Studies have shown that there are many small mistakes parents can make to seriously damage and scar their children - sometimes, permanently. One of these is a very common issue called parental favoritism. This occurs when one or both parents treat one or more of their children in a more favorable way than the rest. This can be displayed in multiple ways. Some examples would be spending more time with a certain child, showing a child significantly less discipline than the rest, abusing a particular child, and many other ways. Studies have shown that these kinds of parental behaviors can have long-lasting negative consequences on both the favored and disfavored children, such as more depression, greater aggressiveness, lower self-esteem, poorer academic performance, as well as several other struggles. It can also result in dysfunctions that apply to the entire family, like marital strain and sibling rivalry. .
The disastrous outcomes of parental favoritism are clearly displayed in the film, "The Royal Tenenbaums." The movie depicts a family where the father of three. Royal Tenenbaum clearly favors his son, Richie, over his other children, and completely neglecting and disrespecting his adopted daughter, Margot. The destruction caused by his favoritism is most accurately portrayed by the way Margot decides to live her life. As supported by "The Royal Tenenbaums" and the research of several experts, parents who display favoritism in regards to their children run the risk of raising conflict in their marriage, causing massive household dysfunction, and seriously damaging the lives of the children. .
The first topic this paper will examine is the effect of parental favoritism on the disfavored child. According to Joshua D. Foster and Ilan Shrira of Psychology Today, "Unfortunately, the consequences of parental favoritism are what you might expect - they're mostly bad. Disfavored children experience worse outcomes across the board: more depression, greater aggressiveness, lower self-esteem, and poorer academic performance""(Foster and Shrira, The Narcissus in all of Us).
