It’s perfectly natural for you as a parent to get annoyed with your child every now and then. Their energy levels are certainly greater than yours, as is their desire to question and comment on every little thing. In the past, you easily found a healthy balance. You supported their inquisitive and energetic nature by taking the time to offer an ear, a thoughtful reply, and join in on some whimsical activity before getting on with your other responsibilities. But lately, that has changed. It now feels as if they are bothering and disrupting you in an unreasonable (for an adolescent) fashion. It has become so much of an issue that you’ve come online to ask; “Why do I find my child so annoying?”. Allow us to follow up your question with another – has this feeling increased with your participation in online sports betting and/or casino gaming? If so, you could be like a significant number of parents who struggle with a problematic relationship with gambling.
While there may be peace of mind in knowing that other parents share your emotional state, we insist that immediate intervention is required. You see, it’s not just your mental behavioral health at stake, but your child’s wellbeing. Please read ahead and get ready to take corrective action.
How Your Online Gambling Habit Can Make You Easily Irritable Around Your Kids, and Why Immediate Intervention is Critical
Irritability is a Symptom of Problem Gambling
If you’re a habitual or compulsive online sports bettor and/or casino gamer, you need to know that irritability is a primary symptom of problem gambling. This emotional state can be evident when engaged in the activity (placing bets, monitoring outcomes of a game, etc.) but also when not actively wagering. Thus, the annoyance you feel when your child tries to connect with you on something, is quite possibly connected to your problematic relationship with gambling. View more on gambling anger, mood swings, and irritability to better understand why you feel the way you do.
Gambling Makes You Lose Interest in Their Interests (and them)
Another symptom of compulsive gambling is a loss of interest in activities that don’t involve sports betting and/or casino gaming. This includes your child’s interests and passions (bike riding, beachcombing, art, etc.), ones that you once shared together after work and on the weekend. Their interests have not changed, but yours have become hyperfocused on one activity. So when they plead with you to join them (especially if they require you to be there) you feel as if they are annoying you in their attempt to pull you away from gambling.
Cooccurring Mental and Behavioral Health Concerns
Becoming easily annoyed is a sign of problem gambling, but it’s also a symptom of other mental and behavioral health disorders. A number of these conditions cooccur with problem gambling, which can compound your feelings of annoyance with your innocent child. Strong feelings of anger and irritability are observed in people who struggle with anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD, and alcohol/substance abuse disorders, all of which cooccur with gambling disorder.
Why Immediate Intervention is Required to Protect Your Child
They Blame Themselves
Annoyance, anger, irritability, and mood swings are detrimental to the emotional and mental health of a child who observes every little thing that you do. Remember, they don’t have the cognitive and emotional maturity to process the fact that you may be struggling with a mental or behavioral health disorder. They don’t understand that your new attitude towards them, and neglect, is not their fault. Consequently, they blame themselves.
Annoyance Can Escalate
Your emotional state of annoyance may manifest as verbal or physical abuse, which are also symptoms of gambling disorder. If your problematic relationship escalates to this level, intervention from social services is required and there may be no turning back.
Excessive Smartphone Use (while gambling) Leads to Neglect
Even if annoyance doesn’t escalate into verbal or physical abuse, the neglect your child faces while your face is buried in a smartphone to gamble could have an impact on the rest of their lives.
“Emerging research suggests that a key problem remains underappreciated. It involves kids’ development, but it’s probably not what you think. More than screen-obsessed young children, we should be concerned about tuned-out parents.”
Dangers of Distracted Parenting | The Atlantic
The consequential (for your child) symptoms of problem gambling and cooccurring conditions (as applicable) are enough on their own, but when you consider the body of research regarding parents who neglect their child from being on their smartphones all day (in your case, while engaged in gambling) it’s clear that your child is at risk. Psychology Today reports on a number of studies regarding the ramifications of parental smartphone addiction on a child:
- Parents who spend too much time on their smartphones have children who are more negative and less resilient to outside stressors.
- Children feel unimportant, and have to compete with smartphones for parents’ attention.
- Distracted parental attention harms children’s social and emotional development.
- Kids feel sad, mad, angry, and lonely when parents spend too much time on their smartphones.
Inheritable Trait?
Lastly, we must also recognize that gambling disorder may be an inheritable trait. Research shows that problem gambling tends to run in families at a higher rate than for many other behavioral and psychiatric disorders. That means your grandfather’s problematic relationship with gambling could have been passed down to your father, which could have been passed down to you. Do you want the same for your child? Certainly not. By coming to terms with the fact that your newfound annoyance with your child could be the result of your gambling “addiction”, you can take immediate steps to get help. This can break the chain and clear the path for healthier generations in your family tree. View more on the consequences of growing up in a gambling family.
Get help today, for the sake of your child and family. Kindbridge Behavioral Health is America’s leading counseling resource for problem gambling treatment. Reach out via the contacts provided below to speak to a care coordinator.
Questions About Gambling Support Services for Yourself and/or Your Family?
CALL +1 (877) 426-4258
OR
Email [email protected]
