IMPACTS OF GROWING UP IN A DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY

When you see an adult with issues, It all stems from childhood. The abuse and neglect you experienced in childhood caused you trauma that you need to deal with. So which are the effects of growing up in a Dysfunctional family that show up in adulthood?? 

1. Trust issues. You grew up without trusting your parents as they Raised you in abuse and neglect. Always fighting with your siblings during family gatherings. So you find it hard to trust other people as the only people who would have cared for you were never trustworthy. 

2. Low self-esteem. Unhealthy families thrive in putting one another down. You grew up with a toxic parent who always told you how ugly you are ..how useless you are... A parent who kept comparing you with other children. You developed feelings of being unworthy and unimportant. 

3. Pathological lying. Have you ever met people who lie without even blinking?? Lying is a defense mechanism which children develop to cover up their actions to escape their parents punishment. Children Raised by extremely dictatorial and violent parents learn how to lie to escape being beaten. Other parents ask their children to lie about something against the other parent or another child. The child learns how to lie and it goes with them to adulthood. 

4. Inability to express emotions or feelings. Growing up with emotionally unavailable parents makes a child to learn how to bury emotions. If you grew up with a parent who beat you for crying or told you that "men don't cry" and never comforted you while you were sad. You will be an adult who has difficulty expressing emotions as you bottle them up. 

5. Increased risk of anxiety and depression. An adult who grew up in Dysfunctionality has a higher risk of depression compared to one raised in a healthy home. Failing to express emotions can lead to depression. Trust issues and fear of abandonment might increase your chances of always being anxious. 

6. Increased risk of drugs and alcohol abuse. Drug addiction stems from childhood. Drugs help people numb the feelings and trauma caused in childhood. Inability to face some situations leads a person to drug abuse. 

7. Aggressive behavior and violence . If you grew up with extremely violent parents who used to fight each other every night. Who beat you every day to a point of almost, dying you're more likely to be aggressive towards other people. You're socialized to using physical violence to solve every person who wrongs you. 

8. Inability to set boundaries. Boundaries are alien in Dysfunctional homes. The same way you will find it hard to keep your boundaries. 

9. People pleasing. If you grew up in a home where parents always put you down. The only way you survived was pleasing them so that they love you, you will find yourself pleasing people looking for their approval. 

10. Difficulty maintaining healthy romantic relationships. In psychology we say, you attract what is familiar. So you keep attracting people who are toxic like your parents. You see a healthy partner as a threat since you have never been loved right growing up. You attract chaos as that is what is familiar with you. 

11. High possibility of having your own Dysfunctional family. Picture this, you grow up with violent parents, you attract a violent spouse... You raise children watching you beat each other in marriage. The children will learn that Dysfunctionality . 

Dysfunctionality runs from one generation to the next, until one person in that lineage identifies it and makes a conscious decision to break the cycle. If you grew up in unhealthy family patterns..  make a decision to detach and work towards becoming a healthy individual For you and your future generations.

© Joyce Mwai

Writer/ Teenager Mentor/ Parenting Coach 

How to detach from a Dysfunctional family

 

If you realize you grew up in a Dysfunctional family, the only way out is to detach from the Dysfunctionality. How do you get out of this Dysfunctionality? 

1. Understand that breaking the cycle of Dysfunctionality is a personal Journey. Now that you understand what Dysfunctional and toxic family is, don't go asking everyone in your family that they're in a toxic home. Don't start telling your siblings your parents are toxic. It's a personal Journey you're taking. 

2. Get used to the idea of disappointing people. If your toxic family was used to demanding things or money from you even when you're struggling, Normalize saying NO and don't feel guilty about it. 

3. Allow people to make their own decisions. If you were behaving like the family's deputy parent, let your siblings make their decisions. Whether good or bad. Don't tell people what they should do. Stop obsessing about other people's problems. Focus on what is within your control. 

