Upshot of Deleterious Parental Bond on Children’s Psychological Well-Being

Sometimes even with the absolute ‘happily-ever-after’ intentions, a relationship can become an unhappy and conflicted unification. If this is the case a point will come where there will be no hiding it from you children, whether you like it or not they will know it.

Then unfortunately comes the hardest decision a parent could make and that is deciding whether to stay in an unhappy marriage or leave. Changes in the family structure can unsettle and upset and make children feel insecure and bad about themselves, you never know how the child will react to it because they have seen you as a unit despite the ugly circumstances. No parent would ever intentionally want to disturb the psychological well-being of their child and in providing a supportive and nurturing relationship, parents play a precarious role in promoting their children's healthy development. Majority parents try to protect their children from the psychological consequences of weighty stress by safeguarding them from the effects of trauma and helping them to regulate their emotions. But in the case of unhappy marriages parents would only be able to help regulate the emotions of their children when they are aware of when and how to, without causing distress, express themselves.

Children raised in an unhealthy environment or raised without positive parenting are more at risk for their own relationship troubles, depression, anxiety, and aggression. Children may feel angry, anxious or depressed, which may persist throughout their life. There’s a high probability that they might develop insecurity towards the opposite gender.  These feelings can greatly affect other extents of their lives such as school and friendships.

Family relationships provide security that can help an individual cope with stress, engage in healthier behaviors, and enhance self-esteem, leading to higher well-being. Children whose parents have divorced or separated have more behavior problems than those in intact families. More emotional and behavioral problems occur in families disrupted by divorce or families in which the children are most of the time exposed to violence and abuse either physical or verbal.

Firm characteristics have been recognized in caregivers as well as the children themselves that serve as risk factors for abuse. Mentioned are the problems that are the result of witnessing abuse or disrupted family structure:

This unsettled parent-child relationship problem can soak into multiple aspects of life. Loving, stable and responsive relationships are fundamental to a child's psychological and ethical development. Through relationships, children learn how to think, understand, communicate, behave, express emotions and develop social skills. Now just imagine for a while that you don’t even know, you have never in your life learned how to express yourself or communicate your emotions/feelings in a reasonable manner?

Children do not listen to your words, they imitate and observe your reactions to different situations. That's how they learn to express and communicate. They read your body language and they can feel your body tension. What you do is show your child that’s more likely how they will behave, instead of following your commands which you give them but you yourself do not follow them. For example, how you cope with feelings like frustration and distress influences how your child regulates their emotions. Everything you do, all influence your child no matter how small the deed is. What you say is also important. When a parent's behavior does not create a loving, supportive environment, a child's brain develops in altered form. Dysfunctional, irrational and destructive behavior patterns are literally involuntarily into the child's brain, setting the stage for recurring issues throughout that child's life.

It is widely accepted that parental conflict does damage, particularly when it is any of the following:

Parents will do anything for their children and this may fuel the decision to stay together in an unhappy marriage. Conflict, though, might do more harm to children than divorce. In an unhappy marriage, where tension and conflict is the norm, parent-child interactions also seem to show signs of pressure. All these heated moments could turn into a trigger for the child which will definitely cause psychological disturbance in the child’s life. Triggers are individualized experiences that vary widely from person-to-person. No parent would ever want to become a trigger for their children. So people in unhealthy marriages should resolve their conflicts before deciding to have a child instead of using that child as an escape which many people do that a child might miraculously fix the broken marriage because the child won't; it can’t, instead of fixing your broken relationship, you might make your child suffer and  live a life that no one deserves, a life where the word home and parents become a trigger.