Mentally Ill Parents in the Family and Childrens Social Relationships - Research Paper Example

Demographic Data Discussed in this section are information about respondent’s demographic data. As shown in Graph 1, 88% of the respondents are Black (African or American) and the remaining 12% of them were White (Caucasian). None of the respondents are American/Indiana/Alaskan/Native or Asian/Pacific Islander. Then on Graph 2, it is shown that none of the respondents’ parents are Spanish/Hispanic or Latino. Graph 1. Child’s Race Graph 2. Either of child’s parents are Hispanic/Spanish/Latino Most of the respondents are female composed of 76% and the remaining 24% of them are male. Graph 3. Child’s gender The respondents’ birth orders are the following. Most of them are first born (48%). Then followed by last (24%), middle (20%) and then only child (8%). Graph 4. Child’s birth order As stated in Graph 5, most of respondents’ parent’s or parents’ mental health diagnosis are bi-polar. The 60% of respondents have parents with bi-polar mental health diagnosis. Respondents with parent’s or parents’ mental health condition of major depression composed the 36%. Then about only 4% of respondents have parent or parents with dystymia as mental health diagnosis. Graph 5. Parent or Parent’s Mental Health Diagnosis The respondents’ average grade is 8th grade and their average age is 14. As noted, the respondents’ natural siblings residing at home are two. Findings and Discussion As presented in the demographic data, most of the respondents are first born. This means that as they grow, they were not exposed to other siblings who could have also influenced their behavior or character aside from their parents alone. However, plainly these respondents were raised by parents with mental health diagnosis and primarily influenced by them on their process of growing up, physically, mentally and emotionally. One of the best things that parents can do to their children is to tell them exactly how worthy they are to them. As found out, most of the respondents received little time or none at all when it comes to telling them that they are persons of worth. The specific detail of information is shown in Graph 6. This means that all of them received insufficient amount of time to be encouraged and to be felt important beings with significant worth to share in this world. This would imply that they grow at present receiving little attention from their parents about telling them their worth as human beings. Graph 6. The amount of time received by respondents from their parents on telling them their worth. It turned out that almost half of the respondents or 46% received insults or derogatory and discouraging words from their parents as shown in Graph 7. The 29% of them said they received words such as stupid, dump, and lazy from their parent or parents. Then 17% of the respondents are found that they received insulting statements from their parents most of the time. These figures when sum up result to 46%. The remaining 54% of respondents received insulting words either little of the time or some of the time from their parents. Graph 7. The frequency of receiving derogatory and discouraging words from respondent’s parent or parents. Unfortunately, it was also found out and as summarised in Graph 8, most of the respondents received none of the time words from their parents telling how proud they are of them. There are few, which is 24% who received words of how proud their parents of them but just little of the time, implying insufficient time in other words. Graph 8. The frequency received by respondents from their parents words of praise for being so proud of them. Living with parents with mental illness may sound not safe at all. However, 56% of respondents said their safety at home is all of the time. The remaining 44% of respondents said their safety comes some of the time implying they are often on the risky side. Graph 9. Respondents’ safety at home. The 48% of respondents found out to have received embarrassment from their parents on the spot in all of the time. As shown in Graph 10, it is indeed majority of respondents are put into embarrassment by their parents in front of others. Graph 10. The frequency of embarrassment received by respondents from their parents. So far with the negative implications of having mentally ill parents, majority of the respondents (72%) strongly agree that having a parent or parents with mental illness make it difficult for them to form friendships. As shown in Graph 11, only about 28% of respondents are positive in saying that their parents could not be hindrance in making friendship. This result is consistent with the response of respondents as summarised in Graph 12. In fact, 76% of the respondents have never attended social outings with peers within 6 months. Furthermore, it turned out that most of the respondents do not want to entertain friends at home while parents are present. As shown in Graph 13, 68% of respondents have never entertained friends at home while their parents are present. Graph 11. The respondents who agree that having a parent or parents with mental illness make it difficult to form friendships Graph 12. The number of times within 6 months respondents attended social outings with friends. Graph 13. The number of times within six months respondents entertained friends at home while parents were present. In fact, not only on social and emotional aspects respondents were affected by having mentally-ill parent or parents. Their scholastic activities may also be affected. In fact and as summarised in Graph 14, 76% of respondents were able to absent more than five times within a school year just to assist their parents or parent in symptoms management. Graph 14. The number of times during the school year respondents were absent to assist their parent or parents manage their symptoms. Another thing, more than two times and in fact, as shown in Graph 15, 56% of respondents stay home over the last 12 months to make sure their parent or parents were safe. The 36% of respondents were able to stay home more than five times for the same reason. The same level of result can be explained in Graph 16 on the information about caring of a younger sister or brother while parent or parents were suffering from a manic episode of depression, bipolar or during a psychiatric hospitalization. Graph 15. The number of days over the last 12 months respondents stay home to make sure their parent or parents were safe. Graph 16. The number of days over the last 12 months respondents stay home to take care of a younger sister or brother while parent or parents were suffering from a manic episode of depression, bipolar or during a psychiatric hospitalization. Graph 17. Respondents’ level of sympathy with people diagnosed with mental illness. As shown in Graph 17, the