4. Set emotional boundaries. Stop reacting and start responding. If your family member says something to get into your nerves. Refrain from reacting and respond when you're calm. When you start with calmness, you can decide what requires your response and what does not.

5. Distance yourself from the toxic environment. You can't end the cycle of Dysfunctionality while you're still crossing paths with the toxic people all the time. The codependent relationships created in toxic families go deep like drug addiction. So to succeed in detaching, you have to avoid your triggers. (Your triggers are the toxic parents or siblings) 

6. Establish a new support system. Family ain't blood. Invest in friendships who will make up your healthy family support system. Remember " Friends are the family that we choose"

7. Keep learning about Dysfunctionality in families. Keep educating yourself about Dysfunctional families and how to cope with them. Read books, articles, follow pages that focus on the issue and keep learning. 

8. Let others know how to treat you. Let people know your boundaries. If you set your boundaries, others will know how to treat you. 

9. Prioritize Self care. Normalize making yourself a priority. Stop feeling guilty when you do something nice for yourself because your toxic mother/father/siblings will complain. Identity what you need and give it to yourself. 

10. Seek professional intervention. Normalize investing in therapy. Sometimes Dysfunctionality is deep rooted and you can't get out of it on your own. Just like drug addiction, you might find yourself relapsing and getting back to the toxicity. Therapists will help you detach. 

Detaching from Dysfunctionality does not mean hate. It means you understand there's an unhealthy pattern you were raised in and you wish to break that cycle. When you detach, you become a healthy adult who will raise emotionally healthy children. 

© Joyce Mwai

Writer/ Teenage mentor/ Trainer

Characteristics of a Dysfunctional family

To end Dysfunctional family patterns and raise your children to be a healthy generation, you need to first identify whether you're a product of a dysfunctional family. So what are the characteristics of a dysfunctional family? 

1. Ineffective communication and triangulation.

 Communication is a problem in a dysfunctional family. You'll find there are some members who don't talk to each other at all. Others yell alot as they cannot listen to one another. In other families, parents communicate in triangulation ( A parent communicates to the other parent through the children). You'll see a mother saying " Go tell your father there is no money for food or we sleep hungry" 

2. There are power struggles. 

A dysfunctional family has that one sibling that wants to control the whole family. Especially if the sibling is well financially. Those who feel controlled may react by withdrawing from the family while others might become violent towards the controlling sibling. The parents cannot balance power as they are enjoying the goodies that the controlling child provides. Where there are power struggles, Hatred rules. 

3. Comparisons. 

This is mostly done by the parents who compare their children. A parent keeps on telling a child, "why can't you be more like your brother?" It's an unhealthy pattern. 

4. Excessive criticism

Siblings thrive in criticizing one another. Parents also criticize those children who are not well financially. (You will bring a new date to your family members and they will criticize you for dating an ugly person, very old, poor, short, tall) and all such kind of negative criticism. 

5. Members badmouth and gossip among themselves. 

You will see sibling A and B while they're together, they are badmouthing sibling C. Then when they are not together, B will tell C how A was talking ill about C and a conflict erupts. 

6. Unpredictable patterns. 

This is for example where children grow up not knowing when their father will come home and throw their mother out. Children don't know when their mother might leave next. You're scared of going home because you're not sure whether you will find your mother has wounded your father again.....  Children grow up in trauma caused by uncertainties. 

7. Parental alienation. 

Dysfunctional families have parents who alienate children from one of their parents. A mother will try so hard to turn her children against the father and vice versa. A mother will move out of her home, leave the husband and force one of her child in the city to take her in. Then abandon the Mzee back in the village. The family ends up with Team Dad and Team Mum. 

8. There's always an intervention for a particular child. 

You will find families who keep making one child the blacksheep. They're always holding meetings to intervene on when they should get married, who should host them as family members believe he can't do it on his own. If he should go to rehab.....etc. they never let this "blacksheep" be or exist in their own skin. They feel they're better than him/her. 

