Growing Up in a Dysfunctional Home: How Children Adapt

A child growing up in a dysfunctional home does not have many options. In order to survive such an environment, they must adapt.

Some children adapt by minimizing or denying just how bad things really are. A child doesn’t understand that their adult caregivers are dysfunctional—they simply feel bad a lot.

Children don’t have the maturity to say:
“Geez, these parents are nuts and I’m out of here!”

Instead, the child almost always blames themselves for the bad feelings they are experiencing.

They feel bad, therefore they are bad.

“I feel bad, therefore I am bad.”

It’s far easier for a child to negotiate the idea that they are bad than to accept that their parents are bad. After all, if their parents are bad, then who will take care of them? (Hart et al., 2011).

Minimizing and Idealizing Caregivers

The idea that their parents might not be able to take care of them is so frightening that the child adapts in two ways:

1. Minimizing the abuse or neglect.
2. Idealizing the caregivers (Knipe, 2015).

Children idealize their dysfunctional caregivers by creating fantasies about who their parents are. They literally tell themselves lies:

• Exaggerating their parents’ strengths.
• Omitting or downplaying abuse.
• Spinning stories about how wonderful their caregivers are.

This self-deception allows them to survive the dysfunctional system.

From Childhood to Adulthood

As children mature, these defences—minimization and idealization—become more rigid.

This way of adapting to dysfunction in the family becomes a default survival strategy that extends into adulthood.

Is it any wonder then, that children who grow up with dysfunctional parents often end up with dysfunctional intimate partners?

These defences are powerful. They are at the root of what Freud described as the compulsion to repeat the trauma.

Healing From Dysfunctional Childhoods

How do we heal from this cycle?

1. Recognize that you survived. You made it—and that in itself deserves a pat on the back.
2. Work with a therapist. You can begin to gently examine and release these defences.
3. Make new choices. The strategies that kept you alive as a child don’t have to dictate your adult relationships.
4. Commit to the work. It isn’t easy, but with effort and support, you can be free of dysfunctional relationship patterns.

You can get help. You can grow. You can heal.

References

• Boon, S., Steele, K., & van der Hart, O. (2011). Coping with trauma-related dissociation: Skills training for patients and therapists. New York: Norton & Company.
• Knipe, J. (2015). EMDR toolbox: Theory and treatment of complex PTSD and dissociation. New York: Springer Publishing.

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