Association of Family Challenges with Self-esteem and Perceived Social Support among Indian Adolescents

The family micro-system is important in the development of any individual. Defects or deviations in its normative functioning affect the development of a child. These defects may include child maltreatment or abuse, be it physical, sexual, emotional, or neglect. Within this domain, in our view, there does not appear to be adequate development related to the understanding of, and intervention for, emotional abuse. Emotional abuse extends from explicit acts to invisible causative factors of neglect or humiliation. In this work, through quantitative and qualitative empirical evidence, we have attempted to associate family challenges with self-esteem (SE) and perceived social support. The study was carried out on a sample of early-adolescent high school students in the state of Kerala, India. We found a significant difference in SE between adolescents who reported challenges at home and those who did not. We also observed the limited role of age as a determinant in this differentiation. The current work serves to significantly supplement the understanding of causal relationships in the discourse on emotional abuse in the context of child development.