9. Family gatherings end up in fights. 

Do you end up fighting with a sibling Everytime you meet during gatherings? Are your family gatherings characterized by cases about who said this or the other? You're in a dysfunctional family. 

10. There is parentification. 

Dysfunctional families have firstborns being made deputy parents. Parents will educate the First born then force them to take care of the rest of the siblings. One child will be made to pay school fees for all the other children. One child will be made to host their younger siblings to feed and pay their school fees. Parentified children end up drained financially and emotionally as they cannot take care of themselves as they have been made deputy parents. 

Do you come from a family that has any or all of These characteristics?? You're in a Dysfunctional family. It's time you start considering ending the dysfunctionality and raise a healthy generation. 

© Joyce Mwai

Writer/ Teenage mentor/ Parenting Coach 

Ladies, This is why you should never sleep with your Boss.

 

Young ladies, Even if it is an emergency, NEVER SLEEP WITH YOUR BOSS. 

You might be excited with that internship position you just secured. You're excited that you have landed your first job after college. Don't let your excitement make you think that you should sleep with that your boss or immediate supervisor that seems like he likes you. 

This is the worst decision that you can make about your life. Actually, it is the start of your career path retardation instead of growth. 

Why shouldn't you even think of sleeping with your boss? Let me tell you, your co workers will definitely know. All y'all at the workplace are hired for your expertise. Don't think that the bunch of intellects at the workplace won't know you're banging the boss. Actually, your co workers will tell even when you are not getting along with that boss you have been sleeping with! How awkward??

We know he has promised you a promotion. He has also promised you a salary increase. But do you know you're just delusional?? Your boss sees you as dumb. You already agreed to sleep with him despite the many other females at the workplace declining his advances. So you have already lost your credibility at the workplace and you're not the person that will come to mind when a promotion is on the table. That boss you're exchanging fluids with will go and promote that lady who has for a long time been declining his advances. He can see work ethics in that lady who turned him down and not you! 

Sleeping with your boss or superior at work will just end in premium tears. I have seen girls in their early 20s crying their life has been ruined by their boss. You will make a mistake or something illegal at the workplace happens and your boss will not even defend you. He will not hesitate to take you to court and testify against you. He will even make sure you are jailed especially if you try to threaten him that you will expose him. 

By the Way, what makes you think that you can expose your boss to have been sleeping with you and think he will let you go through with it. He will see to it your life is destroyed. He will lie and his power and money will protect him. He will shame you and even claim that you tried to seduce him. 

Again, even if you don't make any mistake at the workplace, wait until he is tired with you. Wait until a new intern comes to the workplace! You will face the worst disgrace of your life. Until you will even opt to quit that job!! 

You can sleep with all the people you want, but kindly keep off someone who has power over you. Someone who holds your salary. Someone who determines whether to fire you or not. Someone who can wake up one day and render you jobless. 

Just keep off! Not in a country where most employees are ignorant of corporate law. Not in a country where employers will get away with sexual harassment. (In western countries, most of the time the law does not care whether the sex was consensual. They only consider that the boss used his power to ask for sexual favors). 

Young girls getting employed in small businesses like boutiques and Mpesa. Stop sleeping with your boss. How can he pay you Ten thousand and still get a taste of your cookie??? You should be thinking of how to manage that 10 thousand you're being paid in this hard economy but not meeting him in hotel rooms after work. Wait until his wife comes and fires you!!! Who will pay that your bedsitter rent?

Young girls getting in the employment world, keep off sleeping with your bosses!! Infact, don't even reply to messages like "You look hot today". Don't say Thank you!! Blue tick him!! He has no Business with your hotness, his business is to pay you! 

Parents tell your girls graduating college to keep off their bosses. I have seen girls in early 20s cry. All in the name of sleeping with their bosses. It will end in tears!! Massive tears! 

