Family and Parenting: Information For Families

There is an epidemic striking American families. This sobering issue is a topic that rarely sees sobriety involvement. The epidemic is parental substance abuse among families and the damaging affects are staggering and extremely scary.

Parental substance use, and abuse, are associated with other horrific details such as child abuse and neglect, poor school performance, and even behavioral issues and problems in the children. It is no surprise that families with ongoing parental substance abuse are far less united as a family whole. Studies prove that substance use and abuse brings families to incredibly low levels of communication, cohesion, compatibility, and general understanding. It is no wonder that families with use are at greater risk of conflict compared to sober-parent families.

The negative effects that leave a residual impact on children are constructed out of avoidance, constriction of emotional availability, lack of close contact, and impulsive actions.

There are many factors that can actually help cushion children from the psychological damage of these family situations. Factors such as the development of strong social orientation and skills through independent living, even minimal maintenance of mealtimes, holidays, or family rituals, confrontation of the child toward the active alcoholic, and even moderate religious observation can be effective.

The main key to a healthy child, growing and flourishing, and moving onto a healthy adult life themselves, is the recovery of the parental abuser. Recovery makes all of the difference. When a parental figure shows the kind of strength that is required when taking on a goal such as recovery the child’s psychological and emotional well-being is greatly restored.

This is a lot of pressure on the adult that is already going through a seemingly tough time, but recovery is not based on the full concern for others. The recovery can not take place in any parent, until they realize that this decision to seek recovery is about choosing better for themselves. It takes a level of care for others, but the decision can not stick if they are trying to recovery solely for someone else. The point of recovery is to realize that they want it for themselves, and the good affect on the family will follow naturally during the recovery process.

Choose recovery for yourself, first and foremost.

When times of togetherness in a family are a constant happening. Movie nights are a regular occurrence. When the entire family comes together when an issue arises and family meetings are as natural as dinner-time; all of these attributes find themselves as a positive regular part of a loving family. No struggles, no problems, right?

What happens when there is an issue that comes between a family and it begins to tear at the seams of a perfectly healthy family relationship? When the results are becoming more and more destructive, and there seemingly becomes no way out, the time may come for intervention tactics from outside sources.

This is not to say that any one member of the family should be pin-pointed and sent to therapy. That would be presumptive and cruel. If this is a family-oriented situation where the whole of the family is affecting the whole situation, then this may be the right circumstances to bring in thoughts of full family therapy participation.

The issue may be a health crisis involving one or more members of the family, it may be mental illness affecting a part or the whole, parental work issues, or even a teenage rebellion crisis. Either way, no matter the details of the issue, once it is decided that there is a problem and it’s effects are affecting the group then it’s time. But one thing that needs to be understood is the idea of therapy. A lot of people can allow their ego to stand in the way of proper resolution of issues through family therapy. Therapy is not for the weak, only the strong willed can admit their need for help. So if a family member is resistant because of the stereotypical ideals surrounding therapy then the other remaining family members may need to lend a bit of persistent encouragement.

This may be harder than realized at first, especially when a family crisis is already on-going. But even in hard times a family can still make group decisions. It may be necessary, if therapy is decided upon and one member is resistant, for the cooperating members to meet with the therapist first. Upon receiving feelings of trust and hope from the right therapist these signals may be seen by the hesitant family member. If not, the therapist may offer a workable strategy to try. Help is always a good idea when it comes to those you love.

You can never be wrong when you are trying to heal a family wound. Your family is the greatest source of support, comfort, and love when in a healthy situation. But when things go a bit off-key and the family, as a whole knows it and recognizes it, then the best idea is to confront it. Confront the issue head on. Your family is worth it.

We know how harmful anger can be to us as individuals, and some us may unfortunately know what it can do to family relationships. This very natural emotion can spiral out of control when left unchecked and it may be detrimental to the survival of family togetherness, closeness, to learn about the anger, deal with it in healthy ways, and heal the wounds that have been opened by it.

Anger is natural. It absolutely has positive aspects that can be used for positive purposes, such as ‘bleeding’ a bad feeling and then feeling better from its release. If anger were not natural then we wouldn’t be capable of expressing it. When used correctly anger is a signal to us that something is wrong, a signal that something needs correction. Just as pain is a physical signal.

The ability to sense anger in another person bring us a clue of the approaching anger and gives us a hint to move toward resolve. Though anger can be a trigger for us to find emotional correction, it can also lead to a more complex issues. Unfortunately the more we become angry the more we are susceptible to become angry. It is a snowballing emotion. With persistent anger comes a higher sensitivity to the things that make us angry.

When anger becomes a chronic happening it chokes out other feelings and makes itself the solution to all of your problems. It disguises itself as a cure. When the people we love point out our anger issues, we tend to experiment with repression and this only beckons it further. This only keeps the person from learning other, effective ways of dealing.

Anger in chronic lapses can be brought on by a number of things. Whether it is substance abuse, physical abuse, depression or anxiety, even grief that brings on the angry tendencies they can all be assessed, healed, and dealt with.

Trying to deal with anger inwardly with suppression will only cause resentment, bitterness, and eventually, hatred. To permanently heal the anger you must find the source of the initial anger. Find the triggers. Then it must be stopped where it begins. Finally your anger will never be dealt with until you find the willingness to release it. Three steps is all it takes, but it may be the hardest three steps of your life. All you can do is try, have faith, and know you have the ability to fight that which causes you pain.