What if the greatest war and the loudest scream occur inside a child's head and at home instead of on a battlefield? What happens if the mental scar is more severe than the physical one?
As clay may be shaped and molded into any shape, so too can children. The relationships a child has within their family are the main factors influencing their development and growth.
Dr. John Gottman, a renowned psychologist, states, “Children are like emotional Geiger counters. They register and absorb conflict, even when we think they don’t.”
The Family is considered a sanctuary and a place of shelter, a place where children find love, security, and guidance. Nevertheless, this shelter may turn into a battlefield when disputes emerge within the family. Battles fought and conflicts in tense family environments leave lasting imprints on a child’s mental health, shaping their emotional resilience, self-worth, and relationships in adulthood. The psychological impact of unresolved family conflicts on children can be profound, whether they arise from sibling rivalry, parental disagreements, or spousal relationships.
Mental Health and Human Rights
As per the research by the National Library of Medicine, Children from single/divorced families are 4x more likely to have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and 2x more prone to repeated psychiatric hospitalizations compared to intact families. Children from broken homes are more likely to experience mood disorders and PTSD, with over 71% reporting parental or sibling psychiatric illnesses. Events of separation cause toxic stress, which exacerbates trauma from family instability or migratory difficulties for the children.
The Invisible Wounds and the Ripple Effect
Children grow and learn from families, and families play the primary role in the child's social, physical, and psychological growth. From the moment a child is born, they begin to absorb and respond to the world around them. Every interaction, observation, and experience shapes their understanding of behavior. Postnatally, infants begin learning through sensory exploration, using behaviors like sucking to regulate stimuli exposure and forming preferences for familiar sounds or images. Between the ages of 12 and 24 months, infants show that they can solve problems in the face of uncertainty by modifying their search tactics in response to probabilistic cues and asking for help from their parents when things are unclear. In this learning phase, if a child frequently sees kindness, cooperation, and patience, they are more likely to embody these traits. On the other hand, exposure to aggressive or negative behaviors since childhood leads to the replication of negative behaviors and traumas in their interactions.
Not every conflict is waged with loud voices. Unspoken wars, silent treatments, and emotional neglect can be equally harmful. Later in adulthood, a child who grows up in a household where parents don't communicate finds it hard to express their emotions and may suppress them until they explode in destructive ways. Childhood trauma creates cascading effects that ripple across an individual’s lifespan, disrupting psychological, physical, and social functioning while increasing vulnerability to chronic disorders as well.
According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a child requires emotional security before they can effectively engage in learning. A study published in the Journal of Family Psychology found that children from high-conflict homes performed 15-20% lower in academic achievement compared to their peers from stable households. They often face issues like difficulty concentrating, memory problems, and lack of motivation due to emotional distress. Such children raised in high-conflict environments often struggle with education, experiencing difficulty concentrating, social withdrawal, and lack of motivation, which has a ripple effect in facing relationship issues, such as fear of commitment, difficulty trusting others, or repeating toxic patterns in their relationships. Emotional control becomes difficult, with concealing their feelings, battling with anger management, and developing anxiety disorders. A child begins questioning him/herself for the cause and finds nowhere to dump it one way or the other, which creates an immense mental disorder as a ripple effect.
One such battle within families leads to long-lasting effects on individual life, leading to enormous emotional instability, poor cognitive development, poor academic achievement, low self-esteem, identity problems, and severe behavioral disorders.
What can be done? Breaking the Cycle
The battle that children fight within themselves can be brought to an end via communication and conversations with family members. When it comes to children, parents and other family members need to be cautious and kind. Little acts of kindness like spending time with kids, asking for a day out, rewarding them for their hard work with prizes, and developing a nice and cordial relationship with them are what actually count. Since the number of divorces is rising quickly, co-parenting can be a good option in such cases, which allows active involvement of parents in children’s lives, offering them a sense of stability and emotional security.
As Gabor Maté, a leading expert in childhood trauma, states, “Children don’t get traumatized because they are hurt. They get traumatized because they are alone with their hurt.” Family conflicts become especially harmful when a child feels unheard, unseen, or emotionally abandoned. If parents make up and communicate with their children, then this obstacle may turn into resilience and healing. Similarly, society and friends are the most influential factors for the child’s behaviour and growth. In the end, children’s well-being is shaped by the environment they grow up in. When homes become safe spaces filled with love, joy, and understanding, children don’t just survive - they flourish and shine.