The Importance Of Unconditional Love For Children

Addictions – Children that live with adults that are addicts may be relied upon by the adults at times to be their main carers. At times these young people may feel isolated and unable to tell people what they are experiencing at home, they may experience stressful situations and may be living in the poverty that

Growing up with substance abuse parents can potentially put the children at risk for developmental deficiencies. Parents who are substance dependent are oftentimes focus on themselves over their children, and this leads to neglecting the children. Without the attachment with the parents, children are lack of security and trust to explore the outside world. According to Erik Erikson, children develop at different stage. Infants are totally dependent on their parents. If parents provide the good care and support to the children, they will develop the basic trust to their parents and the world, otherwise, they will feel insecure and develop mistrust instead. This mistrust may cause problems later in life. As children begin to grow and navigate the challenges of adolescence, parental substance abuse has a direct impact on their well-being, as well as their behavior. Teenagers are eager to seek their identities. Yet, growing up with mistrust, inferiority, and shame

Most children in urban areas are exposed to a plethora of information from different sources and it is very likely that they will have a good idea about addiction even at ages younger than 12. As part of the addiction preventive campaign, the interaction between children and addicts who are under treatment should be explored. This type of first hand testimony of an individual who experienced the grief of addiction can be exceptionally effective and taken much more seriously.

Although all sorts of families can be devastated by addiction, but single parent units (the most common lower class structure) are the most obscured. Behavioral Health of the Palm Beaches supports, “In every family unit, each person plays a role (or multiple roles) to help the family function better and to maintain a level of homeostasis, stability and balance. When substance abuse is added to this dynamic, the family roles naturally shift to adjust to the new behaviors associated with drug or alcohol use, and to continue maintaining order and balance.”4 In single parent units there is an inability of a second parent to fill the void role of the addicted parent. The National Center for Biotechnology Information states, “Frequently, children may act as surrogate spouses for the parent who abuses substances. For example, [young] children may develop elaborate systems of denial to protect themselves against that reality of the parent’s addiction. Because that option does not exist in a single‐parent household with a parent who abuses substances, children are likely to behave in a manner that is not age‐appropriate to compensate for the parental deficiency.”2 So a child growing up in a compromised family unit where addiction is present may develop altered norms and mature into an addict themselves.4

A good mother will always have a never- ending supply of unconditional love for her child, no matter how difficult the child may be. Joy (Wes Moore’s mother), had complete unconditional love for all her children. Wes, being the most difficult child to handle out of the three, was the most loved by Joy. Wes would be in trouble at school and in the streets with his friends. When it became too much for Joy, she sent Wes to military school, which made a drastic change in his life for the better. At the time, Wes thought that his mother sent him away because she didn’t love him anymore. Turns out the decisions she made for him, whether it being good or bad, were all out of the love she had for her son. Mary (The other Wes Moore’s mother), also had

This is how? Families in the States of America are viewed as the basic source of strength, providing nurturance as well as the support for its individual members while ensuring stability and generational continuity for the community versus its culture. The sense of rapid social, economic and political change turns to affect the family and reduces their sense of the relationship between people, groups, and even places. According to research, stability of relationships, expectations, as well as the environment which is a very powerful force that helps people to manage their lives, most especially the young adults and the children. Having said that, classical issues of balancing discipline and control of children with the support, which encourages them to explore and understand the world may be complicated by abusing the use of alcohol and drugs as well as a wide range of other conditions (unodc.org). In other words, family experience with and parental attitudes towards alcohol and other drug use affect a child’s likelihood of developing alcohol and other drug problems. Also, the act of poor management, lack of family bonding, poor monitoring of a child’s behavior and that of physical abuse and or neglect are possible risk factors that allowed or give room for

Understanding personally that parents are consciously aware of the horrors of drug addiction; with determination and an education about the problems they’re facing parents can and will make a difference in their child’s life. The necessity for incarceration for drug addict can be a necessary step in the recovery process. At some point the addict must realize that his/her perception of control is flawed, and their ability to make rational judgements for

Some may not realize it, but parents have a huge influence on their teen. A parent who may seem “toxic” to the child will make the child want to avoid becoming like that parent. Carl Pickhartd says in his article says that these “revisionist parents”, “... sometimes end up parenting the same. So you have a mom brought up by strictly repressive parents who wants to give her adolescents freedom she never had. However, by becoming too permissive, her teenagers careen out of safe control until only by imposing severe measures can she curb their wild ways. Now she becomes even stricter than her parents were with her, recreating the influence she swore she would never impose on children of her own” (Adolescence and parental influence). These parents

