Parents’ alcoholism may lead to kids’ low self-esteem: Study

CHENNAI: While the effects of alcohol on the physical health of an individual are often talked about, the psychological ill-effects to the members of the family are not discussed often.

A study published in the Tamil Nadu Journal of Public Health and Medical Research stated that college-going children of alcoholic parents had a lower self-esteem than their other counterparts.

The study stated that there is an increasing trend of consumption in India and adolescent children who grew up in a chaotic environment are affected and are prone to get behavioural problems. Parental alcoholism can have a significant role in shaping them. Self-esteem is a feeling of one’s own worth which could well be influenced by parental behaviour.

A cross-sectional study was conducted with an objective to learn the self-esteem among children of alcoholic and non-alcoholic parents among college-going students at a selected college in Dharmapuri.

“The children with alcoholic parents are at a higher risk of adopting the habit of consuming alcohol, tobacco, and other illicit behaviour frequently and at an early age. They suffer from the deficiency of having a ‘parental role model’ for their life and they are denied a healthy home environment, “the study by K N Ponnienselvan and M Vijayalakshmi from the Institute of Community Medicine at Madras Medical College noted.

The study results stated that the majority of the children of alcoholic parents, which was about 69 percent, had lower self-esteem than their counterparts. The children of alcoholic parents are at 4.84 times higher odds of having low self-esteem when compared to the children of non-alcoholic parents.

The authors recommended that though the study was based on self-reported data, periodical interactive sessions for adolescent students and individual counselling sessions for students who find themselves with low self-esteem can be useful. Educating parents through affective domain approach, periodically through parent-teachers interactions is important and periodical life skill awareness and training sessions for teachers to identify and counsel students.

The children with alcoholic parents are at a higher risk of adopting the habit of consuming alcohol tobacco, and other illicit behaviour

— KN Ponnienselvan and M Vijayalakshmi