Introduction
According to Olff (2012), a traumatic incident is a shocking circumstance that usually leaves an individual exposed to psychological issues. It is usually these traumatic events that lead to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a psychological problem that can negatively alter a person’s behavior. Individuals with PTSD usually depict high levels of anger, aggressive behavior, reactivity, and social withdrawal (Sherman et al., 2016). The negative impact of the trauma that causes PTSD can be felt across numerous generations. A study by Christie et al. (2019) noted that a significant portion of individuals with PTSD are usually parents with children. According to Sherman et al. (2015), parents who have PTSD recorded reduced levels of satisfaction in parenting and showcased poor relationships with their children. So, parental PTSD has a negative impact on their children.
Insecure Attachment
The first negative impact of parental PTSD is that it leads to poor attachment, which has massive consequences on the child. Meijer et al. (2023) linked PTSD to increased chances of an insecure attachment between a parent and their child. Meijer et al. (2023) note that PTSD can cause a parent to showcase negative behavior, such as constant irritability, that usually leads to a child struggling to interpret and comprehend what is happening. PTSD typically leads to a parent depicting behavior that frightens a child who begins viewing their caregivers as unpredictable. Such situations lead to an insecure relationship between parents and their children.
The insecure attachment due to parental PTSD has a massive impact on a child. First, according to Meijer et al. (2023), childhood attachment usually impacts an individual’s relationships with their friends and partners in adulthood. It means that insecure childhood attachment is likely to lead to relationship problems such as divorce in adulthood. Insecure childhood attachments can also push a child towards mental health problems such as anxiety and depression as they struggle to cope with their situation. Insecure attachment leaves a child feeling unfulfilled, which can push them to even suicide.
Poor Emotion and Support
Another negative impact of parental PTSD is based on emotional regulation. According to Meijer et al. (2023), one of the significant symptoms of parents with PTSD is the struggle to control their emotions, which negatively affects parenting. PTSD has been linked to low emotional awareness, emotion avoidance, and struggles to control negative emotions (Sheila et al., 2012). Challenges with one’s emotions can cause a parent to become overwhelmed when dealing with children, which affects the ability to parent consistently. For example, parents with PTSD can become highly harsh to children even when they commit a small mistake. Harshness due to parental PTSD can hurt a child’s self-esteem and social behavior.
Such children are likely to face behavioral problems such as aggressive behavior and social withdrawal as a way to cope with their situation. Parental PTSD has also been linked to lax behavior in parents, which can lead to immaturity and delinquency among children as they know there are no consequences for their actions. Lax parenting leads to problematic behaviors among children, such as acting out and arrogant attitudes. According to Thompson-Hollands et al. (2022), PTSD usually affects social relationships; hence, parental PTSD was linked to lower parental supportiveness due to a lack of emotional attachment. Lack of enough support from parents can lead to psychological distress and social behavior problems among children.
Toxic Stress
The third negative impact of parental PTSD is that it leads to toxic stress among children. Kritikos et al. (2018) note that parental PTSD usually leads to family-offspring problems, parenting issues, and challenges in family functioning. The circumstance mentioned above creates a toxic family environment that snowballs into a stressful situation among children in the household. However, according to Olff (2012), stress is a healthy human psychological response to danger, vital to human survival. For example, when one notices a vehicle moving towards them, their body will create a stressful situation in which they move out of the way, ensuring their safety. After the situation, oxytocin plays a role in returning the human body from stress to a normal state (Lorenzo et al., 2020). However, when a child is continuously exposed to parental PTSD, their stress system turns hypersensitive; the parental system will constantly trigger the stress system. The toxic stress that the child faces due to parental PTSD can have a massive impact on their physical health. Stress among children has been associated with chronic diseases such as heart disease. Toxic stress can also cause mental health problems such as anxiety and memory problems.
Mentalization
The fourth negative impact of parental PTSD is based on social cognition. Parents with PTSD can struggle with mentalization, which is the ability to interpret, comprehend, and respond to their child’s thoughts and feelings (Meijer et al., 2023). Mentalization in parents is ordinarily essential to a child’s well-being and development. PTSD usually interferes with a parent’s mentalization process, which negatively affects their parenting. So, impaired mentalization due to parental PTSD impacts the child’s well-being. They started to feel neglected as their parents struggled to evaluate and respond to their needs. The feeling of neglect affects their mental health and other cognitive processes.
Poor Parenting
According to Seidemann et al. (2021), PTSD typically affects reward system mechanisms. Abnormal-reward-seeking behaviors have been linked to PTSD. So, parents with PTSD are likely to embrace risk-taking behavior such as sexual promiscuity and drug abuse. They are quick to engage in dopamine-inducing behaviors. Such situations have a massive impact on a child since their parents focus primarily on dopamine-inducing behaviors, paying less attention to them. It gives birth to uninvolved parents in the child’s development. Uninvolved parents due to parental PTSD can lead to mental health problems such as depression and anxiety among children. Uninvolved parenting leaves a child feeling they are not loved or cared for by their parents and, hence, are likely to engage in destructive behavior. High dopamine due to PTSD can lead to parents having impulsive behavior that can destroy a child’s future (Meijer et al., 2023).
Conclusion
After thorough research, it is evident that parental PTSD has a massive negative impact on a child. First, parental PTSD leads to insecure attachment between a child and their parent. As revealed in various studies, childhood attachment affects adult relationships. So, individuals who have insecure attachments in childhood are likely to struggle with their relationships later. PTSD causes emotional issues among parents, which impact a child’s psychological process and social behavior. Parental PTSD can also cause a lack of supportiveness of a parent towards their child, which can leave them feeling neglected. It can create an environment that creates toxic stress among children, which affects their mental and psychological stress. Parental PTSD can lead to impaired mentalization, which affects their parenting as they struggle to understand their children’s needs. Parental PTSD also pushes parents to embrace risky behaviors that lead to them becoming uninvolved in their parenting.
References
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