Introduction
A lot has been discussed the influence of the environment on the development of children. The environment a child grows in determines how they perceive the world, others and themselves. It affects the development of their personality and could determine whether a child grows up to a responsible adult or ends up in crime and drugs. Hence, the family plays a huge role since it's the environment in which most of the time as a child is spent. The following essay discusses the role of family systems in childhood development, the interrelation between trauma, spirituality and development and the subject of adolescent addiction.
The family is the social support system for an individual and whether support is offered or not determines whether a child develops trust issues or not. According to Erick Erickson, a child progresses through various stages of development before reaching adulthood. The stages are autonomy vs. shame, trust vs. mistrust, initiative vs. guilt, industry vs. inferiority, ego identity vs. role confusion, intimacy vs. isolation, generativity vs. stagnation and ego integrity vs. despair (Feldman, 2014). How well a child passes this stages of development is determined by the family system.
A child in a healthy family system will receive attention, be taken care of, given food and provided for the basic needs, such a child who receives care will develop trust but a child who is neglected, not given basic needs and has to fend for him or herself generates mistrust. As well a child who is raised in a family system where the parents are consistently fighting will develop problems when they get to the intimacy vs. isolation stage between the ages of 18 to 40. Such adults usually have difficulty establishing and maintaining relationships.
A child learns to interact and responds in social situations from their experiences in the family. The child also understands other people's reasoning and thinking about behavior by observing their family context (Muris, 2006). The impact of the family system is evident by seeing the differences in people in adults. Parenting styles are some of the major contributors to the differences in the way people behave.
There are eight dimensions that are used to evaluate if a family system is healthy or not. The dimensions are; mutuality vs. isolation, individuation vs. enmeshment, stability vs. disorganization, flexibility vs. rigidity, distorted perception or clear vs. unclear, role conflict or role reciprocity vs. unclear roles, breached generational boundaries or clear vs. diffuse and distorted communication or clear communication vs. unclear communication (Mossler, 2011). A healthy family system is thereby one in which there are appropriate levels of individuation, mutual relations, stability, flexibility, clear communication, defined roles, and clear boundaries. Children should be brought up in a balanced and stable environment. If parents offer a supportive, warm environment for their children to grow in, they encourage healthy positive relationships. Hence, the children learn better interaction patterns with people outside the family unit and also family members.
An unhealthy family system is characterized by any of the following characteristics; isolation, enmeshment and the lack of individuation, disorganization, rigidity, poor communication, distorted perception, breached generational boundaries and unclear roles. The children brought up in families where they have no support system or are isolated may develop feelings of insecurity, become mentally unstable, have trust issues and develop learning disabilities such as attention deficit hyperactive disorder (Mossler, 2011). Another sign of an unhealthy family system is little or no involvement of the parents. Uninvolved parents depict no interest in the lives and activities of their children and are usually spiritually, socially and emotionally detached. Parents ought to show concern for their children, take care of them and guide them while offering them the necessary support. One of the reasons some adolescents end up in criminal activities or substance abuse is due to uninvolved parents who may not care about the child.
Different cultures also determine the healthy or unhealthy family system due to the differences in child rearing practices. For instance, American parents are authoritative such that they hold expectations and set limits for their children but are also emotionally available, actively engaged and interested in their children’s lives and responsive. On the other hand, parents in China are considered good if they are strict and have control over the behavior of their children.
A traumatic situation is one that causes an individual to undergo some form of suffering that results in some cognitive or physical changes in the body. It can take a short time for example when an accident happens, or it can go on for an extended period for example when a child is neglected. Trauma usually leads to changes in our brains that are difficult to reverse. Childhood trauma can result from neurological changes in the brain.
During a traumatic situation, the brain waves that usually receive signals are the ones that usually respond accordingly to the situation. The divided attention causes a reduction in the intensity of brain waves needed for the individual to function normally. It may lead to mental delays, emotional instability, withdrawal and detachment (Spinazzola, 2014). At the age of five the brain is about 90% its adult size and by age three it is 80% the adult size. The brain makes the most changes during the early years of a child’s life, hence early childhood trauma usually results in problems for an individual.
During the early school-going years of a child, the brain develops more slowly. At this time, there is removal or trimming of neural pathways so as to increase brain productivity (Brady & Back, 2012). The brain also reinforces and shields the neural pathways by covering them. The process is necessary so that children can learn harder tasks that include; sustaining attention, impulse control, and managing emotions. When a child experiences trauma at this stage, it affects their performance in school, their ability to interact with others and to learn new things.
During the teenage phase, the brain continues to develop, and the unused trimming of the brain starts to grow. The development experienced at this age enables the individual to develop skills at rationalizing, forward thinking, and resourcefulness. When a teenager experiences trauma the brain is unable to form interconnections with its various systems, and the result is that the teenager engages in drugs, risky behaviors do things on impulse and may even participate in criminal activities (Brady & Back, 2012).
Developmental delays caused by trauma are classified into five groups. They are; fine motor skills, social, gross motor skills, cognitive and language development (Brady & Back, 2012). The stages are usually delayed if a child fails to reach the progressive stages that include talking, walking, sitting up and rolling over at the same time with other children of their age. Trauma causes stress in the individual which affects the structure and performance of the brain. When a person is stressed certain hormones such as cortisol are elevated and may cause the individual to make irrational decisions. The neurochemical systems, amygdala, prefrontal cortex and hippocampus are the areas of the brain affected by a stress response. Stress also causes memory problems.
