An investigation into the pattern of personal maladjustment among children of alcoholic parents

Alcoholism is a serious concern and is not limited to any one group, culture or country. It universally creates professional, social, financial, legal, medical, psychological, and family problems. The cost of alcoholism to society is staggering by any calculation. Lost work days, accidents and related disabilities, family breakups and resulting youth problems, and direct medical complications of alcohol abuse add up to a significant proportion of losses to the economy and well-being of nations. Alcoholism thus becomes a complex phenomenon that deserves attention from different angles. .

Drinking problems within a family can create many kinds of stress and difficulties for family members. The increasing social isolation due to alcoholism is difficult for children to cope with. They behave more and more with group activities in a drawn way. Financial difficulties become a factor and reductions are made in the general standard of living. Physical difficulties are seen in violence towards family members or in the destruction of household items.
Family members, especially the spouse, may be subject to emotional deprivation and may perceive alcohol use as a form of rejection. This, in turn, causes the drinker to become increasingly preoccupied and play a minor role in family life and affairs.

Glassner and Loughlin (1987) emphasized three aspects of parent-child relationships that are studied in families of alcoholics: basic attention, consistency of expectations, and communications. mood and temperament.

Children can suffer from physical and emotional neglect. Since all the energies of the family are focused on the drinker, children are often neglected and their individual contributions go unrecognized. This can lead to exaggerated behaviors, aggression, bedwetting, teasing, anxiety, withdrawal, and isolation which, in turn, can increase pressure on non-drinking parents. Another major problem is that children of alcoholics lack a satisfactory role model for their own behavior. Therefore, children represent an important high-risk group both for their propensity to have problem drinking during childhood and for their propensity to have problems in adulthood. Therefore, the tragedy of alcoholism lies in its detrimental effects on future generations. The individual’s alcoholism affects not only the family but also the basic fabric of society. Alcohol causes poverty which leads to crimes and prostitution which in turn ends in the breakdown of the integrity and existence of any society.

Studies have revealed that families of alcoholics acquire certain typical coping strategies within the family system (Orford et. al 1975). Children engage in age-inappropriate activities to maintain domestic harmony, become supportive of the non-drinking parent, and thus are exposed to moral, emotional, and financial dilemmas that are inappropriate for their age, experience, or comprehension. This invariably leads to more stress, feelings of hopelessness, isolation, and depression in alcoholics. Thus, it is discovered that there is a vicious cycle of alcohol, stress and maladjustment.
Therefore, the present study attempts to investigate the nature of maladjustment among children of alcoholic parents.

OBJECTIVES AND ASSUMPTIONS

The central theme of this research is to study the nature of maladjustment among children of alcoholics. Based on the available literature and discussion with experts in the field, the following objectives were formulated before starting the study.

1 To find out maladjustment among children of alcoholics.

2. Find out if male and female children of alcoholics vary in maladjustment.

3 To find out if the first child of alcoholics scores high on maladjustment compared to other siblings.

HYPOTHESIS

H1 1. There is a significant difference between the children of alcoholics and the children of a normal family regarding maladjustment.

H1 2. There is a significant difference between male and female children of alcoholics on maladjustment

H1 3. There is a significant difference between the first children of alcoholics and their maladjusted siblings

METHOD
The present study is designed to investigate the nature of maladjustment among children of alcoholic parents.

SAMPLE

The proposed sample of the study includes 400 children from different parts of Kerala. Of the 400 children, 300 are from alcoholic families and the remaining 100 are from normal families serving as a control group.

INSTRUMENTS

Mathew Misfit Inventory

Mathew’s Maladjustment Inventory assesses five major aspects of maladjustment, namely anxiety, depression, mania, inferiority, and paranoia. The test is reported to have a high degree of content validity. The reliability coefficient (divide in half) of the subscales ranged between 0.6 and 0.9, with the total score having a reliability of 0.9 (Mathew, 1975).

DESIGN OF THE INVESTIGATION

2 x 2 factorial design with experimental and control groups on one axis and male and female on the other axis.

ANALYSIS

ANOVA 2 x 2 will be performed for independent groups for the analysis of the collected data.

Other appropriate statistical techniques will be used for further analysis.

REFERENCES

Glassner, B and Loughlin, B. Drugs in Adolescent Worlds: Burnout to straight, London: Macmillan Press, 1987.

Mathew, VG, Mathew’s Maladjustment Inventory Manual, Department of Psychology, University of Kerala, 1975.

Orford, J, Guthrie, S, Nicholls, P, Oppenheimer, E, Egert, S, and Hensman, C, Self reported coping behavior of wives of alcoholics and its association with alcohol use. Journal of Alcohol Studies, 1975, 36-1254-67