Toxic Parents Chapter Summary

Growing up as a child in a dysfunctional home causes children to abhor their parents and have a difficult time trusting them. Both parents not staying together in one house cause abhorrence against the parents. Going home every day to drunk men and loud music, going to bed hearing loud arguments causes children to become afraid. After growing up and understanding everything that has happened as a kid growing up, gives children a different outlook on life. After years of being in a home where there is no balance causes children to dislike their parents because of the hurt and lies they have been through. When children get into their adulthood, most of them forgive their parents and some continue to be stubborn and not forgive them.

Anderson, S.A. & Cramer-Benjamin, D.B. (1999). The Impact of Couple Violence on Parenting and Children: An Overview and Clinical Implications. American Journal of Family Therapy, 27(1), 1-19.

Each and every parent has their own style of parenting. Each parenting style is based on certain beliefs and conventions that are used to teach children to become increasingly self-sufficient as they age. The novel “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls, explores the unusual ways that Rex and Rose Mary Walls’ raise their children. Generally, parents will attempt to keep their children out of harm’s way by any means necessary, although, in “The Glass Castle,” this is not the case. Rex and Rose Mary Walls' unconventional, relaxed style of parenting teaches their children Lori, Jeannette, Brian, and Maureen to be self-sufficient at a young age.

How does domestic violence between parents and parental figures affect the children who witness it? This is a question often asked by Sociologists and Psychologists alike. There have been studies that prove that children who witness domestic inter-parental violence experience mental health problems, issues with gender roles, substance abuse, the committing of crimes and suicide/suicide attempts later in their lives. This paper will explore all five of these 'effects' of domestic violence on children and show that there is evidence of a clear relationship in which increasing parental violence is associated with increasing outcome risks (Fergusson & Horwood, 1998, p.8).

I just recently had the opportunity to read the magazine article from The Atlantic titled “The Overprotected Kid” by Hanna Rosin. This article constantly critiques and bashes society along with the parenting styles of today. I agree with Rosin that parents are too protective over their children because parents today are holding back their children and are preventing them from many experiences. Fortunately, my parents were not part of this trend, allowing me to explore and learn from my own experiences and mistakes. Playgrounds are becoming to a point that is almost too safe and children are taking less risks. Playgrounds and parents are not allowing kids to learn on their own and experience life while taking risks.

Although family relationships can provide stability and a sense of wellbeing, they can also involve physical violence, verbal and emotional abuse, sexual abuse and neglect (Holmes et al., 2016, p.

In the article, "The Undercover Parent" by Harlan Coben, the author talks to the audience about why he thinks all parents should watch their children on the internet. Coben uses pathos more than anything else when trying to reach out to his readers. Coben uses some tactics to get the reader to trust what he says. One specific tactic is that he acknowledges the reader's feelings. He also manipulates the reader by reducing the negative feelings that they have when they read this article and replace them with positive feelings. Then he is finally increasing the fear enough that the reader will feel obligated to put spyware on their kid's computer so that they can protect them from the horrible thing found on the internet.

Harlen Coben in an editorial titled “The Undercover Parent” (March 16, 2008) claims that parents should have conversations about their concerns with teens, and let them know how spyware is a possibility.Should parents of teens and tweens go undercover? Harlen Coben, the author is trying to make parents have conversations with their teens and tween about internet safety, and let them know if spyware is a possibility. I agree but in some opinions i disagree with Coben and his prediction. If you put spyware on your computer, you have the ability to log every keystroke your child makes and thus a good portion of his or her private world. That’s what spyware is at least the parental monitoring kind. You don’t have to be an expert to put it on your computer.

