. As a parent, generating a better emotional condition for the family is significant
for all the family members. Besides, it is essential to pursue specialized help once a person
recognizes the shortcomings in dealing with childhood issues. Dysfunctional families are
emotionally unstable; therefore, adults need to build or rebuild a broken family relationship.
Being raised in an environment where trust a challenge tends to be thought-provoking. The same
tendency may be carried into adulthood and parenthood. The affected individuals need to learn
how to rebuild trust amongst their closest ones.
The family most importantly influences the life of a child. Regardless of the child's age, a
family should offer identity, a sense of security, and value to all the members. The parenting
style greatly influences the growth and development of children. Children growing up in an
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environment their needs are consistently abused and criticized; they end up developing low self-
esteem and poor self-image that negatively impact them in achieving the necessary milestones in
their life.
References

Rudlin, K. (2020, May 6). How Dysfunctional Behavior Affects Families. Verywell Mind.
https://www.verywellmind.com/dysfunctional-defined-2610364.

Arora, M. (2020, September 8). Dysfunctional Family: Reasons, Signs & Characteristics.
FirstCry Parenting. https://parenting.firstcry.com/articles/dysfunctional-family-
characteristics-and-tips-to-overcome-its-effects/.

Martin, S. (2018, July 6). The Effects of Growing Up in a Dysfunctional Family. Sharon Martin,
LCSW Counseling San Jose and Campbell, CA. https://sharonmartincounseling.com/the-
effects-of-growing-up-in-a-dysfunctional-family/.

Goidani, N. (2019, August 6). Dysfunctional Family: How It Can Affect Your Child. Wow-
parenting. https://wowparenting.com/blog/how-dysfunctional-family-affects-child/.

Ubaidi, B. A. A. (2017). Cost of Growing up in Dysfunctional Family. Journal of Family

Medicine and Disease Prevention, 3(3). https://doi.org/10.23937/2469-5793/1510059