Most families have their quirks, but when certain behaviors become ingrained, they can create a toxic environment. Recognizing these toxic habits is the first step towards breaking the cycle. No family is perfect, but understanding these patterns can guide you toward healthier relationships. Here’s a look at some of the most common toxic habits found in dysfunctional families…….Continue reading….
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Source: Bolde
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Critics:
A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior and often child neglect or abuse on the part of individual parents occur continuously and regularly. Children that grow up in such families may think such a situation is normal. Dysfunctional families are primarily a result of two adults, one typically overtly abusive and the other codependent, and may also be affected by substance abuse or other forms of addiction, or often by an untreated mental illness.
Parents having grown up in a dysfunctional family may over-correct or emulate their own parents. In some cases, the dominant parent will abuse or neglect their children and the other parent will not object, misleading a child to assume blame. Dysfunctional family members have common features and behavior patterns as a result of their experiences within the family structure. This tends to reinforce the dysfunctional behavior, either through enabling or perpetuation. The family unit can be affected by a variety of factors.
Some features are common to most dysfunctional families:
- Lack of empathy, understanding, and sensitivity towards certain family members, while expressing extreme empathy or appeasement towards one or more members who have real or perceived special needs. In other words, one family member continuously receives far more than they deserve, while another is marginalized.
- Denial (refusal to acknowledge abusive behavior, possibly believing that the situation is normal or even beneficial; also known as the “elephant in the room”.)
- Inadequate or missing boundaries (e.g. self tolerating inappropriate treatment from others, failing to express what is acceptable and unacceptable treatment, tolerance of physical, emotional or sexual abuse e.g. others physical contact that other person dislikes; breaking important promises without just cause; purposefully violating a boundary another person has expressed.)
- Extremes in conflict (either too much fighting or insufficient peaceful arguing between family members.)
- Unequal or unfair treatment of one or more family members due to their birth order, gender (or gender identity), age, sexual orientation, family role (mother, etc.), abilities, race, caste, etc. (may include frequent appeasement of one member at the expense of others, or an uneven/inconsistent enforcement of rules.)
Though not universal among dysfunctional families, and by no means exclusive to them, the following features are typical of dysfunctional families: Abnormally high levels of jealousy or other controlling behaviors, Conflict influenced by marital status: Between separated or divorced parents, usually related to, or arising from their breakup.
Conflict between parents who remain married, often for the perceived sake of the children, but whose separation or divorce would in fact remove a detrimental influence on those children (must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, as a breakup may harm children.)Parents who wish to divorce, but cannot due to financial, societal (including religious), or legal reasons.
Children afraid to talk (within or outside the family) about what is happening at home, or are otherwise fearful of their parents. Abnormal sexual behavior such as adultery, promiscuity, or incest, Lack of time spent together, especially in recreational activities and social events (“We never do anything as a family.”), Parents insist that they treat their children fairly and equitably when that is not the case.
Family members (including children) who disown each other, or refuse to be seen together in public (either unilaterally or bilaterally.)Children of parents who are experiencing a substance use disorder or wh o engage in binge drinking have an increased tendency to adopt substance use disorders later in life. There are certain times where families can become dysfunctional due to specific situational examples.
Some of these include difficulty integrating into a new culture, strain in the relationship between nuclear and extended family members, children in a rebellion phase, and ideological differences in belief systems. The program Adult Children of Alcoholics includes a “Laundry List”, core literature of the program. This list has 14 different statements that relate to being an adult child of a parent with an alcohol addiction.
These statements provide commentary on how children have been affected by the trauma of having alcoholic parents. Some highlights of the statements include, “confusing love and pity”, “having low self-esteem”, and having a “loss of identity”. The Laundry List is a helpful tool in group therapy in order to show families that they are not alone in their struggles. Female children whose parents were alcoholics have an increased risk of developing depression. Male children of alcoholics are at a significantly higher risk for developing a substance use disorder.
