Dysfunctional family


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.

Examples

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.

Features dysfunctional families possess

Nearly universal

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
  • Inadequate or missing boundaries
  • Extremes in conflict
  • Unequal or unfair treatment of one or more family members due to their birth order, gender, age, sexual orientation, family role, abilities, race, caste, etc.

Not universal

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
  • * Parents who wish to divorce, but cannot due to financial, societal, or legal reasons.
  • Children afraid to talk 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
  • Parents insist that they treat their children fairly and equitably when that is not the case.
  • Family members who disown each other, or refuse to be seen together in public
  • Children of parents who are experiencing a substance use disorder or who engage in binge drinking have an increased tendency to adopt substance use disorders later in life.

Specific examples

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.

Laundry List

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.

Parenting

Unhealthy signs

Unhealthy parenting signs, which could lead to a family becoming dysfunctional include:

Dysfunctional styles

"Children as pawns"

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 rather than doing so directly, trying to obtain information through the child, 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.

List of other dysfunctional styles

Dynamical

Coalitions are subsystems within families with more rigid boundaries and are thought to be a sign of family dysfunction.
  • The isolated family member
  • Parent vs. parent
  • The polarized family
  • Parents vs. kids
  • The balkanized family
  • Free-for-all

Children

Unlike divorce, and to a lesser extent, separation, there is often no record of an "intact" family being dysfunctional. As a result, friends, relatives, and teachers of such children may be completely unaware of the situation. In addition, a child may be unfairly blamed for the family's dysfunction, and placed under even greater stress than those whose parents separate.

The six basic roles

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 : a child who becomes a high achiever or overachiever outside the family 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.

Effects on children

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. 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.
Children who are raised in dysfunctional environments are also at a higher risk of developing an eating disorder, including anorexia nervosa or binge eating disorder as an emotional coping method due to psychological distress.
These young individuals may also have difficulty forming and maintaining healthy relationships within their peer group, due to social apprehensions, possible personality disorders, or post-traumatic stress disorders. A child may also demonstrate oppositional defiant characteristics by rebelling against parental authority, and non-family adults, or conversely, upholding their family's values in the face of peer pressure. Children of disordered environments may also demonstrate a lack of self-discipline when their parents are not around, or develop procrastinating tendencies that can have detrimental effects on their educational/occupational obligations.
Additionally, children may demonstrate social inadequacies by spending an inordinate amount of time engaging in activities that lack in-person social interaction. This disordered upbringing can also promote the child to project aggressive behaviors on their peers by bullying or harassing others or becoming a victim of bullying. Both of these roles often lead to an elevated risk of the child having low self-esteem issues, increased prevalence of isolation, and difficulties expressing emotions, a common effect related to emotional and physical abuse.
A lack of parental structure and positive peer influences can lead young individuals to seek alternative forms of peer alliances, including peer groups that engage in juvenile delinquency and those who perform acts that are knowingly illegal or demonstrate symptoms of an oppositional defiant disorder. This habitual behavior and environmental factors can also lead the troubled youth to a life of crime, or to become involved in gang activity.
This lack of socially normative structure and defiant behavior is also notable in cases where sexual abuse was prevalent. Early sexual experiences can lead to sexually inappropriate behavior that could lead to future interest in pedophilia, or facing charges that can result in the individual becoming a sex offender. A 1999 study determined that children who had experienced abusive sexual experiences, "as compared to those without, were more likely to be victims of physical family violence, to have run away, to be substance abusers, and to have family members with drug or alcohol problems". Additionally, the young individual may be at an elevated risk of becoming poor or homeless, even in cases where the child's environment consisted of an average/above-average socioeconomic standing.
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.

In popular culture

  • Films about dysfunctional families
  • Television series about dysfunctional families
  • * Animated television series about dysfunctional families