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More questions, let's dive in.
How would you define a toxic parenting trait/behaviors? Why do certain parenting traits leave children feeling hurt, confused, or even traumatized? We can do harm, we can have a neutral effect, and we can be of benefit to our children. Toxic parenting traits/behaviors are actions we regularly take that harm our children. When these actions or ways of being make a child feel they are unsafe, unstable, and need to act in an inauthentic way to avoid pain, maladaptations are sure to follow. These maladaptations are skewed ways of viewing the world that the child then takes into adulthood. That sets them up to fail. What are some traits/behaviors that parents should avoid? First, telling a child they need to "get over" their pain, or telling them they shouldn't be upset because "it could be worse." This teaches a child that their experience isn't of value, that others can't be trusted with their emotions, and that they need to go it alone in life. Second, guilt trips. A guilt trip is a way of telling a child that they need to behave differently in order to gain your approval. The child takes on the message that they are a bad kid, and that only in doing things for other people can they be good again. This creates a people pleaser. What should parents do if they identify some of these traits or behaviors in themselves? How can they work on avoiding them, while also being compassionate toward themselves and their children? A parent who is able to identify these traits in themselves has already done the more difficult third of the battle. Next you should work to identify the reasons you act in that toxic way and question its effect. From there it is a matter of working to catch yourself when you are about to act that way. Working with a therapist can help, hint hint. If you mess up, it's ok to apologize to your child, and it’s ok to forgive yourself too. - Questions you want answered? Feed me here.
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Our first lie comes when we are little kids. At an early age we have perfect credibility with our parents. Say we want an extra piece of candy after being told no. In the past we took the candy, owned up to it when pressed, and got in trouble. This getting in trouble really hurt, so we were given an incentive not to get in trouble again. The harsher the punishment, the greater the pain. The greater the pain, the larger the incentive.
For a time we just obey the rules to avoid the pain and keep our parents' love. But one time we try something new, we try saying no we didn’t take the candy, even though we know we did. And it works. Our credibility pays off, they believe us, and we get to have the candy and avoid trouble. We have learned something new. But of course it doesn’t last long. The first lie was such a booming success that we tried lying again and again. Our parents catch on quick, and the abused credibility tanks. This isn’t the end of it though. The first memory we have is of the success of the lie. And even if our credibility is low, we still do sometimes slip one past other people. We don’t usually stop lying, but we get better at it. The benefit of avoiding the short term pain of getting in trouble makes the risk worth pursuing. It is all about that short term thinking. In the medium and long term we damage relationships with lies. The pain still comes, but because it isn’t immediate, it doesn’t necessarily feel connected to the lying. The blame for the pain of the relationship damage can be fobbed off on other causes. It’s the other person’s fault. Or job stress. Or the kids. Or whatever. So there isn’t an incentive to avoid any particular lie. People pleasers can be especially prone to lying. If we grew up with the conflicting desires both to feel safe and to sometimes get our way, lying would naturally become more alluring. The solution here may be to do the counterintuitive thing and get comfortable with short term pain. Being upfront about your actions, taking the immediate pain of the other person’s reaction, and holding in your mind a more long term perspective. This would involve remembering that rebuilding credibility is a process, one that will involve short term pain. Work through the original causes of lying. Get in trouble and find that unlike when you were a kid you can absorb the pain of it without being crushed. Anonymous in Rochester, New York asks: “I read your piece on people pleasing and really related to the parts on how our childhood sets us up as adults. Now that the damage has been done I find that I still struggle to hold boundaries with my needy parents. I have my own life to live but at the same time feel responsible to them. It is making me feel resentful. What can I do?”
First of all, congratulations on coming to the realization that this is an issue. Most people never do. Our tendency is to continue year in and year out to go through the motions and never really explore the feelings that are rising up. So having the guts to confront it and find its origin is an achievement. Childhood adaptation work is challenging because it first requires us to discern differences. The norm is to not question things because we don’t know that our childhood could have been different. It’s like asking a fish to describe water. How could it do so when there is nothing to contrast it to? They don’t know what air is. Talking over your childhood in therapy or exploring the experiences of childhood with friends can be jarring at first. Our background is all we have ever known, so some cognitive dissonance is sure to result. I call cognitive dissonance the wrecking ball because it swings back and forth in our head, banging against our skull. These newly unraveling feelings can, say, cause us to have negative thoughts about our parents. There is a temptation then to label them as bad but --bang-- You love them and remember all the times they were good to you but --bang-- You are resentful that they constantly ask you for more than you would like to give but --bang-- They did all these good things for you as a kid (and they don’t hesitate to remind you) so you’re the bad person but Bang. Back and forth the ball swings. This makes boundaries difficult. One day you feel staunchly that you need to cut them out of your life, that you have put your time in with them. You may then tell them so. While the wrecking ball is firmly on that side you can stick to that hard boundary, but then some time passes. In that time they wear you down with guilt trips and pressure. You may miss them. Plus you are used to it being the other way. The wrecking ball comes loose, bangs to the other side, and the boundary is lost. The answer is to see how things are more complicated than either side of your head is seeing it. We humans want clarity at all times and feel great anxiety when we don’t have it. So label your parents good or label them bad, as long as there is a label, is what we think. The truth is your parents, like you, are a complicated mix of good, bad, and everything else. The truth is many things are true, even when they are in conflict. My suggestion is work on accepting the cognitive dissonance. The swing won’t be calmed by holding desperately to one or the other conclusion. It will be calmed by accepting that the whole picture is complicated. Now we take that fresh, accepted, complex picture and consider what action to take. A boundary that is based on complexity is a more stable one. You will feel less emotional swing and will have an easier time sticking to it. Your parents may still push, poke, and manipulate to try and get you back into the old ways. But you will be in a more stable position and less likely to be moved far from your position. How they react is beyond your control. This is another important thing to accept. But hopefully they will see the rationality in all of it and come around. - Want your questions answered? Toss them in the box here. Imagine yourself in, say Topeka, Kansas, 1938. The circus is in town, and out in a fallow corn field you see a huge beast of an elephant. You stare into her eyes. You do this long enough that something in the back of your mind panics as you realize “my God, this mammoth could break free and trample the whole crowd if she wanted to. We wouldn’t stand a chance.” But the elephant just stares passively back.
