Growing up in an alcoholic home can be traumatizing for children. Neglect, abuse, mistrust, and becoming addicts in the future are the plight of most kids who grow up seeing their parents indulging in alcohol. However, society may not highlight their plight, and the following are some things such children go through that you may not know.
1) Mistrust
An alcoholic parent is occupied with their drinking behavior and rarely has time to bother about their kids. They even forget to attend important occasions such as birthdays, graduation, sports events, and school functions in their children’s life. The children of alcoholics experience the absence of their parents in events that matter to them, making them lose trust.
Even when they grow up, they develop trust issues, and they are hard to please. From an early age, they learned how to keep their emotions to themselves. Even as adults, they can never have faith in another person. Expressing themselves becomes complicated, and they tend to have unhealthy character traits and personalities.
2) Poor Health
Kids whose guardians have an alcohol use disorder are more likely at risk of having ill-health than those from an alcoholic-free household. An alcoholic parent rarely has time to ensure their kid eats the proper meals and engages in physical activities. Some of the health issues that such children develop include sleep problems, inflammatory diseases, malnutrition, and overuse of medicine.
3) Unruly Behavior
Since an alcoholic parent has no time to train their child on responsible behavior, there is a higher risk of becoming social misfits. Some children even suffer abuse like beating, abandonment, and denial of fundamental rights when they mess up. As a result, they become hardened, and no one can get them to do the right thing.
They will portray rudeness to teachers at school, bullying other children, skipping classes, or escaping from school.
4) Loneliness
Since society views alcoholics as failures to society, children will be afraid to tell their friends that their parents are alcoholics. If the friends pry too much in their lives, they will cut connections not to expose their family life. A child can withdraw and choose not to talk to her friends and even family members because they feel embarrassed of their parents.
The isolation behavior makes them suffer from anxiety and depression. Worse still, the children may end up committing suicide because they feel no one in the world cares about them.
5) Poor Performance In School
A child’s concentration in class is dependent on how they relate with their parents. If there is a disconnection in how they relate at home, they will have difficulty listening to the teacher. A pupil in early grades will perform poorly in math, spelling, reading tests, which can harm their overall performance in their entire school years.
6) Abuse Drugs And Become Addicts
Most people who turn to substance abuse and become addicts have a close connection with alcoholic parents. Since parents are role models, their children perceive what they are doing as normal, and it will not be a wonder to have them develop the same behaviors. It becomes a cycle as they raise kids who will take after them or suffer their fate.
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