Introduction
The most important relationships in our life are the ones we most often take for granted: our relationships with our parents, spouse/partner, children and other family members. Our family relationships play an enormous role in our emotional health. Furthermore, poor relationships are the single biggest cause of stress, a major factor in many physical health problems.
Ideally, children grow up in families that enable them to feel worthwhile and valued. They learn that their feelings and needs are important and can be expressed. Children growing up in such supportive environments are likely to form healthy, open relationships in adulthood. However, many families don't adequately provide for all of their children's emotional and physical needs. As well, poor communication patterns within families can end up severely limiting children's willingness and ability to express their feelings and needs.
People who grow up in such families are likely to develop low self-esteem and to feel that their needs are not important or perhaps should not be taken seriously by others. As a result, they may form unsatisfying relationships as adults.
Risk Factors
There is a great deal of variability in how dysfunctional interactions and behaviours occur within families. However, a family is at serious risk of being unhealthy when at least one parent:
- Uses abuse as the primary means of control. Children may witness violence, be forced to punish siblings or live in fear of explosive outbursts.
- Exploits the children and treats them as possessions whose primary purpose is to respond to the physical and/or emotional needs of adults, e.g. protecting a parent or cheering up one who is depressed
- Has addictions or compulsions (e.g., drugs, overworking, overeating) that have a strong impact on family members
- Is unable to provide, or threatens to withdraw, financial or basic physical care for their children. Similarly, they fail to provide their children with adequate emotional support.
- Exerts strong authoritarian control over the children, often rigidly adhering to a particular set of beliefs (religious, political, financial and personal). Compliance with role expectations and rules is expected without question.
Under these conditions, children may:
- Be forced to take sides in conflicts between parents
- Experience "reality shifting" in which what is said contradicts what is actually happening (e.g., when a parent describes a disastrous holiday dinner as a "good time")
- Be ignored, discounted or criticized for their feelings and thoughts
- Have parents who are inappropriately intrusive or overly involved and protective
- Have parents who are inappropriately distant and uninvolved
- Have excessive structure and demands placed on their time, choice of friends or behaviour; or conversely, receive no guidelines or structure
- Experience rejection or preferential treatment
- Be restricted from full and direct communication with other family members
- Be allowed or encouraged to use drugs or alcohol
- Be locked out of the house
- Be slapped, hit, scratched, punched or kicked
Resulting Problems
Neglect and abuse inhibit the development of a child�s trust in the world, in others, and in self. Later, as adults, they may find it difficult to trust others or their own judgments, actions and sense of self-worth. Not surprisingly, they may experience problems in their academic work, their relationships, and even their identities.
They may also:
- Depend excessively on external validation and affirmations
- Become self-centred to make up for the neglect they experienced
- Distrust themselves and others
- Have difficulty expressing emotions
- Have low self-esteem or have a poor self-image
- Have difficulty forming healthy relationships with others
- Feel angry, anxious, depressed, isolated from others or unlovable
- Replicate dysfunctional behavioural patterns
- Lack the ability to be playful or childlike, having "grown up too fast"
What You Can Do
Express your love and support regularly through both actions and words. You can have positive expectations but never attach conditions to your love.
Be honest with your loved ones, without being brutal. Honesty brings people together and prevents blow-ups later. Express feelings like anger appropriately.
Never put down your loved ones or minimize what they�re feeling.
Don�t try to mind-read. Instead, encourage open communication. Show interest and seek clarity in what your loved ones think and feel.
Do lots of things together as a family. Quality time is important, but so is quantity of time.
Take responsibility for your words and actions. Be willing to apologize.
Behaviours learned in dysfunctional families can be overcome, and more adaptive and constructive behaviours put in their place. Sometimes, we continue in our familiar roles because we are waiting for our parents to give us "permission" to change. But that permission can come only from you. That's why its so important for you to trust your own perceptions and feelings.
Identify painful or difficult experiences that happened during your childhood and commit to working through them. Counselling can be enormously beneficial.
Make a list of your behaviours and beliefs that you would like to change. Next to each item on the list, write down the behaviour or belief that you would like to do/have instead. Pick one item on your list and begin practicing the alternate behaviour or belief. Choose the easiest item first. Once you are able to do the alternate behaviour more often than the original, pick another item on the list and practice changing it, too.
Don't become discouraged if you find yourself slipping back into old patterns of behaviour. Changes may be slow and gradual; however, as you continue to practice new and healthier behaviours, they will begin to become part of your day-to-day life.
Stop trying to be perfect. In addition, don't try to make your family perfect.
Realize that you are not in control of other people's lives. You don't have the power to make others change.
In addition to working on your own, you might find it helpful to work with a trained family counsellor. Participating in a facilitator-led group of people with similar experiences can also be a rewarding and valuable experience. Ask your doctor for help with finding counselling.
Further Resources
Contact Alberta Family and Social Services at www.child.alberta.ca or 1-866-714-5437.
