Toxic Parenting and Its Repercussions on Children

Before venturing into the article, let’s establish one thing first, parenting is hard and it’s understandable if a parent or (both the parents) end up making mistakes along the way that might or might not be dire enough to affect your identity as an individual.

While there’s that, there’s another sort of parenting that is particularly toxic for the children who are being raised by these parents (or parent) who possess certain toxic characteristics.

While many traits can make a parent toxic, some of the most common ones are found to be as follows.

Verbal Abuse

If there were to be a list of all the malicious traits that are possessed by a toxic parent, verbal abuse would have been observed to be at the very top as it is fairly common.

Verbal abuse has a wide range. It’s not just parents cussing and yelling at their children, it also entails demeaning, critical and insensitive behavior of parent towards their children

Physical Abuse

Toxic parents demand their children to be obedient and submissive to them, and when they suspect them of rebelling against their parents, they most certainly will get physical with them to regain control. In conclusion, inflicting physical pain on their children to get their way is not a big deal for them.

Manipulative Behavior

They use their manipulative techniques to blame their malicious actions on their children. They manipulate their off-spring into thinking that their parent’s behavior is justified because it was merely a reaction on their part and they are the real culprits here because they are the ones who invoked this reaction from them and considering that the children may have under-developed personalities due to growing up in a toxic environment, the children will be prone to their manipulation.

Unhealthy Amount of Interest in Your Life

They take an unhealthy amount of interest in your life, in-fact their level of interest surpasses what the term interest refers to and evolves into control and obsession. They don’t allow you to make decisions about your own life, They make sure that the plan you make regarding your life, has to be a plan that works in their favor too as they could be dependent upon you and may want you to take their responsibility.

What Happens to the Child That Has Toxic Parents?

In every relationship, there is one person who’s more affectionate than the other one and thus is more likely to suffer and when talking about the relationship between a toxic parent and their child, the child is the one who has the most to lose. While the parent may suffer too later in life, for instance, they will always have a broken bond with their child and even if they hopefully realize their mistake in their later years and try to mend their relationship with their kid but even if that happens, it will still not rid the child of the scars this toxic relationship caused them.

Even if they end up forgiving their parents for all they did, they will never forget the trauma that filled their early years of life. Moreover, the child is always the one who has to suffer the most and in some cases, the suffering does not stop even when they are adults.

So, if one were to list down all those things which the child of a toxic parent has to endure, the list would entail the following:

Identity Crisis

As a result of their upbringing, they suffer from an identity crisis and go on to live a life that’s filled with confusion and insecurity which further renders them inadequate to decide their future goals and ambitions, let alone pursue them.

They Have Trust Issues

Their inability to trust people around them stems from the fact that they could never count on that one person who was supposed to protect them from all the harm in the world and instead turned out to be the person who caused it for them. This leads them to think that eventually, everyone in their life will disappoint them and that relationships are nothing but the gateway to hurt.

They Have the Potential To Be Just Like Their Parents

According to various studies, people who suffer from abuse are most likely to become abusers themselves in the future.

These people have been wronged by their parents and because of this harsh treatment, they might not be able to distinguish between right and wrong, Aside from that, all the anger that has been pent up in them for a long time makes them dangerous as it may provoke them to take revenge from the weaker people around them.

You Can Heal

If you have/had toxic parents or know someone who has, please tell them that it’s not their fault and despite the circumstances in which they spent a large chunk of their life, they can still start a-new and have a shot at a normal life. You can get medical help from professionals and live your life like a normal person. Don’t lose hope, we know it’s hard to not feel despair sometimes but you can get through this!

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