Alcoholism is a cause for serious concern, it is not limited to any group, culture or country. It universally creates professional, social, financial, legal, medical, psychological, and family problems. The cost of alcoholism to society is staggering by any estimate. Lost workdays, accidents and related disabilities, family disorders and resulting youth problems, and direct medical complications from alcohol abuse add up to a significant proportion of the loss of the economy and well-being of nations. Alcoholism thus becomes a complex phenomenon that deserves attention from different angles.

Drinking problems within a family can create many types of stress and difficulties for family members. Increased social isolation due to alcoholism is difficult for children to cope with. They behave more and more withdrawn from the activities of the peer group. Financial difficulties become a factor and reductions are made in the general standard of living. Physical hardship is seen as violence towards family members or the destruction of things in the home.

Family members, especially the spouse, may be emotionally deprived and may perceive drinking as a form of rejection. This, in turn, causes the drinker to worry more and more and play a lesser role in life and family affairs.

Glassner and Loughlin (1987) emphasize three aspects of parent-child relationships that are studied in families of alcoholics: basic care, consistency of expectations, and communications. Children find it difficult to deal with parental unpredictability or unexplained withdrawal and sudden change in mood and temperament.

Children can be physically and emotionally neglected. Since all the energies of the family are focused on the drinker, children are often neglected and their individual contributions are not recognized. This can result in malicious behavior, aggression, bed wetting, teasing, anxiety, withdrawal, and isolation, which, in turn, can increase the pressure on parents who do not drink. Another major problem is that the children of alcoholics lack a satisfactory role model for their own behavior. Therefore, children represent a significant high-risk group both because of their propensity to have drinking problems in childhood and because of their propensity to have problems in adulthood. Therefore, the tragedy of alcoholism lies in its detrimental effects on future generations. The alcoholism of the individual affects not only the family, but also the basic fabric of society. Alcohol causes poverty that leads to crime and prostitution that in turn ends in the disruption of the integrity and existence of any society.

Studies have revealed that families of alcoholics “acquire certain typical coping strategies within the family system (Orford et. Al 1975). Children perform inappropriate activities for their age to maintain domestic harmony, they become a support for the father They do not drink and are therefore exposed to moral, emotional, and financial dilemmas not appropriate for their age, experience, or understanding. This invariably evokes more stress, feelings of hopelessness, withdrawal, and depression in alcoholics. discovers that there is a vicious cycle of alcohol, stress and maladjustment.

Therefore, the present study attempts to investigate the nature of maladjustment among children of alcoholic parents.

OBJECTIVES AND ASSUMPTIONS

The central theme of this research is to study the nature of maladjustment among the children of alcoholics. Based on the available literature and discussion with experts in this field, the following objectives were formulated before starting the study.

1 Discover maladjustments among children of alcoholics.

2 Find out if the male and female children of alcoholics vary based on the mismatch.

3 Find out if the first child of alcoholics has a high score for maladjustment compared to other siblings.

HYPOTHESIS

H1 1. There is significant deference between the children of alcoholics and the children of a normal family due to maladjustment.

H1 2. There is a significant deference between male and female children of alcoholics due to maladjustment

H1 3. There is significant deference between the first children of alcoholics and their siblings for maladjustment

METHOD

The present study is designed to investigate the nature of maladjustment among children of alcoholic parents.

SHOWS

The proposed study sample includes 400 children from different parts of Kerala. Of the 400 children, 300 are from alcoholic families and the remaining 100 are from normal families who serve as a control group.

INSTRUMENTS

Matthew’s mismatch inventory

Mateo’s Maladjustment Inventory assesses five main aspects of maladjustment, namely anxiety, depression, mania, inferiority, and paranoia. The test is reported to have a high degree of content validity. The reliability coefficient (divided half) of the subscales ranged between 0.6 and 0.9, with the total score having a reliability of 0.9 (Mathew, 1975)

DESIGN OF THE INVESTIGATION

2 x 2 factorial design with experimental and control groups on one axis and male and female on the other axis. The four groups will be tested for different aspects of mismatches.

ANALYSIS

2 x 2 ANOVA for independent groups to be performed for the analysis of the collected data.

Other appropriate statistical techniques will be used for further analysis.

REFERENCES

Glassner, B and Loughlin, B. Drugs in Adolescent Worlds: Burnout to straight, London: Macmillan Press, 1987.

Mathew, VG, Mathew Maladjustment Inventory Manual, Department of Psychology, University of Kerala, 1975.

Orford, J, Guthrie, S, Nicholls, P, Oppenheimer, E, Egert, S, and Hensman, C, Self reported on the coping behavior of the wives of alcoholics and their association with drinking. Journal of Alcohol Studies, 1975, 36-1254-67