EFFECTS OF AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP

ON CHILD DEVELOPMENT
AN EXTENSIVE RESEARCH PROJECT AIMING TO FIND OUT
THE REASONS AND CAUSES OF MARITAL CONFLICT AND
ITS EFFECTS ON CHILDREN

GROUP 5:
MISHA TARIQ 23998
AFRA ABRO 24623
SAIFULLAH SOOMRO 24626
MUHAMMAD ASAD ANWAR
24597
MUHAMMAD SHAYAN ARIF
24678
 Abstract
Marital Conflicts are open or latent antagonism between marriage partners. This research aims
to examine the extent to which Marital Conflicts occur in the society and what are some of the
ways children try to cope with this. The research involved asking students of the Institute of
Business Administration about whether or not their parents had extreme conflicts. The main
focus of this study was to explore the prevalence, causes, consequences of marital conflict as
well as the coping strategies adopted by students. This was done through a questionnaire and
some interviews which targeted students of 15-30 years of age. Our findings, thereby,
demonstrate that the majority of the children had parents who had severe conflicts and
disagreements often resulting in physical abuse. The underlying reason for the results is the lack
of awareness and education of such issues and the reserved attitude of people that prevents
them from revealing sensitive information. The findings declare an urgent need to decrease
Marital Conflicts by increasing awareness through various mediums so that people actually
acknowledge it as an issue which needs to be dealt with and solved immediately.
 Hypothesis

1. The main reason for Marital Conflicts are usually due to Compatibility issues as well as
Financial Pressures.
2. Children whose parents are in an abusive relationship isolate themselves, as a coping
mechanism, that leads to anxiety.
3. Children whose parents are in an abusive relationship suffer from low self-esteem, lack of
confidence and depression.
4. Children whose parents are in a toxic relationship usually find themselves struggling with
serious trust issues.
5. Children whose parents are in a toxic relationship start facing anger issues.
 Interviews
This research was carried out through interviews and a questionnaire.
For this research, some questions were designed in order to interview the subjects who were going through or had gone
through some challenging ordeals as a consequence of dealing with a toxic relationship between parents. The questions
included in the interview, were inspired by various archival researches along with some follow up questions linked with the
responses of the subjects. It was ensured that the interviews fulfilled all the ethical requirements. The confidentiality
and privacy of all subjects was maintained with the necessary consent prior to the interviews.
Participants:
Almost 30 people were approached for the interview, out of which 15 admitted to having been going through the adverse
effects of marital conflicts between parents. However, only three agreed to share the details as it was an understatement that
people wouldn’t be willing to confess such bitter and private secrets of their lives, even though they were assured about the
interviews being anonymous. Two of the subjects were females whereas one of them was a male.
Procedure:
The interview comprised of 8 questions, which revolved around contemplating the effects of marital conflicts on the mental
health of a child, acknowledging every possible aspect. Prioritizing the comfort of the subjects, the interviews were aimed to
target the details in order to ensure the validity of the research. All the subjects were students of IBA (age group: 17-20), they
were not asked for their names or ERPs, as they wanted this interview to be anonymous. Some of the questions were easy to
answer, however, some required the subjects to dive deep into the memories that they didn’t want to recall again. Even though
the subjects were reluctant to share the details of their vulnerable experiences entirely, which is completely understandable,
we managed to analyze the required stats accordingly, with respect to the facts gathered.
 Questionnaire
For this research, a questionnaire was designed regarding the Effects of Marital Conflicts on the psychology of the child to
retrieve an understanding of the number of people from our sample population experiencing these conflicts among their
parents, along with their viewpoints about ways to cope with this and reasons why these conflicts occur in the first place. The
questions included in the survey were inspired by many different archival researches mentioned in the literature review with
some modifications. The questionnaire ensured complete anonymity of the participants, and informed them about the right to
withdraw from the research; thereby, prioritizing confidentiality and comfort of the participants.
Participants:
The sample population incorporated 114 IBA Students (62 Females, 50 males), within the age bracket of 15-30. The survey,
developed for this research, was filled by these participants.
Procedure:
The questionnaire consisted of 10 questions, centered around testing knowledge about Abusive Relationships among parents
and understanding behavior and thoughts of each gender regarding the reasons why these occur along with some of the ways
they try to cope up with these. The questionnaire was circulated among IBA Students, including the students residing in the
hostel, through WhatsApp and Facebook groups. The questionnaire ensured anonymity along with confidentiality of the
participants - it did not require the names and ERPS of the students and the participants were not able to see each other's
responses. Hence, through these measures, the comfort of our participants was prioritized, and any potential instances
wherein participants feared being judged were avoided. This enabled receiving accurate responses and drawing patterns to
analyze our hypothesis effectively.
 Results (Interviews)
Subject 1 (Female participant aged 18)
The subject reported that her parents frequently get violent with each other; moreover, they often get physically violent too.
Her parents had an arranged marriage; therefore they had compatibility issues leading to persistent fights as they lived in a
joint family system. As the subject was an introverted person, she used to journal or write poetry as a coping mechanism. She
also admitted that these conflicts between her parents had given her serious trust issues.