Your fear is not eased by the appearance of passivity. Nor is it eased by what you see as its restraints. The elephant has a simple rope tied around its ankle. No thicker than the rope your papa uses with the cattle. The rope is tied to a wooden stake, driven into the hardpan. You think to yourself that you and your buddy could probably tug of war that sucker right out of the ground. There is no reassurance there. How is it holding this monstrosity in place? The answer is standing right next to this long trunked colossus. Jumbo has an adorable little Dumbo. And around that baby elephant’s ankle you see the same rope. This being 1938 and you not having a smartphone to distract you, you sit and watch the elephants for a while. Every twenty moments or so the baby elephant yanks and yanks on the rope with childish exuberance. The stake does not budge, neither does mama. Then it dawns on you. The baby elephant is learning that the stake cannot be defeated. It gives up trying before it gets the strength to learn otherwise. That behemoth casting the long shadow on baby learned she was not capable at a time she was not capable. So she has gone through life believing she is not capable. It begs some questions: What were the ropes that were tied around your young ankles? Who are the circus owners in your life? Who is benefiting from your continued disbelief in your abilities? How can you break free from bondage with one sharp yank? What stops you? I was recently interviewed by Authority Magazine on the topic of being a people pleaser. Below is an excerpt from that article. The full version can be read for free on their website.
- What does “People Pleaser” mean to you? A people pleaser is a person who feels compelled to give more than they receive in any kind of relationship. Their default thinking will be some form of ‘what can I do to make people around me happy?’ On the surface, it seems like being a person who wants to please others is a good thing. Can you help articulate a few of the challenges that come with being a people pleaser? It does seem like a good thing on the surface. Certainly it is better than being the complete opposite. The trouble is the people pleaser invites others to take advantage of them. People pleasers will find there is inequality in their relationships. They are apt to grow bitter and feel that although they give so much to others, they get little in return. They may ask ‘when is it gonna be my turn?’ ... How does people-pleasing behavior impact personal relationships? If you establish in your relationships that you will give and give and not ask anything in return, the people in your life will accept that arrangement without much thought. People may assume you just take pleasure from giving. That you don’t want much of anything in return. Even well-meaning people can fall into this receiving without giving back trap. Receiving is easy, and if a person isn’t being asked for anything, it takes mental effort for them to notice that they should be giving. The above is the more common scenario. But there are more dangerous ones. People pleasers attract people users the way a glove attracts a hand. It is common for the victim in abusive relationships to be a people pleaser. An abuser may be the type of person who consciously only wants to take and take. So they sniff out a person who was raised to give. The abuser unknowingly plays the role of that childhood parent or caretaker. And the victim will play their old familiar role, possibly not knowing a different role is an option. This is exasperated by gender norms. Women are already conditioned to be givers in mainstream culture. If they grew up in a household that was both unstable and patriarchal, they likely would’ve received the message that it’s a woman’s job to quietly give and have no expectation of anything in return. ... Often while we say we want to change aspects of our lives that bother us, we don’t actually want to. That we actually prefer to keep the drama alive. This may be hard to accept. The drama appears to be everything you hate, so how could it also be your preference? The answer may be that the drama is familiar. In discussing anxiety I often use the metaphor of ‘the tiger in the room.’ Anxiety is the fear that because we have endured traumas and stressful events in the past, we will again in the future. So we have to be anxiously on guard for it, we have to be looking around for where the tiger -the threat- is hiding. Relief from anxiety can then come when you see the tiger, when a bad thing is happening to you. Because at least then you are in a familiar experience. The alternative is being comfortable with openness. That anything could happen, that there are no barriers, that anything can be in the room. This could mean a tiger is present, but it could also mean that love is present. It could mean a million different things good, bad, and neutral may be in the room. Anything may occur. If you choose to people please, then you will get the same familiar result. However if you choose openness, if you choose to take a new action, then you will get a new result. Is a new result what you want? Then take it. Full interview here. To book a counseling session, click here |
AuthorPhilip Monte Verde LMSW 
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