good thing about respondents is that they are more sympathetic with people diagnosed with mental illness. Around 72% of the respondents are more sympathetic with people diagnosed with mental illnesses. Fortunately over the last 12 months, 88% of the respondents were removed from the care of their parent or parents by Child Protective Service. In fact, 92% of the respondents received mental health support services from the Nortfolk Community Service Board for more than 1 year. The rest already received 6 months to 1 year. Around 76% of the respondents know that their parents were not taking medicine or receiving treatment from a doctor or health professional. Around 8% of respondents were able to know their parents were taking medicine or receiving treatment from a doctor or health professional. Then the remaining 16% percent of respondents do not know at all whether their parents were taking medicine or receiving treatment from a doctor or health professional. It cannot be denied that most of the respondents live in a family with one parent as summarised in Graph 18. This gives more important implications on social and emotional development of the child. As early as 10 to 14 years old, most respondents realized that their parent or parents were mentally ill. Around 92% of the respondents said their parents received services from the Norfolk Community Services Board for mental health condition or emotional problem for more than 1 year and 8% said around 6 months to 1 year service. Respondents are partly not so optimistic on treatment of mental illness. Around 48% of them said it is very important, 36% said it is somewhat important and 8% respectively each for not very important and not important at all. This would also show that a significant number of them may not exactly agree with the statement “Medications help people manage their mental health symptoms”. As a matter of fact, the highest which is 48% agree somewhat with the statement and 12% respectively for each agree strongly and disagree strongly. Graph 18. Living on a Family composed of the following members. Summary of Chapter This chapter so far discussed the important findings on the significant impacts of having mentally-ill parents to child’s emotional, social and mental aspects in life. These impacts may have potential implications to child’s emotional, social and mental aspects in life in the future. This chapter contains the discussion based on survey research findings in alignment with finding how it impacted the following sub-sections: purpose of study, research questions, methodology and procedures, conclusions, discussions, recommendations and implications. Purpose of the Study This study has three purposes: to identify the effects of the presence of mentally ill parents in the family on children’s (1) social relationships, (2) self-esteem, (3) and social identity. So far the results presented and analyzed were able to give significant clues on the children’s social relationship, self-esteem and social identity. These children were raised by mentally-ill parent or parents. However, the challenge is that most of them were raised by a single, mentally-ill parent. This information alone has already contributed significant information in order to discover further on the child’s development when it comes to social relationships, self-esteem and social identity. The study definitely was able to reach specific answers to how exactly children with mentally-ill parent or parents have been challenged to grow as normal persons without any consequences on their social relationships, self-esteem and social identity. Research Questions The presence of mentally ill parents in the family is a significant issue that is why there is a need to carry out related studies. This is also to ensure that the effects of mentally ill parents in the family will be closely discussed and scrutinized. Not only that, some specific questions can also be given significant level of related information as to be contributed to the growing body of knowledge. Some of these questions are the following: 1) How does having a mentally ill parent affect a child’s social relationships? 2) How does having a mentally ill parent affect a child’s self-esteem? 3) How do children with a mentally ill parent perceive their own social identities? Thus, it is important to carry out specific hypothesis in order to investigate things clearly as possible. The study hypothesized that the presence of mentally ill parents in the family negatively affects children’s social relationship, self-esteem and their own perception on their social identity. Thus, the result of the study must imply that the outcome on children would have positive association to an accommodating and supportive family settings, viewed social assistance from others and awareness about parent’s mental health. The results of the study have actually pointed out detailed information on children’s social relationship, self-esteem and social identity perception. The data however are related only to clues that are very useful prior to in-depth analysis of the entire subject matter and prior to the formulation of significant information in order to address specific questions. Methodology and Procedures It is very important to consider the research questions in order to give detailed methodology and procedure for the study. Important considerations are research design, population, sample and development of the instrument. In the research design, various data on the respondents’ background were unraveled. This is to ensure that from that data, information can be generated. In fact, more information were generated prior to understanding the level of children’s social development in social relationships, self-esteem and social identity who are born to parents with mental illness. The bottom line of course is to be able to create a link connecting parent’s mental illness and children’s social development respectively on their social relationships, self-esteem and social identity. The chosen respondents are analysed based on the data gathered about their demographics, their parents’ mental health history, and finally their social relationships, self-esteem and their perception of their social identities. All of these factors were substantiated and through the descriptive way of examining and analysing data and finally in the presentation of result. Thus, the relevance of developing specific instrument that will be able to help generate results is a very important consideration. So far, in order to find out relevant information about the study, the most significant move is to conduct interview. With this, respondent’s history will be properly analysed in a descriptive manner of presenting information. For this matter, the proponent was able to ask relevant matters that all would boil down to understanding