One of the effects of trauma on the brain in young children is known as the shake baby syndrome. The syndrome is caused when parents shake their toddlers in anger causing the brain of the child to move around in the skull (Brady & Back, 2012). The rotation causes the blood vessels to tear thereby destroying vital connections between the neurons. The destruction of the connections can lead to learning disabilities, physical disabilities and in extreme cases death. In the United States, it is estimated that approximately six hundred to fourteen hundred babies are diagnosed with shake baby syndrome annually.
Other forms of trauma a child experiences are when they are raised in poverty, when raised in single parent homes with no role model parent of the opposite sex, when they are abused as children among others. Childhood trauma increases the risk for social problems such as adolescent drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, anti-social behavior, victimization and school trauma. It increases the risk for neuropsychiatric disorders that include dissociative disorders, conduct disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Other medical conditions resulting from trauma include asthma and heart disease.
People who have undergone complex trauma exhibit body dysregulation which refers to under-responding or over-responding when reacting to sensory stimuli. They may fail to feel physical sensations such as touch, pain or internal physical sensation, a condition known as analgesia and anesthesia. The condition may cause one to injure themselves without knowing since they are not feeling pain or they may suffer from an illness and not seek treatment since they are unaware of it. Conversely, they may experience hypersensitivity to smells, light, touch or sounds which may cause them to panic when they are confronted by certain sensory stimuli.
Common types of trauma tend to differ in different cultures. For example in the developed countries the most types of trauma experienced by children are unavailability of parents since they are off to work, single parenting , divorce and bullying. In the developing countries, types of trauma felt are such as poverty and issues such as trafficking. In the United States for instance, most children who are trafficked into the country are from Latin America, or Southeast Asia. The children are then forced into street prostitution, brothels or other sexual entertainment forms.
The common conception is that spirituality refers to the devotional life, prayer, meditation, or a connection with religion, however, this may imply that one has to have a lifetime of contemplative prayer, ascetic renunciation in order for them to be spiritual. Spiritual development refers to a process in which the intrinsic capacity of humans for self-transcendence is grown to a point where the self can be embedded into greater things than the self like the sacred (Feldman, 2009). Spirituality is a developmental engine which motivates the search for purpose, meaning, connectedness and contribution (Capps, 2009).
Spiritual development is an active agent for countering the effects of trauma since it enables one to become self-aware and discover their purpose hence, such individuals focus on achieving their purpose while at the same time working on the weaknesses they may have as a result of childhood trauma. Spiritual development also enables the individual to be more aware of others and enhances the emotional intelligence of a person (Capps, 2009).
Abuse is a leading cause of adolescent drug addiction. When children are abused at a young age especially by family members who are supposed to form the social support system for the child, they develop difficulties in forming attachments. Abuse may be in the form of neglect by parents, violence, sexual abuse or brutality towards the child (Scannapieco, 2008). Every human being has the need to form attachments. Right from the moment a baby is in the womb, the baby begins to from an attachment to the mother and to the voices that the baby commonly hears (Scannapieco, 2008). Babies who had a problem while in the womb may exhibit signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when born.
When children are unable to form meaningful relationships and attachments to people they lack the essential social connectedness that human beings long for. Humans want to feel a sense of belonging and without good social connections, this feeling simply doesn’t exist (Cline, 2008). Hence, some adolescents may result into substance abuse. In drug addiction, they find other addicts with whom they have a common interest and can bond over it. They feel a sense of belonging to this groups. What may have begun as a try out slowly grows into an addiction and by the time most of them realize they are already addicted and any attempts to quit are met with withdrawal symptoms. In addition, abuse may cause trauma and trauma alters the normal functioning of the brain especially when it is experienced in childhood and for prolonged periods of time. The altered brain may cause the adolescent to have poor or no coping skills for stressful situations (Scannapieco, 2008). In such a case the adolescent will engage in substance abuse whenever they encounter a stressful situation.
Healthy spiritual development lowers the risk that an individual will engage in substance abuse. Spirituality helps one to cope and manage the side effects of trauma that may cause one to engage in substance abuse. Spiritual practices like meditation and prayer are effective means of increasing health and decreasing stress (Roehlkepartain, King, Wagner & Benson, 2006). Also, proper spiritual development involves an acceptance of the past and elevated levels of hope. Programs that are used to treat addiction such as alcoholics anonymous that utilizes the twelve step program includes a spiritual component whereby an addict seeks comfort and guidance of a higher power (Feldman, 2009). The recovery from trauma and addiction usually involves the repair of the connection with the society and the community is often found in a religious or church setting.
Drug abuse negatively impacts the developing brain of adolescents. Studies done reveal that adolescents who abuse drugs show delayed executive functioning, reduced attention, memory and information processing speed. It also leads to lower academic achievement and decreased language competence.
Drug abuse has been rising steadily over the past few years. The main causes of the increase in substance abuse are increased trauma experienced by children when they are young, availability, peer influence and the portrayal of drugs in the television. Teens are in a position that is way easier to get drugs than in the past due to the internet. With the click of a button, an adolescent can find out where to purchase drugs or order drugs them from private sites on the internet. Also, with the growth of a largely individualized society and the evolution of women’s gender roles to their professional involvement, children are often left to take care of themselves as their parents work. Hence, they fail to receive the necessary guidance that would have propelled them to a drug-free life.
In conclusion, the family systems, trauma and adolescent substance abuse are interrelated in some ways. Poor family systems cause childhood trauma which may lead to substance abuse problems in adolescents. It is vital that individuals recognize the critical role family systems play in our lives so as to decrease a host of problems faced in the world today such as addiction, mental disorders, and criminal activity.
References
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