If you've seen a TV show like Modern Family or a movie like Daddy's House, you've seen a dysfunctional family in action. The only problem is that Hollywood often despises and downplays such families.
In real life, a dysfunctional family is no joke. Families caught in a dysfunctional cycle often face serious abuse problems, such as alcoholism, drug use, domestic violence, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse.
This type of environment can be harmful to children, and unfortunately, it never ends.
Children in dysfunctional families tend to perpetuate the cycle of dysfunction into their own lives and into their own families.
What is a dysfunctional home?
A dysfunctional family is one that is caught up in conflict, chaos, lack of structure, or apathy to the point where the physical and emotional needs of a child cannot be met. Factors that can impair family function include poor parenting styles, painful or abusive environments, substance abuse, mental illness, chronic physical illness, and poor communication.
In a dysfunctional family, life is emotionally turbulent. Relationships are often strained. Abuse, neglect, and confidentiality are common, and yelling or screaming is often the only way to communicate.
A healthy functional family, on the other hand, is one in which family members nurture and support each other. Family members are close and have an emotional sense of well-being.
Examples of dysfunctional families
When healthy families make some mistakes, the term "dysfunctional family" is often thrown out.
For example, when parents go to bed through an alarm clock, it triggers a chain reaction that affects everyone in the family. It's not dysfunction – it's just a bad day. The real dysfunction is where confusion, abuse, and neglect are standard operating procedures.
Some examples of dysfunctional families are:
In a two-parent family, the father had problems with alcoholism. When he comes home drunk, he physically abuses anyone who gets in his way. The next morning, he reminded the family that what had happened in their home was left in their home and that they should not tell anyone what had happened there.
The oldest child must always stand up to help the little one. The child cleaned the house, made dinner for her siblings, and made sure they did their homework every night.
A single mother sees her oldest child as her best friend and confidant. The mother relies on this child for her emotional needs, and she does not like the child to go out and socialize with her friends.
Dysfunctional family type
All family dysfunctions are fuelled in different ways. But researchers and psychologists have identified five types of dysfunctional families that do not allow children to develop healthy emotions and personalities.
Sick families
In sick families, one or both parents abuse drugs or alcohol or suffer from a mental illness that impairs and dysfunctional them. Addicted parents or children who abuse their parents are often unable to meet their basic physical needs, let alone their emotional needs.
Family roles in these families are often reversed. When dysfunctional parents are unable to do so, children have more control over their daily lives.
Domination - a submissive family
Also known as "authoritarian families", ruling-submissive families are ruled by dictatorial parents, regardless of the wishes or feelings of other family members.
Dominant parents are demanding but give little in return for love, support, and positive reinforcement. Mistakes and shortcomings in children often have serious consequences, including yelling and spanking.
In this type of family, it's the parents' way or the highway; there are no middlemen.
Families in long-term conflict
In a long-running family, quarrels and altercations are the norm.
Families quarrel in harmful ways, causing wounds to fester and leading to extreme hostility in the family environment.
Communication problems and inability to solve problems lead to discord, quarrels, resentment and stress, causing serious damage in the family.
Chaotic family
In a chaotic family, also known as a seriously disturbing family, children are not well cared for or protected because their parents are busy, absent, or abusive.
In these families, inconsistencies are the only ones that remain constant. Family rules and expectations are unclear, and parents often come and go (move in and out of the house or get jailed).
When they're around, their parenting skills are below par, or they're the ones who hurt their children. Children are often abused, neglected or both.
Emotionally separated families
In an emotionally alienated family, children cannot get love and warmth from their parents. These are families that don't talk about feelings.
Often, parents are apathetic, distant, and emotionally unavailable. Children learn to suppress their emotions.
Lack of physical affection can make children feel unworthy and inferior.
Such dysfunctional families are often associated with a social or cultural background. This is probably the least pronounced and least studied type of dysfunction.
Signs of dysfunctional families
No family is perfect; every family experiences conflict, stress, and even pain from time to time. Ultimately, however, love, respect, trust, support, and healthy communication are the foundations of a healthy family.
It is perfectly normal for siblings to quarrel or quarrel between husband and wife. However, if a family consistently shows the following signs, it may be a sign of dysfunction. Here are some of the characteristics of dysfunctional families.
Denial and confidentiality
Poor communication
A closed system (family members are afraid to speak up or ask for help from external resources)
Poor communication/dysfunction
Strict rules
Limited friendship and isolation
Verbal abuse or physical violence
Emotional abuse, blame, or emotional neglect
Conflict and hostility
Role Switching (Parenting)
Lack of empathy and respect
Unrealistic expectations for children
No respect for borders
Repressed emotions and different opinions
Conditional love or withdrawn from love
Take revenge on your children
There is a lack of boundaries between parents and children
Dysfunctional family roles
Family dysfunction often occurs in seemingly endless cycles where everyone has a role to play.
Parents and children in dysfunctional families often play one of the following roles to keep the dysfunctional cycle going.