the effects or relationship between parents’ mental health history, and the children’s social relationships, self-esteem and their perception of their social identities. Conclusions Parents are the primary important persons that each child should get fully acquainted with upon his or her stage of development in many aspects of his or her life more particularly and importantly on social, emotional and psychological aspects. Every child without question should undergo development on social relationships, self-esteem and certain perception on social identity. In order to create this stage of every child’s life in way normal and successful, parents should be doing normal things as benchmark of their child’s actual perception on social relationship, self-esteem and social identity. There were indeed problems when child learned to understand the fact that his or her parents were not normal in his or her mental capacity. Child’s specific social function can be highlighted as one of the most affected areas though there are even more. This is due to the fact that a child learned to associate himself or herself with others and not only that, he or she learned to compare what others have and what he or she has. Of course, comparing other child’s parents to his or her is just one basic and common action taken. Since parents with mental disability cannot function as normal ones, the tendency is that their child’s potential cannot be exactly enhanced since it should start at home and every detail of it remarkably must start from there. However, in the absence of mentally normal parents, the child would now be dependent on learning things outside the environment home and far from parental undertakings, that on the process, he or she will recognised certain level of disappointments or even embarrassment. The most important part now is to be able to make this child understand that basically, things do not simply stop from their parents. They must learn to appreciate the beauty of it considering that they are normal and can interact normally with others unlike their parents. The problem is that the basic foundation of child’s social relationships, self-esteem and his or her perception of his or her social identity are not entirely enhanced since all of these things should be tasks undertaken by a normal parent. Thus, it would now turn out that it would take more time and deeper level of understanding on the child’s part that his or her entire life cannot be the same with the normal children on the part of having mentally-challenged parents. However, there is still one thing that he can positively do and that is to stick to the fact that he or she is able to learn the process of becoming a normal individual. Discussions On the basis of the significant level of finding the result of this study, the researcher was able to stick on to the main research questions and appropriately formulated the design and process of obtaining relevant information leading to answers. It was found out that parents’ declining mental ability to raise a child has corresponding negative or declining impact on the child’s social relationships, self-esteem and perception of his or her social identity. This was found out based on understanding the respondents’ parents’ mental health history. Based on the study, there is a significant truth on the fact that a mentally-ill parent raising a child creates specific problem on child’s security, status in life, outlook in life just to name a few. One may try to hypothesise that the child will never grow normal in life too. Thus, this has become the basis of the analysis. There were indeed significant problems on child’s social relationships, self-esteem and perception of his or her social identity as far as parents’ mental health condition is concerned. This is a remarkable result and even expected though. However, the point is that the analysis is very relevant and that the entire process is in alignment with the basic human instinct of what is normal, what is acceptable and what is accepted in the normal setting. Recommendations The result of the study has become expected if one may try to base things on society’s standard. In line with this, it is important to consider that even how we grow in life is entirely based on what is viewed normal in the society. Deviating on the society’s standard is considered abnormal. Thus, it is recommended that in order for every child to grow normal as possible even though he or she was born to parent or parents with mental disability, the most important thing one can do is to understand the fact that things simply are not part of his or her control. Thus, there must be specific and more detailed study on the part of the child born to mentally-ill parent so as to know how exactly things work in his or her life in detail. With this, people will be able to learn and understand more how to handle children with mentally-ill parent in order for them to grow normal as what the society is expecting them to be. Implications Everyone grows by the standard of the society. It would be unfair to treat children who are born to mentally-ill parents or parent as abnormal. However, the likelihood of doing such is of high occurrence especially that the society dictates what one must be exactly doing so as to consider him or her normal. However, there are only few studies conducted in order to make them understand in detail the exact things happening on the child especially on his or her social, emotional and psychological aspects that were found out to affect his or her social relationships, self-esteem and social identity. In particular, these type of studies are not only for the benefit of a child born to mentally-ill parent, the most important aspect of these and soon to be related studies is that it creates specific campaign the importance of learning things even outside the level of society’s standard. This implies that understanding things requires understanding extremes so as to get the whole picture in detail. Abstract This study has three purposes: to identify the effects of the presence of mentally ill parents in the family on children’s (1) social relationships, (2) self-esteem, (3) and social identity. In order to fulfill these purposes, the following research questions were formulated in detail: 1. How does having a mentally ill parent affect a child’s social relationships? 2. How does having a mentally ill parent affect a child’s self-esteem? 3. How do children with a mentally ill parent perceive their own social identities? It was found out that parents’ declining mental ability to raise a child has corresponding negative or declining impact on the child’s social relationships, self-esteem and perception of his or her social identity. This was found out based on understanding the respondents’ parents’ mental health history. Read More