The presence of alcoholism in the home has been proven time and again to have detrimental effects on the children involved. There is no way around this, no justification to be had. It is clear that there are always serious consequences involved for children who grow up in an alcoholic home. This is true no matter which parent, mother or father, is the alcoholic in question. Not only does the child’s home life suffer at the hands of the alcoholic, but the chances of that child growing up to struggle with alcoholism themselves is increased many-fold.
Children who have parents affected by alcoholism often live in an environment that is far from ideal on all fronts. Physically, the environment is often sub par when it comes to food, clothing and such necessities. The alcoholic parent not only spends the family funds on their addiction, but also tends to mishandle funds in general. This is why teachers in schools should pay careful attention to the children who seem malnourished, wearing ill fitting clothing and struggling to have money for lunches and other school items. Emotionally, the damage done to a child living in an alcoholic family is traumatic and scarring. There is a lack of consistent, loving parenting that shows the child they are loved and cared for. When basic needs go unmet, children suffer in more than physical ways.
The environment of an alcoholic family is often rife with such negative elements as poor, if any, parenting with chaos reigning as a result, lack of trust that they will be cared for in any way builds up, there is no consistency to the care or routine of home life and all too often fear and abuse is part of this overall picture as well. It is important that children of alcoholics understand that the behavior is not their fault and that they are not alone. These two steps are a good start to healing the damage done by an alcoholic parent.