Facilitators
A family promoter (or caregiver) is someone who tries to keep the family running in the face of family dysfunction. Facilitators protect troubled family members, mask dysfunctional behavior, and take responsibility for problem parents so families don't fall into full-blown crisis patterns day in and day out.
In order to keep the family at peace, facilitators allow dysfunctional members to get worse. For example, a wife/mother may set up a rescue mission to allow her abusive husband to continue to deteriorate.
Usually, the facilitators are the parents, but they can also be children. When a child becomes a facilitator and assumes the responsibilities of a parent, parent-child relationships occur, such as doing housework, cooking, or caring for younger siblings.
scapegoat
Scapegoats (or troublemakers) are children who are labeled as the black sheep of the family. He or she is often blamed for problems that arise within the family. Other children are often seen as "good kids," and this child is labeled "bad" or "different." In behaviors similar to bullying, parents often single out, miss, and blame their children for feeling they don't belong.
Lost children
Also known as a quiet person, this person spends most of his time alone, avoiding the family and its dysfunction. Quiet people often make a conscious effort to avoid causing trouble. They gradually disappear in the background, which unfortunately leads to their needs not being met and ignored.
mascot
Mascots are essentially comic reliefs or family clowns. They tend to use humor and pranks to ease tension or divert attention from family dysfunction.
hero
Like caregivers or promoters, family heroes often take on the responsibility of making the family seem to function properly. They are often the only ones who know more about what's going on in the family than anyone else, but no matter how hard they try, the rest of the family refuses to listen.
Mastermind
This child is an opportunist who gets what they want by taking advantage of family dysfunction.
The effects of growing up in dysfunctional families
In order to thrive, children need to feel physically and emotionally safe. They need a supportive environment and caregivers that meet their needs.
However, in dysfunctional families, nothing is consistent, nothing is safe, and everything the kids do is not thriving.
Children from dysfunctional families often feel fearful, unworthy and ashamed during childhood.
As a result, they are more likely to be isolated and socially isolated. They never had a chance to learn from their mistakes, and their life decision-making skills were substandard.
In addition, they have a hard time trusting others; they become likable (against them), and they often lack communication and decision-making skills.
Studies have shown that dysfunctional family dynamics can cause children to miss developmental milestones and lead to learning deficits. Early abuse and neglect of children , which is typical of dysfunctional families — can lead to changes in brain structure, including:
The volume of the prefrontal cortex is reduced
Damage to the hippocampus – the part of the brain responsible for learning and memory
Amygdala hyperactive – the fear center of the brain
As a result, those who grew up with family dysfunction tend to have mental health problems such as:
Behavioral disorders
Substance use disorders
depressed
anxiety
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Borderline personality disorder
Symptoms in adults from dysfunctional families
While growing up in a dysfunctional family can certainly have immediate and sometimes serious consequences for children, unfortunately, the consequences don't end there. Children in dysfunctional families often spend their lives cleaning up the mess when they grow up.
Not only are they missing out on the opportunity to "be a child," but the lack of those key early lessons (most kids learn under normal circumstances) can also have a serious negative impact on them in the long run. Adult children of dysfunctional families (ACDF) struggle with trust (others and themselves) and self-esteem. Understandably, these flaws tend to permeate every aspect of their lives. Difficulty building healthy relationships and maintaining attachment are also common problems.
These adults continue to be spouses and parents. If they can't break the cycle, they will end up repeating it with their own destructive behavior. Not surprisingly, children from dysfunctional families will continue to develop PTSD, anxiety, and depression. Drug abuse is also not uncommon. One study found that up to 97 percent of cocaine-dependent patients in the study were the product of dysfunctional families. Of these, 31 percent also suffer from personality disorders such as narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, and borderline personality disorder, while 21 percent show symptoms of emotional disorders such as major depression.
How to recover from a dysfunctional home and break the cycle
Before we move on, it's important to know that you can't change anyone else. If you are a parent and you think you might fall into the same dysfunctional family pattern, you can only change your behavior at most. You can't change your parents or their behavior.
Seek treatment
To figure out how to handle dysfunctional families or how to recover from a family, your way forward may lie in seeking adult treatment. By talking to a professional, you may end up working with your past in a safe, judgment-free space.
Also, by doing so with someone trained to help you, you may end up breaking cycles of neglect, abuse, or confusion for yourself.
Family therapy
A combination of individual and family therapy for the whole family may also help break patterns of dysfunction
Stay away from toxic environments
When you try to move forward, toxic parents or family members will mercilessly pull you back. By staying away from the family members who are making you miserable, you may eventually be able to make some progress.
Build a new support system
You may have heard the saying, "Friends are the family members you choose." In this case, they can also be lifelines. Instead of getting caught in a vicious cycle of dysfunction and indulging in the past, cultivate your friendships and seek solace in the support system you have built on your own.
Educate dysfunctional families
Education is always the key to progress, so the best chance to learn about family dysfunction and your place in it is to educate yourself. Perhaps the most important result here is that you finally understand that you should not be blamed, that you deserve to be loved, and that there is a way forward.