Parental and social relationships nurture a child’s physical, social, and emotional development. The parent-child relationship is a unique bond that lays the basis of a child’s personality. Positive parental and social relationships nurture children for the future. However, negative parent-child bonds exacerbate the effects of traumatic experiences on children. Hostilities between children and parents in strenuous relationships worsen the impact of traumatic encounters on the children. Positive parental and social relationships provide strong abilities in children that mitigate the effects of traumatizing experiences, but insecurity and unsafety experienced in abusive relationships worsen childhood encounters.
Positive parental and social relationships build resilience and strong coping abilities against traumatic experiences in children. The strong connection provides safety and stability, essential for mitigating the impact of traumatic encounters among children. Parents play an important role in developing children’s self-esteem (Keizer et al., 2019). Thus, children with high self-esteem show resilience against traumatic experiences. In addition, youngsters can suppress the effects of their traumatic childhood encounters. Positive parental relationships provide confidence to children. As a result, the children display control over their worst experiences, such as domestic violence. Children’s self-assurance in positive parenting and social relationships mitigates the effects of traumatic experiences.
Abusive parental relationships generate insecure children who experience difficulty handling the effects of traumatic experiences. Domestic violence and child abuse worsens parental relationships because the violence disconnects children from their parents. Parents with a history of childhood maltreatment abuse their children (Greene et al., 2020). Poor modeling or lack of knowledge leads traumatic parents to have a poor relationship with their children. Other troubled parents abandon their children. Lack of perfect parenting causes insecurity that limits children’s resilience. Parenting is already a stressful commitment. Therefore, a lack of knowledge complicates the parent-children relationship. The complicated rapport affects children’s ability to handle trauma.
Social relationships provide a sense of belonging that mitigates the effects of trauma on children. Peers and parents offer positive social relationships to children when they maintain perfect rapport with children. Social relationships influence the self-esteem of individuals (Harris & Orth, 2020). Social relationships give children approval that enhances self-awareness and confidence. Self-awareness instills esteem in traumatized children. In addition, confidence helps traumatic children to deal with their experiences. These confident children demand minimal support from their friends and parents to handle their tough experiences. Belonging offers psychological and emotional safety, which is essential in overcoming trauma. Social relationships provide a convenient environment for traumatized children to avert their condition.
Children with a strong bond with their parents have good problem-solving skills. Problem-solving abilities mitigate the effects of traumatizing experiences in children. Problem-solving skills allow children to detect a problem quickly and determine the best intervention (Tyler et al., 2021). Poor problem-solving skills limit children from dealing with trauma. These children cannot detect and respond to a problem. Parental solid relationships allow children to engage their parents in solving their difficulties. Parents with good relationships help their children to handle challenging experiences. However, other parents fail to know about their children’s trauma. Hence, children are left alone to address the impact of traumatic encounters. Children with bad parental relationships and poor problem-solving skills cannot mitigate the repercussions of trauma. Parents’ inaccessibility denies children alternative intervention to their condition. Also, poor problem-solving abilities hinder children from dealing with the effects of trauma.
Parent-child relationships allow children to disclose their traumatizing experiences for assistance. Sharing horrific experiences with close family members and friends alleviates the impact of traumatic encounters on children. Intervention mechanisms argue that children heal faster from difficult situations when the supporting systems are involved since the former trusts parents or relatives more than strangers ( Savahl et al., 2020). Strong bonds between parents and their children help them to address stressful experiences. The adults prioritize the emotional and psychological safety of their children. Thus, the support systems help children counter the impacts of shared traumatizing experiences. Abusive parental relationships scare children to the extent that they face difficulties expressing discomfort. The lack of strong relationships between children and their parents contributes to loneliness. Therefore, loneliness creates a hostile environment for children to reveal their traumatizing experiences, worsening their situations.
Social relationships provide love and trust, which in turn ssens the challenging experiences of children. When distressed, children are more likely to trust people close to their social environment for assistance. Social and parental relationships ensure children can access their friends and parents. The accessibility allows children to share their problems. Disclosing the trauma to the people in the social environment initiates the intervention. Also, the parent-child connection will enable parents to guarantee children love during distress. Parental affection motivates children to overcome their challenges. Children assume that they have support from their parents. Self-confidence is vital in overcoming traumatic experiences. Bad parental and social relationships reduce confidence in children; hence, they are exposed to the impacts of trauma.
Happy and content relationships enable children to handle trauma. Happy relationships reduce anxiety in traumatized children. Low anxiety levels allow children to manage traumatic experiences. Besides, disturbed children become rational when they have low anxiety levels. Happiness lowers anxiety that escalates trauma in children (Tillery et al., 2020). Hence, children gain the strength to handle traumatizing experience impacts. Besides, contended children show confidence in tackling challenges. Motivation from people within the social environment motivates children. Motivated children show resilience when handling trauma.
Parental and social relationships lessen the impact of traumatizing experiences for children. Children depend on their parents and close family members to fight the adverse effects of historical traumatic experiences like abuse and humiliation. Therefore, children in a suitable environment display resilience, strong problem-solving skills, and confidence that improve their strength in horrific encounters. Bad social and parental relationships cause insecurity in children. Insecurity in traumatized children interferes with their abilities to handle the challenge. On the contrary, Parents with relationships with their children instill high self-esteem and confidence. A strong mentality is crucial in mitigating the impact of a harsh past on children.
References
Greene, C. A., Haisley, L., Wallace, C., & Ford, J. D. (2020). Intergenerational effects of childhood maltreatment: A systematic review of the parenting practices of adult survivors of childhood abuse, neglect, and violence. Clinical psychology review, p. 80, 101891. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2020.101891
Harris, M. A., & Orth, U. (2020). The link between self-esteem and social relationships: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Journal of personality and social psychology, 119(6), 1459. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000265
Keizer, R., Helmerhorst, K. O., & van Rijn-van Gelderen, L. (2019). Perceived quality of the mother–adolescent and father–adolescent attachment relationship and adolescents’ self-esteem. Journal of youth and adolescence, 48(6), 1203-1217. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10964-019-01007-0
Savahl, S., Adams, S., Florence, M., Casas, F., Mpilo, M., Isobell, D., & Manuel, D. (2020). The relation between children’s participation in daily activities, their engagement with family and friends, and subjective well-being. Child Indicators Research, 13, 1283-1312. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12187-019-09699-3
Tillery, R., Willard, V. W., Howard Sharp, K. M., Klages, K. L., Long, A. M., & Phipps, S. (2020). Impact of the parent‐child relationship on psychological and social resilience in pediatric cancer patients. Psycho‐Oncology, 29(2), 339–346. https://doi.org/10.1002/pon.5258
Tyler, P. M., Aitken, A. A., Ringle, J. L., Stephenson, J. M., & Mason, W. A. (2021). Evaluating social skills training for youth with trauma symptoms in residential programs. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 13(1), 104. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0000589
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