3 Ways to Respond to Dysfunctional Family Patterns

Grandma’s china isn’t the only thing that families pass down from generation to generation. Along with heirlooms and tchotchkes, families create and pass down emotional legacies. Grandparents and parents model to children how to treat others, how to behave in social situations, and how to build healthy relationships. And like heirlooms, some of these patterns deserved to be cherished and passed forward. Others? Not so much.

Sometimes children inherit destructive, unhealthy, toxic patterns of interaction. When these children grow into adults, they’re left to ask themselves, what do I do with this? How do I move forward? They have three options.

1. Repeat the pattern

One way to respond to a destructive family pattern is simply to continue the learned behavior in adulthood. A child can become a repeater. The child who grew up in a family that routinely shouted at one another grows into an adult who continues using explosive anger in close relationships. The child who grew up in a family of oversharers continues the tradition of sharing others' business. Some repeaters simply don’t know better. Some never learned the skills to operate in new ways. Some believe that their family operated the way all families operate. Still others resist the call to better themselves because that work is hard.

Repetition may feel like an easy route. It requires no self-awareness, no examination, and no work. A person simply continues doing what they’ve always done. But this path also perpetuates the pain it has always wrought. The cowering child now causes others to cower. The child whose secrets were divulged now fails to respect others’ privacy. Easy as it may feel not to change, when a repeater sees the continued pain the pattern creates, the choice may not feel easy.

2. Reject the pattern

Another way to respond to a destructive family pattern is to swing to the other end of the behavior spectrum. A child can become a rejecter. The child who grew up in a home with shouting matches avoids conflict at all costs, shutting down or stonewalling friends, family members, and partners. The child from a family of chronic oversharers becomes so private as to cut themselves off emotionally from others, fearing all forms of sharing.

Pattern rejecters are trying. They see that their family’s behavior causes pain and try to use a considered, mature response. But the rejector will find that this method simply creates new destructive cycles. In avoiding the shouting matches by shutting down, the rejecter never learns about the validity of arguing to problem-solve. Their conflict avoidance means they never learn to discuss difficult topics and navigate anger in healthier ways. The child who vows to stop the cycle of oversharing by staying quiet does not learn when sharing can be appropriate and wonderful. They lose out on building intimacy with others.

3. Integrate the pattern and build something new

But there is a third way to respond to destructive family patterns. The third path is integration. The child who grew up in a family with shouting matches sits with what that felt like. They mourn the childhood home that lacked peace and emotional safety. They observe the messaging learned about how anger operates in relationships. They do not let their anger go unchecked, like the repeater. But they also do not reject their anger as inherently bad, like the rejecter. Instead, the integrater accepts that anger is a part of being human and can be expressed in healthy ways.

The child from the family of oversharers, meanwhile, begins to look at how messages pass around the family unchecked and the impact that that had on those who spoke and those who were spoken about. They do not continue the practice like the repeater and they do not shut down entirely, like the rejector. Instead, they learn when it is appropriate to share and when privacy should be respected. They learn about real intimacy. They build judgment and communication skills.

Integration is by far the most difficult path. It is slow, nuanced work. It acknowledges past destruction, honors its impact, and charts a different way forward. But it is also the most liberating. It creates true movement forward while breaking generational cycles.

How it plays out

Most people don’t fall into one category and stay there. A person may begin with repetition, see the destruction it causes, and adapt with rejection. They may eventually move toward integration, get activated by a familiar situation, and fall back into old patterns. The process of healing generational patterns is not linear. Like most growth, it is messy. And that’s ok.

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