Toxic parents: 6 attitudes that damage the mental development of their children

What happens if the people who are most supposed to protect and care for us harm us and make us feel bad? How do toxic parents act? What traits characterize them?

It seems that some parents go beyond simple mistakes and manifest harmful behavior that affects the emotional growth and education of their children. Now, this does not mean that they are not educated or abandoned, but that sometimes, The way of relating to them and acting as parents is not appropriate.

Nobody is born knowing

It is evident that parents are not born with an educational guide under our arms. We all face those first baby cries that we don’t know how to manage. “What will happen to him?” “Will I be a good father?” They are normal doubts. The secret is attachment, affection, understanding and patience.

However, not all parents follow this parenting model. Toxic parents, on the contrary, carry out a series of practices that are not at all convenient for the optimal growth of the child. Let’s see what they consist of.

If you are not the best, you do not exist

Some parents demand and demand perfection from their children. They are very critical of them and only want them to achieve excellence in all areas. Such is their demand that children a posteriori They come to feel humiliated, anxious and disappointed with themselves.

This way of educating based on reaching the summit, the maximum, makes them very tense and distressed. Furthermore, the emotional damage they suffer is even deeper if their parents are constantly reminding them of their mistakes. Extreme pressure prevents them from being able to enjoy the achievements they are achieving in their lives.

Often, these parents plan the professional careers of all their offspring. It’s their way of controlling them. Thus, They force them to live the life they have built for themselves and do not let their children make their own decisions or chart their own course.

Either with me or without anyone

They are those parents who are excessively and compulsively protective. Those who don’t let their child attend a classmate’s birthday party or go to the movies with their friends for fear of something happening to them or losing them.

They are people who fear loneliness, therefore, They prevent their children from having any iota of independence. This does not mean that it is best to let them do what they want, but excessive control is as harmful as extreme laxity.

It is necessary that children acquire a certain degree of autonomy in accordance with their age. It is good to let them do activities outside the home. However, Absorbent parents make them feel guilty just because they want to be with other people. Of course, this situation becomes much worse in the adolescent stage. Especially when friends and boyfriends start to appear.

Dare to be better than me

As difficult as it may seem to understand, there are parents who compete with their children. For example, it is common to find disputes between mother and daughter due to pure physical rivalry or parents who ridicule their children in sports to stand out and stand out from them.

They are normally parents who have seen some type of dream frustrated during their childhood or have had parents who have done the same with them. This way, They release the frustration that they have accumulated during all this time on the little ones. It is a way of blaming them for their own misfortunes, a hurtful way of venting anger and rage.

trust only me

Another type of toxic parent adopts a manipulative attitude, whether consciously or unconsciously. For example: “No one is going to take care of you like I do” or “don’t go out tonight because you already know that your mother gets very nervous. You don’t want us to have to go to the hospital, do you?”

As experts in detecting other people’s vulnerabilities and weaknesses, they believe they have the power and the right to get what they want. And all this, at the expense of their own children. They take advantage of childhood innocence to do and undo as they please.

Love me like I have never loved you

On many occasions, we have put on the table the importance of attachment during the first years of a child’s life. The bond that the baby generates with his mother, her father and other important figures in his environment decisively marks his subsequent development.

Therefore, if the parents deprive him of that affection, do not show him any type of affection or simply do not create any emotional bond with him, the repercussions can be very serious. The family model must be based on love and trust. If this is lacking, the social relationships that the child maintains in the future will be very fruitless.

Only toxic parents do this.

Nor should we forget that imitation is the basis of a child’s learning. Thus, All habits, customs and other behaviors are learned from adults with little difficulty.

Be careful with what we show our children: vocabulary, behaviors, comments… They absorb everything and then it is difficult to mend it. Parents are models for them and toxic parents, unfortunately, too.

Linked to this idea is the opportunity we have to teach them healthy lifestyle habits. Eat well, play sports frequently, do not drink alcohol or toxic substances, sleep enough hours… If it is not instilled from the cradle, it is difficult to start doing it when you are already immersed in other types of routines.

There is no doubt that Each family has its own circumstances. But engaging in harmful behavior with your children is not justifiable. Toxic parents do not seem to be aware that they are raising their children in the wrong way. And not only that, but they are causing severe damage that can be chronic.

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