Get to grips with complex family dynamics
we enter the festive season, many are looking forward to spending time with their families.
However, we must be mindful of the nature of our families. We need to understand the challenges and blessings associated with them.
Our families are the people who know intricate details about our lives, both good and bad. They are the people who are closest to us.
But there are some family members who abdicated their responsibilities and could not be there for one reason or the other. Such situations are not easy to deal with and can be a great source of pain.
Talk of growing up with grandparents, uncles, aunts, neighbours or even strangers because of an absent father or mother.
Secure attachment leads to a healthy and fulfilling life. On the other hand, insecure attachment results in pain and paranoia.
A child needs safety and a sense of ownership in order to learn to develop a healthy sense of self within the community.
Most children who grow up away from the nuclear family are denied these intrinsic attributes, regardless of how caring the guardians would have been.
Arguably, there are also those who grew up with an alcoholic, depressed mother or abusive parents. All these dynamics carry a lot of pain and distress on the part of the child, who would not have understood yet that the extreme environments — abuse, neglect and exploitation —have been as a result of their parent’s own pain, trauma or illness.
The family life cycle shows that we all start off as dependent children under the care of
S Aour parents. This is the time when we wish our parents can make all the magic happen. These early life experiences do not disappear. Children absorb everything. This is what creates our character and personality as we grow. How we were treated while growing up is how we will treat others, including our partners, when we grow up. We start to analyse some of the things during the teenage phase as we transition into adulthood, making this the most difficult stage of our lives. At this stage, we try to work out relationships using what we learnt from our parents.
This is how good or bad traits are passed from one generation to the other.
Alongside the family life cycle are interactions we have with others. There are various modes through which we transact or interact. An example is the parent, adult and child scenario.
Every interaction is essentially a transaction, with something to be gained or achieved.
All these aspects of family and relationships are crucial for us as a people and our development.
Traditional families give a lot of the reasons Africa is the way it is in terms of its values, structure and performance.
How we have been parented has a direct impact on who we are today.
The family dynamics we grew up with are what we try to uphold despite their nature, especially if we have some attachment issues due to adverse experiences.
There are certain things we have found helpful to survive in our childhood, but these may no longer be effective nor appropriate as adults.
There are dynamics that psychology and psychotherapy can help navigate in order to arrive at healthier ways of doing things.
Sibling rivalry, among other things, are some of the issues that make us vulnerable to stress, high blood pressure and many other ailments that we struggle with.
The losses we encounter throughout this journey change the dynamics and how we get to understand life and its complexities.