Why is the family dysfunctional (Hunger, Lan Samantha Chang) - Essay Example

However, sometimes families fail to fulfill the emotional and physical needs of their children. In addition to this communication pattern of the family limits the expressions of the feeling and needs of the children. Children who grow in such families end up developing low self-esteem. They start thinking that their feelings are not important and therefore there is no need to express them, as they believe that no one will take them seriously. The end result of this is that as adults they may form unsatisfying relationships.

One of the main reasons behind the dysfunction of families is that one of the parents have compulsion or addiction (e.g. alcohol, drugs, gambling, promiscuity, overeating or overworking) which has a negative influence on the family members. Sometimes one of the parents as a primary mean may also use physical violence, in order to get control. In such cases there are chances that children must have watched violence or they must have been a part of violence, like they have been forced to punish their siblings or they may also live in fright of an explosive outburst.

Another reason of family dysfunction can be that parents usually threaten to withdraw their children from or are unable to provide their children with the basic physical and financial care. Similarly one of the parents may also be unsuccessful in providing emotional support to their children. Sometime one of the parents may also exert powerful authoritarian control on their child. Such families are often adhering to some particular beliefs, which may be personal, religious, political or financial.

Compliance with expectations related to a specific role and with certain kind of roles is expected without any kind of flexibility. A great deal of variability is found in the ways through which dysfunctional behaviors and interaction occurs amongst families and in the severity and kinds of these dysfunctions.