Disabling Parents: How Do They Affect Development?
When we decide to become parents, we are making a big commitment to creating emotionally healthy human beings. Growing up with disabling parents has serious consequences for a person’s personality and quality of life.
Currently, society is characterized by haste and stress. Parents often act on autopilot to manage all areas of our lives. However, it is essential to provide a conscious education, in such a way that our actions are not the result of automatism.
Failing to provide children with the nurturing, respect, and validation they need will have a major negative impact on their happiness and relationships throughout their lives.
invalidating parents
Disabling family environments are characterized by impeding the personal development of its members. A series of behavioral patterns are established that end up undermining children’s self-confidence.
These children will learn to feel wrong and incapable. But beyond that, they will also feel insanely connected to their core family. The bond that is established is based on anxiety and guilt, and it will be very difficult for the child to leave his family and be independent, because he will feel that he cannot go on without him.
The two main functionings that characterize invalidating parents are overprotection and emotional mismanagement.
Overprotection
Overprotection arises from the desire to remove the child from any potential danger or suffering. Parents perceive the world as a place full of threats for their children and try to anticipate and avoid any problems. In addition, they avoid giving their child responsibilities because “he will suffer enough when he grows up”.
This kind of behavior, despite the good intentions, sends the indirect message to the child that he cannot take care of himself. She is convinced that she is not capable of dealing with life’s situations and this makes her see herself as a helpless being.
Involuntarily, the person and their abilities are being invalidated. And, when this child has to face difficulties in life, he will be without resources and without the necessary self-esteem to be successful. She will experience tremendous anxiety and will depend considerably on her parents, even into adulthood.
emotional mismanagement
The other side of the coin is found in parents who do not know how to properly manage their own emotions or their children’s. They are usually people who are not in touch with their own feelings, who have difficulty identifying, controlling and expressing them.
In these environments, there is great difficulty in conveying positive messages, with family communication being characterized by criticism or indifference.
Thus, when a child expresses an emotion, parents have two paths: to ignore it and minimize it, diminishing its value and importance, or reacting to it with reproach and annoyance.
In any case, the child receives the message that their feelings are not worthy of being treated with attention and respect. She understands that she will not receive understanding when she expresses her pain or discomfort and that instead she will only encounter rejection.
Of course, children who grow up in these familiar patterns develop a tendency to either inhibit their emotions completely or express them in an extreme way.
The dependency of invalidating parents
The common conclusion for both types of upbringing is the dependency generated in these people in relation to their parents and family environment. Both the child who grew up hearing that he is doing everything wrong and the child who did not hear it but could not act alone because he was considered incapable share the same fate.
Over the years, these children will find serious difficulties in establishing healthy relationships, developing a tendency to emotional dependence in the first case and to avoid intimacy in the second.
In addition, they will feel extremely attached to their core family, to the point of having their individuality limited.
The idea of facing life without this environment will seem terrible, but, in addition, the family will also nurture this dependence because, on many occasions, these parents find in their children the pretext not to face their own problems.
Therefore, it is essential that we direct all our efforts to raise emotionally healthy and autonomous children. Paying attention to your feelings, understanding and validating them is the first step in building your self-esteem.