One common dysfunctional parental behavior is a parent’s manipulation of a child in order to achieve some outcome adverse to the other parent’s rights or interests. Examples include verbal manipulation such as spreading gossip about the other parent, communicating with the parent through the child (and in the process exposing the child to the risks of the other parent’s displeasure with that communication) rather than doing so directly.
Trying to obtain information through the child (spying), or causing the child to dislike the other parent, with insufficient or no concern for the damaging effects of the parent’s behavior on the child. While many instances of such manipulation occur in shared custody situations that have resulted from separation or divorce, it can also take place in intact families, where it is known as triangulation. Children growing up in a dysfunctional family have been known to adopt or be assigned one or more of the following six basic roles:
The Golden Child (also known as the Hero or Superkid ): a child who becomes a high achiever or overachiever outside the family (e.g., in academics or athletics) as a means of escaping the dysfunctional family environment, defining themselves independently of their role in the dysfunctional family, currying favor with parents, or shielding themselves from criticism by family members.
The Problem Child, Rebel, or Truth Teller: the child who a) causes most problems related to the family’s dysfunction or b) “acts out” in response to preexisting family dysfunction, in the latter case often in an attempt to divert attention paid to another member who exhibits a pattern of similar misbehavior.
A variant of the “problem child” role is the Scapegoat, who is unjustifiably assigned the “problem child” role by others within the family or even wrongfully blamed by other family members for those members’ own individual or collective dysfunction, often despite being the only emotionally stable member of the family.
The Caretaker: the one who takes responsibility for the emotional well-being of the family, often assuming a parental role; the intra-familial counterpart of the “Good Child”/”Superkid.” The Lost Child or Passive Kid: the inconspicuous, introverted, quiet one, whose needs are usually ignored or hidden. The Mascot or Family Clown: uses comedy to divert attention away from the increasingly dysfunctional family system.
The Mastermind: the opportunist who capitalizes on the other family members’ faults to get whatever they want; often the object of appeasement by grown-ups. Children that are a product of dysfunctional families, either at the time or as they grow older, may exhibit behavior that is inappropriate for their expected stage of development due to psychological distress. Children of dysfunctional families may also behave in a manner that is relatively immature when compared to their peers.
Conversely, other children may appear to emotionally “grow up too fast”; or be in a mixed mode (e.g. well-behaved, but unable to care for themselves). Children from dysfunctional environments also have a tendency to demonstrate learned unhealthy attachments due to intergenerational dysfunctional parenting. The effects of a disordered upbringing may induce an array of mental health issues, including depression and anxiety.
A disordered family environment places these young individuals at a higher risk of engaging in more severe actions of self-harm and problematic conduct. This troubled environment can also subject the youth to a significantly higher risk of becoming addicted to drugs or developing alcoholism, especially if parents or close peers have a history of substance use.
Numerous studies have determined that deviant peer associations are generally associated with substance use and that parental use can account for one-half to two-thirds of future instances of chemical dependency. There is also an increased risk of the young individual developing behavioral addictions in the forms of gambling, pornography addictions, or engaging in other future detrimental activities such as compulsive spending.
Further socialization problems can be demonstrated by children of dysfunctional families, including habitual or sudden academic performance problems. This notion can be more apparent as the child may exhibit a severe lack of organizational skills in their day-to-day lives. These individuals are also at an elevated inability to maintain healthy interpersonal relationships, which often includes distrusting others or even demonstrating paranoid behaviors that can be indicative of childhood trauma-induced psychosis and schizophrenia.
There is also a higher probability of the youth engaging in future unstable empathetical relationships, with higher tendencies to engage in more risky behavior, including sex with multiple partners, becoming pregnant, or becoming a parent of illegitimate children. Further dysfunctional behaviors can be perpetuated in other future relationships. An individual that was raised in a dysfunctional home environment may also pass this learned behavior on to their offspring, including their substance use habits, conflict resolution methods, and learned social boundaries.
These social inadequacies can result in individuals demonstrating self-protective behaviors, to compensate for the difference in their childhoods, as they may have the inability to practice positive self-care and effective emotional coping strategies.
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