© Joyce Mwai

Writer/ Teenage Mentor/ Trainer

Time management for kids

Let's go! 

Hurry up! 

What's taking you so long?,  

Do you know what time it is?

Do these phrases sound familiar to you? Do you find yourself as a parent sometimes wondering whether you're raising kids who have no concept of time? Sometimes you find yourself yelling almost every morning before school. 

Well, you can help your kids normalize managing their time. How do you help kids acquire time management skills?? 

1. Educate them on the importance of managing time. 

Right from a young age, let your kids know that time never stops. If they fail to do something they needed to do at a particular time, they will never recover that time. When they understand the need of being time conscious, they will be intrinsically motivated to do everything on time. 

2. Establish a routine and let them take part in making it. 

Schools run smoothly with hundreds of students and few teachers since there is a routine. Why then should it be hard to establish a routine with your 1 or 2 kids? The child's brain responds well to routine. Involve them in making a schedule on time for homework, sleeping, waking up, preparing and going to school. This allows them to feel in control but still under your terms as a parent. 

3. Schedule free time and do not overtask their every minute. 

We all value free time. Children need it too. If they have free time, they will not find it hard to adhere to time that they have to do serious tasks like preparing for school. 

4. Do not nag, bribe, or Force when they're not being time conscious. 

Nagging makes a child defiant. If you bribe your child to do homework on time, you're reducing intrinsic motivation. Don't give rewards when your child finishes homework on time! It is their responsibility to do homework! The motivation should come from within the child! If they're not motivated to do homework, you can educate them on the importance of doing their homework. Again, if you force the child, they will think it's your responsibility to make them do it. However, it should always be Their responsibility. 

5. Allow your child to face natural consequences. 

Most of the times parents wonder what if the child fails to do homework, what should they do? If you have already educated them on the importance of homework, allocated time for homework, and yet they don't do it, allow them face natural consequences. 

Let them go to school and explain to their teacher why they didn't do the homework. Tell them failure to do homework might result to not retaining the information and they will not perform well in their exam. It's better they fail in an exam while in grade 3, than when they're in college. 

6. Do not panic on their behalf. 

If your child fails to do homework, don't panic. Let the child panic for their failure. Don't panic that they will miss the school bus (especially children above 7 years) 

Ask yourself, when you're late for work and you find your boss, is it the boss that panics or it's you? Let children learn responsibility early. This will reduce the kind of employees in the workforce who don't care about their mistakes at work (They will come late, unkempt, drunk with zero chills.) Why? Someone was panicking on their behalf when they were young. It was the parent who was always worried that the child will be late for school or will be punished for not doing homework. 

Let children own up their responsibility. Let them have control over time management. But under your terms. It will reduce you having to push them around. 

© Joyce Mwai

Understanding the mother Wound

 

Àre you a fixer, rescuer or an enabler? You have a MOTHER WOUND. 

We have seen people who constantly complain that their family is draining them financially. You will see a person who earns good money But all the money goes to paying school fees for their siblings, giving parents money even when they're not in need, taking their drunkard siblings to rehab, bailing a relative out of jail... This person does all this while they're struggling to meet their own needs. They would rather take loans or sleep hungry but would not let a relative be responsible for their lives. These people feel obligated to care and nurture others. Do you know This is a mother wound?? 

How do people develop mother wounds?

✔️ Raised by an abusive/toxic mother

✔️Raised by an emotionally unhealthy mother ( a mother who was always looking for emotional help from the kids. Maybe she had an unstable relationship with the husband)

✔️ The child was forcefully alienated from the mother ( we have seen men who deny kids an opportunity to be with their mother after separation or divorce). 

✔️ The mother abandoned the child. ( We have seen women who literally abandon their kids and never look back)

✔️ The mother passed on and there was no mother figure to take the place of the dead mother.

✔️Raised in a group home where caregivers have too many children under their care. 

