Toxic parents or toxic parenting is something we most often see in movies and tv shows rather than in real life. However, It’s not as if these toxic parents knew what they were doing was wrong, instead it’s what they have to do in the name of love. Every Parent makes some mistakes. Your parents might have made some that you wouldn’t want to repeat and you might make a few that your child won’t like to replicate but there’s a difference between making a mistake and toxic parenting behaviour.
Here are 5 Traits of Toxic Parents: –
Not Validating Emotions
Humans are emotional beings, they have several emotions that can be seen and expressed in various manners. A child however might not be as good as expressing what they feel, as such it becomes important to validate these emotions of sometimes not knowing how they feel.
Even when they grow older, It is important for you to let them know that it is okay to feel what they feel and it will all be okay in the end. Not validating a child’s emotions will lead the child to bottling up their emotions which isn’t the best of ideas.
This also includes gaslighting, meaning trying to make your child feel that there is something wrong with them.
Lack of Positive Reinforcement
Positive Reinforcement is a method or a tool parents use to promote and reward good behaviour in their child by telling them that they did a good job and that they’re on the right path.
But a Lack of Positive Reinforcement could lead to your child feeling like they aren’t loved by you at all because all you do is scold them or try and find faults in whatever they do while you might not even notice these feelings could build up and you might not even notice why.
So it might be a good idea to inculcate positive reinforcement into your parenting style so that your child knows that you appreciate what they do.
Being Harshly Critical
Lack of Positive Reinforcement and Harsh Criticism go hand in hand sometimes and that isn’t a good thing.
Imagine Your Boss Criticising you for everything you do and being so harsh about it that it starts to hurt. You’d want to switch jobs and get away from them as soon as possible.
If you apply the same logic to a parent being harshly critical about everything their child does, the child would feel like changing houses too, the worst part is they have to come home to someone that is extremely critical of every action they perform so they have to start walking on eggshells in order to not be scolded or being yelled at.
Being Extremely Controlling
Extremely Controlling behaviour is unacceptable in this day and age, even if you love your child and want to protect them from everything that is wrong in the world you can’t do that.
They have to fight their own battles and learn from their own mistakes.
Being Extremely Controlling will only lead your child to resenting you for not allowing them to experience their childhood like they should have.
Not Paying Attention to Your Child’s Needs
Food, Water and Shelter are a human’s primary needs but just providing a child with all 3 isn’t what we are talking about here.
We are talking about paying attention to a child’s emotional needs rather than the physical ones like Listening to them when they need an ear to listen to, Giving them advice when they need it and being there when they need a shoulder to cry on.
This Concludes the article about Toxic Parents and how not be one, Let us know in the comments if you think we missed a point. Until then, Here’s an article we think you’d enjoy:- 5 Tips for Parents.
