Dysfunctional family dynamics to come in the face of COVID-19

Today I received an email from my son’s school forecasting the need for the school to prepare to send lessons home.  It is written in the tense of not if but when.  So much seems to have changed in just one day; a day we hear a cavalcade of considered business responses from all kinds of organisations cancelling events, trips, and planning for worse to come.

The impending reality is families will inevitably face more time together.  There are some significant social issues that will arise.

Presuming we love our families and that we love spending time with our families, even in these cases, it will be an incredibly challenging time.

We’re talking the wholesale removal of everyone from their contexts; employees from their workplaces and children from schools.

Of course, it’s worst case and that may not happen.  But as we watch from relatively (at present!) safe corners of the world, seeing numbers rise and the thought of the virus closer to us each day, we’re forced to reconcile that what always felt impossible to anyone other than an epidemiologist is spreading unfailingly and irrepressibly toward all of us.

The challenges for the family of a pandemic occurring like this are vast.  It’s not just that there will be more enforced time together, which can leave families feeling out of control and vulnerable in conflict, but there may be no way of leaving the home for respite.

Also, there is the situation that there will no doubt be limited resources and supplies available.  Add to this the fear of getting the virus, or the reactions of actually acquiring it, together with the stress placed on services pushed to breaking point that impacts families’ confidence in them, increasing their stress substantially.

Whenever we as humans feel caged, we can resort to insane behaviours because of the stress involved.  Stress begets conflict and conflict begets stress.  All of it contributes to the pain we feel of being out of control.

All these dynamics cause stress on families, and for those families already burdened by significant stress, it can be a burden to great, and the family structure can implode.  What occurs then is violence, even violent crimes.

For families who are already toxic by nature, the overflow may well be anarchy.

Those who are subject already to dysfunctional family dynamics may not plan for what is coming, and this will make it all the worse.  Everybody needs to plan for it, but dysfunctional families involve those who cannot and will not take responsibility for their lives, and they blame others to boot, creating even more tension.

Functional families will tend to begin their preparations now, and they may well find that their significant preparations are only barely adequate.  But at least they minimise the stress.

Families who have nowhere near as much agency will face extremely stress-filled circumstances in the coming days, weeks and months, and many myriad of horrors may take place as a result.