The cost of alcohol and substance abuse in the United States reaches heights of four hundred eighty four billion dollars per year (“Magnitude”). That’s about seven hundred eighty times the amount it cost to diagnose and treat sexually transmitted diseases in the year 2000 (Chesson). The sole purpose of this is not to persuade you one way or the other on this topic. Nor is the purpose to apologize for this social issue. The purpose of this writing is to employ data showing the societal effects parental addictions have on children, to show how this data has remained relevant in society, and to show how it is affecting our future members of society.

Azevedo (n.d.) states that teens and their parents are blind to the fact that addiction is a problem with youth. Thinking about addiction adolescents commonly associate it with movies images, or people they’ve seen at the worst point of their addiction. Many adolescents have ideas about what an addiction looks like however, it is hard for them to understand how substance use is a problem as consequences do not seem extreme (Azevedo, n.d.). Similar to adolescents, parents are not aware of the propellor of addiction among youth. Azevedo (n.d.) states they have preconceived ideas about addition and are in denial about addiction in youth. They believe that if their child had an addition problem they would perform poorly in school or have a bad

When looking at parental addiction to alcohol, Sharon Wegcheider-Cruse developed a concept of certain behavioral roles that children of alcoholics take on in order to cope with the addiction issues of the parent which can often lead to emotional harm. Wegcheider-Cruse separates the behavioral roles into four distinct categories each with a different name comprising a hero, a scapegoat, a lost child, and a mascot. When a child takes on a “hero” behavioral role, they are often referred to as the “model child” and are known to take over the family responsibilities which the parents are not addressing. Although there are many positives to a young child taking on this role in the family, including becoming independent, being responsible, and often over achieving, there are many negative impacts made on the child’s emotional state and behavior as well. These negatives consist of having a fear of rejection, having feelings of low self worth, striving for perfection, ignoring

On top of parents being drug addicted, many children in Appalachia deal with instability within their families. They are often raised by single parents, with significant others coming in and out of the picture frequently, or in houses with multiple family members living under the same roof. This uncertainty in their lives is damaging to their mental health, as they can never be sure of who will be in their life, and for how long. A child may become close to an adult, thinking that it will be a permanent relationship, only to have that person ripped from their life the next month, or even the next week. Evidence shows that the social relationships children form has a great influence on their behavior. These relationships begin with the relationships that the child forms with their parents and caregivers. It is necessary to have a secure and attached relationship in order for the child to behave well (ASCD). Single parents also have less time to spend with their children due to the fact that they often need to work more hours in order to support their families. Similar to prescription drug abuse, the number of single parent families is rising across the nation, but this number is higher in Appalachia (newspaper article). Children require attention from their parents in the early stages of development, and if a single parent must work to support the family by themselves, they will have less time to be with their children and raise them properly. Single parent families are also

Sometimes that I learned about the article was, that some drug addict can be very harmful to children. Some kids are even scared to be around their own parents because of their drug addiction. It also talks about how kids are even afraid that their own schoolmates find out that their parents are drug addicts. Also, many drug addiction care about their families, but need or have the urge to feed their addiction so it seems that they don’t care but in reality they do. " Substance misuse may be one of a series of inter-related factors within a family, such as poverty or depression, so that disentangling exactly what causes poor outcomes for the child can be difficult,"(Hart 9 ). In other words, children do not really understand why their

“Parents are the single most important influence on their children’s decision to smoke, drink, or use drugs, yet many parents do not fully understand the extent of their influence.” (Philip Morris USA, n.d.)

Parents serve no purpose. Parents provide no help. Parents give no benefits to children. Children could easily live without parents. Everyone has parents; it’s inevitable. Whether or not children believe that their parents behave in a way to benefit them is a decision they choose to make. These statements differ from reality, parents truly represent some of the greatest people in our world; they do serve a purpose and they impact their children immensely. For some children, they may see the discipline from their parents as their parents failing at their jobs. In actuality, parents need to discipline to structure their children into mature adults. They need to show love and forgiveness even though sometimes it may seem impossible. Children will become the future and parents hold responsibility for that. Therefore, parents must mold them into adults that our future needs. A good parent should model three essential qualities: forgiveness, discipline, and love.