Subject 2 (Male participant aged 19)

The subject reported that his parents had a love marriage; however, his father gets physically violent as he doesn’t know how
to channel his frustration caused by joblessness. Due to financial pressures, the subject's mother started working, which
caused her in-laws to ruin her marital life for her. Subject also said that he started having trust issues along with serious anger
issues as it was hard for him to keep himself calm and collected all the time, whilst ignoring what was happening around him.

Subject 3 (Female participant aged 18)

Subject’s parents never got physically violent; however, they would have incessant arguments and disagreements. The basic
cause reported by the subject as a leading factor to catalyze the conflicts was financial issues. Subject reported to have her
thoughts penned down as a coping mechanism. Subject also confessed that she started having serious trust issues that knew
no bounds.
 Results (Questionnaire)

Figure 1: This figure shows gender proportion Figure 2: This figure shows the comparison
used to draw insights from the research. between male & female responses who have
been through abusive parenting according to
their age group.
 Results (Questionnaire Continued…)

Figure 3: This fig shows the proportion of people Figure 4: 83% of the participants responded
according to their gender and how often they “never” of which 40 were male participants and
struggle with the conflict between their parents. 41 were female participants.
 Results (Questionnaire Continued…)

Figure 5: This shows and displays some of the Figure 6: This figure shows the reasons of the
ways each gender tries to cope with conflicts conflicts that the children think cause these
among their parents. conflicts.
 Limitations
 Firstly, the sample size taken for this research solely consisted of young adults studying from IBA and hence excluded all other
educational organizations, institutions as well as students on gap years.
 Due to the limited audience, the findings will not be generalizable to all young adults in Karachi let alone analyzing the stats
from other regions of the country.
 In addition, due to the confined age group, this research may also be inapplicable to people above the age of 30. Therefore, it
will be unfavorable to use these results to speak on behalf of the entire population.
 Moreover, females in this research were 63 (62 females in the questionnaire and 2 in the interview) whereas males were 51
(50 males in the questionnaire and 1 in the interview) thus making the research gynocentric.
 Furthermore, while approaching subjects for the interviews, most of the subjects may have denied being a victim of facing
detrimental consequences caused by marital conflicts between parents as they did not want to be judged. The interviewees
may have deliberately chosen to provide inaccurate information to avoid potential judgement or remarks and in order to
portray themselves as righteous human beings leading to social desirability bias thereby distorting the results.
 Strengths
 This research included interviews which enabled a vivid understanding of the beliefs and viewpoints of the research subjects
by contextualizing their positions.
 Moreover, the accuracy of the responses was ensured through body language and facial gestures. The facial expressions
indicated the triggering points of the events that were experienced by the subjects supporting the objective of the research
thereby emphasizing on the urgency of the situation.
 The subjects were observed to feel relieved after the interview, as one may feel after having a therapeutic session as they had
finally gotten the opportunity to voice the reality they had been forced to keep hidden under societal pressures, instead of
feeling judged as we made sure to provide the subjects with a non-judgmental, understanding and liberating space.
 Furthermore, anonymity and confidentiality of participants was maintained in both the interviews as well as the
questionnaires through full secrecy of their responses. Participants also had a right to withdraw and none of them were
deceived thereby also making the research ethical.
 Additionally, the use of questionnaires and interviews allowed us to add both open and close questions, hence giving us a
range of qualitative as well as quantitative data to analyze and interpret from increasing the accuracy of the results.
 Importance & Conclusion
Importance:
This study enabled clear identification of the segment of the youth population which were least aware regarding Marital
Conflicts and their effects. The findings suggest that approximately 90% of the children are affected by conflicts among their
parents and that the most popular coping ways among them are either to isolate themselves from everyone and everything or
to ignore everything and pretend as if nothing is wrong. The research may culminate in undertaking an effective pedagogical
approach to educate the less informed regarding Marital conflicts and how they originated, maintaining positivity and not
striking the people already struggling from this issue. Moreover, it also tried to uplift those people by adding a message at the
end of the questionnaire and interview that if they ever feel a need to talk to anyone, there will always be someone willing to
listen out, understand and help. Thus, this research enabled students to be aware of this ubiquitous issue and take steps to try
to minimize this issue.
Conclusion:
The findings of this study indicate that, regardless of the gender, every individual who undergoes the misfortune of witnessing
parents, having conflicts every now and then, tends to develop new traits in his/her personality as a consequence of dealing
with such an unfavorable environment at home. The people who were suffering the deleterious effects of having to go through
such circumstances reported that the major causes that ignite such conflicts are financial issues and compatibility issues.
Moreover, the responses of subjects, gathered from both questionnaire and the interviews, regarding the changes observed in
their personalities after going through such ordeals frequently suggested that most of them fall prey to serious anger issues
and trust issues. Furthermore, the individuals find themselves getting drowned deep into depression whilst experiencing lack
of confidence and low self-esteem, resulting in isolation from everyone. By concluding the entire research, it may be evidently
observed that all the hypotheses have been validated.