Impact of Toxic Relationships on Children's Emotional and Social Wellbeing

Running head: EDUCATION
EDUCATION
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1EDUCATION
Case Study 1
Mother and child relationship is regarded to be quantitatively different from all other
forms of relationships. Corney, Puthussery and Swinglehurst (2016) have stated that the nature
of anxiety and pressure in mother-child relationships tends to leverage the structure of the family
along with children’s emotions and behaviour. Such transformed behavioural patterns may lead
to early mental health issues in children. A case of mother-daughter relationship reveals the way
the toxic relationship has caused critical impacts on an eight-year-old girl, Michelle. The case
further sheds light upon the deteriorated behavioural patterns of Michelle after her shift to a new
place with four stepbrothers and sisters after her mother has engaged in a new relationship.
Wong et al. (2018) have noted that social support between mothers and daughters
typically has been outlined from the perspective of the mother’s primary role in contributing
young daughters with love, affection, support and advice. Recent empirical studies of Corney,
Puthussery and Swinglehurst (2016) have presented as a significant reciprocal representation of
mother-daughter association. Children’s development tends to be intrinsically associated with
interactions among other actors within the family as parents relationship is typically being
perceived as a centre of this system further leveraging all facets of family functioning (Pishva
2017). Children of separated parents tend to expect their parents to recombine as a family or
maintain singlehood. Young children undergo crucial turmoil while leaving the imaginary world
of family reconciliation and accept their stepparent, as they might develop the idea of betraying
their biological parent. Golombok et al. (2014) have revealed such emotional turmoil has
resulted from the finding of infidelity further causing an unconstructive impact on children
unless special care has been taken to circumvent this. According to CASEL model, there can be
identified factors self-management such as managing emotions and goal setting along with

2EDUCATION
relationship skills like communication and cooperation) which have been posing threats to the
life of Michelle and further contaminating her relationship with her mother.
SEL identified as a process of obtaining and productively implementing ideas states
factors of self-management in young children as efficiently regulating their emotions to deal with
stress and successfully articulate emotions to parents (Oberle et al. 2016). However, at this
juncture, Michelle has been observed to have lack these areas of criticality because of her
destabilized association with her mother concerning her new relationship and sudden shift to
unknown locality. Nucci, Krettenauer and Narváez (2014) have further have stated that as self-
management primarily involves controlling impulses, it serves a critical role in children’s’ school
life. As Michelle is unable to express her emotions recently due to turmoil relationship, she is
suffering from lesser impulse control resulting in her growing aggressive nature and depreciated
educational level.
Comprehensive studies of Pishva (2017) highlight the lack of maternal affection and warmth
being consequential to a weakened emotional linkage between mother and daughter. However,
regardless of broad strokes of shared and distressful association, the pattern of connection
regarding the way mother interacts with her daughter tend to fluctuate significantly further
impacting young daughters in specific ways. The regulative nature of parenting of Michelle’s
mother has led the eight-year-old child to adopt a dismissive and sadistic attitude towards others.
Arslan (2015) have noted that through controlling form of parenting, mothers tend to
micromanage their daughters and dynamically refuse to support or stimulate the validity of
children’s words or preferences. Such a micromanage attitude has resulted in infusing a
particular sense of insecurity and vulnerability in young children.
Furthermore, emotionally unavailable mothers tend to impact patterns of parenting with

3EDUCATION
their sudden withdrawal at young daughter’s approach (Pishva 2017). Michelle currently has
been observing an unexpected denial of love and affection of her mother from her and her other
siblings. Such a withdrawal in the view of Michelle is due to her mother’s growing integration
towards recently developed adored relationship thus inflicting a severe of damage in her personal
and educational life. Agnew-Blais et al. (2015) have mentioned the impact of apparent
abandonment from mothers’ end which leaves a severe scar on the emotional development of
young children. The deserted behavior of Michelle’s mother has not only disregarded her issues
with a concentration in school but also of the inconsistent attendance of her along with her
stepbrothers and sisters admitted in the same educational institution. Such lack of parenting
results in young children like Michelle to be emotionally famished resulting to demonstrate
excessive aggressiveness towards her peers in school. However, according to Corney, Puthussery
and Swinglehurst (2016) the essential behavior for young daughters to deal with the emotional
turmoil of toxic relationships relies on the dilemma of being unaware of the exact attributes of a
mother. Several young children undergoing such toxic relationships create mental
representations of the way maternal linkages in the real world tend to appear based on their
association with their mothers. These young daughters in the view of authors comprehend
emotional associations to be fraught and insecure resulting to a more significant level of lack of
self-confidence and anxiety.
As mother-daughter relationships are multifaceted and diverse, they tend to determine a
girl’s future relationship competencies and self-esteem. However, Golombok et al. (2014) have
stated that daughters of highly critical mothers typically exhibit weakened social skills with
detrimental behavioral patterns towards academics and social communication. The case of
Michelle’s toxic relationship with her mother along with sudden relocation with her mother’s