When it came to his parents Rodriguez parents really didn't care to much about him reading. When Rodriguez mentions his mother’s instruction to him " don't write in your books so we can sell them at the end of the year." (Rodriguez pg 190). That's the first sign that shows they don't care much. Worried more about money it's clear that they don't have time to try to care about what their son is reading or even ask what type of book it is. That's makes Rodriguez fade away more from people and more into reading where he doesn’t feel as Lonely at times. Another example is when Rodriguez compares to reading in school to reading at him claiming in school the teacher and Liberian appreciates him reading. At home it's different stating "he hears his

Disengaging Parents In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, uninvolved parenting is the most exemplified by Rosemary and Rex Walls because of the few demands, low responsiveness, and lack of communication that they exhibit towards their children. Having few or no expectation or demands are characteristics of an uninvolved parent in which Rosemary and Rex demonstrates that affects their children severely. This is shown when Jeannette is three, boiling hot dogs for herself on the kitchen stove when her dress catches on fire, severely burning her (Walls 9).

The formative experiences that define a child's home life will have a lasting impact on the individual as he or she enters the later stages of childhood, adolescence and adulthood. The degree to which one's family life is loving, nurturing, supportive and attentive is a substantial determinant in emotional, social and intellectual development. Accordingly, a home which is abusive, violent, negative and neglectful is more than likely to have deleterious effects for the child both while and well after maintaining residence there. This turns us toward the focus of the present study, which is the impact levied by domestic violence on children.

Domestic violence also greatly impacts the family structure and the relationships between the members. Domestic violence threatens both the relationship between the child and their mother and the child and their father. Children who are exposed to domestic violence do not have an emotionally available parent to foster their development and have a 30-60% higher risk for being abused by the perpetrator (NCADV, 2007); when the father is the perpetrator of the violence, he often knows little about his children, their interests, and progress in school (Crosson-Tower, 2009, p. 84). The mother’s parenting style may also be damaged from domestic violence; the perpetrator may not allow the mother to take care of her children properly or soothe them when they are upset, which can cause the children to believe their mother does not care for them. When a mother is constantly traumatized by domestic violence, it can be more difficult for her to be present and attentive in her children’s lives due to depression, anxiety, and lack of sleep (Centre for children and families in the justice system, 2009). Domestic violence has an impact on the ability for a family to function. The perpetrator may sow divisions between the members of the family by turning them against each other, or favoring one child over the others. There may also be role reversals in families who experience domestic violence; parentification of the children and infantilizing of the mother may

It is common for parents and their children to have disagreements and to have arguments but sometimes these disagreements can turn into abuse. Children usually use violence to try to “control or bully them” (Parenting and Child Health, n.d.) This violence usually occurs when the child “frightens, threatens or physically hurts them. It can involve using abusive language, pushing, shoving, kicking, throwing things, or threatening with knives or other weapons” ((Parenting and Child Heathen’s.) Children may abuse their parents due to the normalization of that parent getting abused by the other parent within their household. The child may use the parent that abusing the other parent as a model for the way they should act towards their parent as well and justify their actions simply as something that they observed in their household. The violence that children commit against their parents affects that subsystem because it leaves it broken. There is a strain within the parent and child relationship that forms a direct result of constant conflict and abuse between the child and parent. Sometimes, in child-child relationships, an older sibling may become “more aggressive” with their younger sibling because of the abuse that they have witnessed and been exposed to. (Fantuzzo, Mohr, 1999) The children can become socialized by the parents to believe that

For some reasons toxic family members tend to live in their own distorted and toxic version of reality. For example, you clean the dishes, you sweep the floor, and you make your bed. You do all of these chores five days a week. But according to your parents and your siblings, you don't lift a figner around the house. In most dysfunctional families children tend to learn to doubt their own intuition and emotional reactions as a result of growing up in such an environment.

When a family decides to have a child, everything changes. That child becomes a number one priority. In order for a child to lead a healthy, functional life, a family needs to be strong and functional. When a family becomes dysfunctional, the most effected is the children. The children forget their children and act out which makes them difficult to live with. If a dysfunctional family, let alone the children, knew that therapy and help was available to them, more families would become healthy. In this paper, I will prove that children in dysfunctional families can self-diagnose and be encouraged to seek help and treatment so that their future can be affected by their own mistakes and not the mistakes of their families.