How does the MOTHER WOUND manifest in adulthood? 

1. Inability to set boundaries. You cannot say No without feeling guilty. You always let people abuse your space as you feel obligated to help them.

2. Codependency in relationships. This is relationship addiction. You feel you cannot detach from a relationship Even when it's unhealthy for you. You persevere abusive relationship because you Never want to feel abandoned. 

3. Insecurity with physical appearance and low self-esteem. When you were not loved as a child, it is normal to question your looks. You unconsciously feel you're not good enough that's why your mother Never loved you. 

4. Your romantic relationships never flourish. You grow up feeling you don't deserve love since your primary caregiver never cared for you. You have accepted you're unlovable so you question the motives of anyone who tries to love you. If you're a man, you find it hard to trust women because your mother abandoned you.

5. You Care too much about giving your best. You become a rescuer, a fixer and an enabler. You feel you need to fix all the problems in the world. You're trying to compensate for the love you never received from your mother and you believe there is something you can do to get Loved. 

6. Inability to regulate your emotions in healthy ways. We all have days we feel low. A person with a mother wound might numb Their pain through addictions, unhealthy sexual behaviors, aggression, self harming, suicidal ideations. No mother introduced them to healthy ways of dealing with emotions. 

7. Fear of abandonment. This manifests by being codependent. You can't feel complete while alone... You depend on other people to make you feel complete.

8. Fear of displeasing your mother. You're an adult but you cannot make a decision without running it through your mother to avoid making her angry. You feel guilty when your mother does not approve of something. 

9. Self criticism and lack of self trust.  If you Grew up with a mother who constantly criticized you, compared you, verbally and physically abused you, always put you down showing you you're not good enough, you grow up Never to trust yourself. You critize yourself and self sabotage all your decisions. 

10. You have a Rocky relationship with your mother. You feel intense hatred towards your mother. You blame her for all the suffering you went through as a child. You cannot stand to be in the same place with your mother. You feel you can never forgive her. You're suffering from a mother wound. 

© Joyce Mwai

Writer/ Teenage mentor/ Trainer & Speaker

The role of a mother in child development

Motherhood does not come with a manual. Yet alot is expected of mothers by the society. 

Once a woman becomes a mother, what is expected of her for healthy child development? What role does the mother play? 

♦️She is the caregiver. A mother is the first caregiver a child has right from pregnancy to First few months after birth. This role continues as the child develops even if other caregivers are introduced. 

♦️The health care provider. Before a mom takes a child to hospital, they have tried multiple home remedies. Children always run to their mother when hurt because they know she will play her magic and they will feel better

♦️The first teacher. A mother Starts teaching her newborn right after birth.... Mothers keep singing nursery rhymes when bathing or breastfeeding their babies. Moms are also expected to teach their children life skills like being polite and interacting with others in respect.

♦️ Activity coordinator. The mother has to make sure that all the childrens activities are in check... Homework, trips, playdates...

♦️ Emotional nurturer. The mother has the responsibility of being fully emotionally available to the children. She has to comfort them when they're low or they feel defeated.

♦️The justice system. The mother will always find herself solving so many disagreements in her childs life either with her siblings or friends. The mother has to have excellent conflict resolution skills. 

♦️The relationship coach. Children need guidance on making friends and interacting with peers. The mother has to be there to offer guidance. 

♦️ Playmate. You can't be a mother and at the same time want to act mature. You have to go back to the level of your child and play with them. It strengthens your bond with the child. 

♦️ Trainer, instructor and disciplinarian. The mother has to train up their children to learn the acceptable ways. Correct and discipline the child with love. 

♦️ Offer unconditional love, care and support throughout a child's development. Everything a mother does for her child should be unconditional. No one should pay you for being a mother. Even after the child is grown. It's the responsibility of a mother to offer unconditional love. 

© Joyce Mwai

Writer/ Teenage mentor/ Parenting Coach