Children From Families With Alcoholic Problems example essay topic
Many, because of children, consider what will be better for the child and when it will have claims: when the parents will divorce or when the family will tolerate the person who drinks. Some of these apprehensions have real reasons, other don't. Against some opinion children from pathological families don't have to be bad students (often times they are the best), they don't have to succeed less than their friends from 'normal'; families, they don't have to be wobbly (many of them are active and pugnacious, and also resourceful and responsible). However, in this theory, there are theories and truths really important that we shouldn't ignore, but we should get to know them and think of them. Children from alcoholic families experience everything more than their friends. They suffer more tense, anxiety, confusion and loneliness.
These feelings favor the creation of defensive attitude. Alcoholism is more than just drinking alcohol. It is a long-drawn illness, caused by immoderate drinking, thinking about alcohol and losing control of consuming it. Even though many experts think that we can't fight against alcoholism, we can limit it and get to abstinence. In some ways it is similar to a diabetic person. He can't really win with the illness, but he can cooperate with his organism and avoid eating food that contains sugar.
Similarly, an alcoholic person can't realistically change the reaction of alcohol on his organism, but he can 'meet'; his illness by putting away the alcohol. But it's always easier to say than to do. An alcoholic person pretends that everything is fine, for example he says: 'I'm not that bad'; , 'I drink because of my family'; , 'Who would not drink if he had such a boss at work?' ; His arguments are strong so his family can't really face the truth. Then, the children think: 'Daddy should rest in the evening'; , 'Daddy has to drink, because he will have to listen mummy's grumbling'; .
They will never tell the family's secret that father is an alcoholic. The reality is that the atmosphere at home is permeable with lies and secrets. All children, also these from pathologic families, are born with different characters: hardness, activeness, strength of reactions, and many others. Living with parents gives them less or more support. It also depends on the family members and their potentiality. Therefore, it is also important to remember that if we talk about children from alcoholic families we can talk only about some trends and tendencies, and that the situation is or isn't in favor of something.
Depending on elements the effects of influence of alcohol are different. When we talk about children from families with alcoholic problems, we can talk about different kinds of shock and trauma. Often times children from these families have trauma, which in this case is anxiety, chaos and no support. Every person, especially a child, needs a map that will help him find himself in the whole situation. A map that will tell where is cold and where is warm, that if he will do something well he will be rewarded. That if parents will promise something, they will do it.
That if parents will say 'no'; then the child can't do something etc. of course, it is true that many children muddle trough these problems and leave home. However, they enter adulthood with wounds that are maybe invisible, but they still exist somewhere inside. The experience of a child from an alcoholic family is an experience of lost and chaos. They never know what will happen because everything depends on mood. When something hurts they might get a kiss, if something is bad they will get yelled at. No one really wants to listen to problems because they think they will know better what the child should do.
Some promises are, of course, fulfilled, but never know which, when, and why. Adults once love each other, other times hate each other. Parents are lost and don't know what they really want. Actually there is one known thing: that after summer there will be fall, after fall there will be winter, spring, and then again summer. This kind of chaos makes a child separating and running away from reality. Then the reality becomes unexpected: it scares and pushes away.
The child runs away into books, music, dreams or fantasy. Besides, it still has to remember of keeping the family secret, because it is not proper to talk about this kind of problem. In this kind of family, members talk only about bad feeling or bad condition. The lack of conversation with others means shutter of topics connected to family. Everyone knows that children are quiet and keep the 'secret'; and incidents related to it. They do it because of shame, fear and hope that tomorrow will be better and it is not as bad as it seems to be.
All taboo paralyzes the battle field and convicts people to loneliness. Outside everything might be fine, but inside the feelings are fighting. Children from pathological families try to impersonate in some roles that are uncomfortable, but help to avoid contact with brutal reality. For children whose parents are alcoholic, the battle field is their own home, where the targets are he basic needs.
Some children are sexually abused, others are being mishandled, and others don't get even a little bit of any positive feelings, but they really need care, attention, and assurance of love. Many of the time at alcoholic's homes they don't get any attention. In some cases the roles change and so the parents expect feelings from their children, such as love and care. Children are not adults and they can't really manage all the duties. When the roles change, children who today are adults tomorrow will be frustrated people. They look and talk like adults but inside they are small children whose needs were never satisfied and who still have emotional insufficiency.
Those parents from alcoholic families, who don't drink are afraid of the future of their children, because they might use or even abuse alcohol as one of their parents. Women who suffered a lot with alcohol, who see how their husbands behave, are afraid that their child might become an alcoholic, too. Although, children from this kind of families may become addicted, drink occasionally, they might also be alienate to alcohol or abstinent. A young person who experiments with alcohol should be treated normally, which means no overreaction or full understanding consequential to co-addiction. There is a possibility that strict reaction and prohibition of drinking alcohol will cause protests and problems with parents.
If a mother doesn't want his son to drink beer, he will do the opposite. It will come into defiance and emphasis of being an individual. As in many different concerns also in nurture deliberation, intuition and mature, peaceful ban until age of consent on alcohol is needed. There must be arguments, talk and clear limits.
But of course children will exceed these limits, what comes from the time of becoming and adult. But it is important if these exceeded limits are accepted by parents or if these limits are much more exceeded. From this point of view it is a mistake to erase these limits if children are over passing them. In families in which alcohol and problems related to it members talk avowedly, where there is no fake conspiracy of silence, much less children 'inherit'; alcoholism. These are families where are people who think clearly, who care, worry, tell the truth, etc. in an alcoholic family the 'object'; of antipathy and attacks from children is the person who doesn't drink.
If the addicted person is the father, then the mother is that person. Actually it is easier to understand that it is easier to set own attitude to illness and abnormality than to behavior of people who hurt. If a person experienced unpleasantness and difficulty it is obvious that it is easy and simple to forgive, especially if the person is not normal or ill. But if one experienced disappointment from a person who is close, it is hard and difficult to determine feelings toward him. Also, often children get along with drinking father and that makes the mother angry and grief. It happens when the father is usually not aggressive and under the influence of alcohol he becomes open-handed and outgoing.
However, a drunken father laden with toys, who takes his children for a walk is a good person in oppose to always tired and grouchy mother. But it's about an alcoholic in the earliest stage of drinking - the more alcohol, the less spent time with children. Control and carry-over is tied with behavior of the parent who doesn't drink, but who tries to control life of the whole family. It comes off from the sense of responsibility of a parent. Also fear controls everything. There is no doubt that in alcoholic families children are the ones who suffer the most.
The situation that occurs in a dysfunctional family forces them to play different roles. These are very different ways of reacting to the world that comes off defensive manners against threat that comes from pathological family with alcoholic problem. No homeliness and support impede proper psychological development. Often the child thinks that the alcoholism and fights at home are the child's fault. Self accusation helps them to control the situation. But in reality neither child, nor an adult can make adults become addicted to something (in this case alcohol), help them to stop drinking or cure the alcoholism.