Parental affairs can profoundly affect young people’s mental health and well-being. Conflict and tension between parents resonate throughout the family, impacting children and their relationships with their parents. Young people may feel guilty, sad, scared, or confused.
These ruptures not only affect young people’s present well-being, but also their long-term mental health. Conflict within families and family disruption are linked to the later development of mental health issues, including anxiety and depression.
However, there are steps that families can take to safeguard young people after a parental affair, protecting children and adolescents from much of this harm. This includes placing clear boundaries between parents and children and avoiding drawing young people into parental conflicts. Family therapy can help families develop dynamics that allow for healing and growth, while young people may also require individual counselling and support.
This guide explores the way that parental affairs impact the family system and young people’s mental health. It outlines the different forms of support available for young people after an affair to protect their well-being and help prevent harm.
Understanding the Family System
Within a family, events and experiences don’t happen in isolation. Instead, family systems theory tells us that the well-being and behaviours of every family member affect all the others, and the system as a whole. Family members are complex individuals who exist within a system of thoughts, feelings, interactions, and relationships.
According to family systems theory:
- The various parts of a family are all connected with one another
- A family’s organisation and structure have a big impact on how family members behave
- Family members’ actions are influenced by relationships and interactions between family members
Conceptualising families as a system helps us to understand how events and experiences within a family impact different family members and affect the way a family functions. As such, a parental affair isn’t an event that exists only between parents. Instead, it affects children’s well-being, parent-child relationships, and the dynamics of the family system.
What Are the Long-Term Mental Health Consequences of Parental Affairs for Children?
Parental affairs can cause conflict and disruption within families. Family disruption, trauma, and conflict are all associated with long-term mental health consequences for children.
Research shows that family conflict during adolescence is linked to mental health problems among young adults, including symptoms of depression and anxiety. Family disruption impacts younger children too: family disruption has been associated with an increased risk of bulimia nervosa and eating disorder not otherwise specified.
Parental conflict is also linked to increased distress among children.
Sometimes, the aftermath of a parental affair is experienced as traumatic by children. When parents are unable to meet their children’s physical or emotional needs, it can resemble a threat to their survival. The association between childhood trauma and later mental health disorders is well-documented in research.
How Do Parental Affairs Impact the Family System?
When families work well together, they maintain healthy boundaries. These boundaries shape and limit family interactions, helping relationships to benefit each family member. For example, healthy parent-child boundaries involve keeping parental conflicts between parents and not drawing children into adult concerns.
Parental affairs can shake the family system, disrupting the normal boundaries and creating unhealthy ones. Distance or animosity between parents sometimes causes them to look to children for emotional support. This can be deeply damaging for young people, affecting their emotional and social development, as well as their sense of identity.
How Can Families Support Children After Parental Affairs?
After a parental affair, providing children with emotional and social support should be a priority. This support can come from parents themselves, other family members, relatives, or professionals. It’s also important to address the dynamics of the family system, reorganising and rebuilding boundaries to create dynamics where both children and parents can heal.
Offering Emotional Support, Care, and Attention
Sometimes, parents can become so overwhelmed by their own conflicts and emotions that they overlook their children’s needs. It sounds simple, but an important part of supporting a young person after an affair is to continue providing the care and attention that you usually would. If that doesn’t feel possible, you could reach out to friends, relatives, or other trusted figures to step in.
Living through a parental affair can be very distressing for young people, and they will require additional support and care. Families can offer emotional support by asking a young person how they are feeling and listening openly without judgment. You can ask what kind of support they might want from you during this time or if there are other people they might like to talk to.
Family Therapy
Parental affairs create waves of impact that ripple through the entire family system. Family therapists can support families in recovering from this harm and developing new ways of interacting and caring for one another.
Family therapists may work with families to identify harmful dynamics within the family system, such as overly strong or overly weak boundaries. By establishing clear boundaries between parents and children, families can help reduce the harm that young people experience. Therapists may also help parents understand how best to support a young person after the affair.
Parental affairs may be partly caused by underlying problems in the way a family is organised and the relationship between parents. These dynamics can maintain conflicts and tension that continue to affect children’s well-being. Family therapists may address these dynamics by working with families to develop new modes of interaction that promote the well-being of each family member.
Individual Therapy for Children and Adolescents
When children experience mental health consequences after a parental affair, they may require professional support. Children may experience long-term distress, such as feelings of depression or oppositional behaviours. Sometimes, these feelings and behaviours can develop into mental health disorders.
There are lots of types of therapy that can support young people with mental health problems. The right type of therapy will depend on the kind of symptoms a young person is experiencing and their individual characteristics. Many young people benefit from a combination of treatment approaches, and they may need to try more than one until they find the approach that works best for them.
Avoiding Harmful Practices
There are also some key patterns and behaviours that parents should look to avoid. These practices can cause an affair to become more harmful and damaging for a young person.
These include:
- Involving children in parental relationships, conflicts, or communication, such as by using them as messengers. This process is known as triangulation, and it’s associated with behavioural and emotional problems, such as self-blame and low self-esteem.
- Asking children for emotional support can lead to parentification and role-reversal.
- Withholding information, giving false information, or trying to hide what’s happened when a child is old enough to understand.
Sometimes, the stress and emotional intensity experienced by parents after an affair mean that the needs of young people are overlooked. But like every family member, young people can be deeply impacted by an affair. So, parents need to pay attention to how their children are feeling, take care to maintain healthy relationships and boundaries, and be prepared to seek additional support.
The Wave Clinic: Transformative Recovery Programs for Young People
The Wave Clinic provides specialised mental health support for children, adolescents, emerging adults, and their families.
Our programs combine exceptional clinical care with enriching experiences, education, and collaborative projects. We support young people in discovering new life paths and developing the skills they need to follow them. We support families in creating new memories, re-scripting established dynamics to find new ways of relating and working together.
If you’re interested in finding out more about our programs, get in touch today.
