Therapy

It&#39;s the most wonderful time of the year to dig up childhood resentments! One thing almost every human being has in common is that we are all at least a little bit screwed up by something our parent(s) or guardians did (or didn&#39;t do). And no one knows more about the things our parents did wrong than therapists. Parenting mistakes are their bread-and-butter.<h2>Someone <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/efp39e/therapists_of_reddit_what_is_the_number_one_thing/" target="_blank">asked</a> therapists of Reddit: &quot;what is the number one thing parents did to screw up their kid so they had to seek help in adulthood?&quot; These 19 therapists weigh in on the biggest mistakes parents make that are keeping them steadily employed:</h2>(Read with caution, cookies, and Kleenex on hand as these answers may be triggering if you have imperfect parents, which most of us do.)1.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Chubuwee/" style="font-size: 1.1rem; letter-spacing: -0.01em;">Chubuwee</a>:<blockquote> Behavioral therapist here. Catch your kids being good! Parents are always telling kids what they did wrong. You have to balance it out by telling them what they are doing right. </blockquote>2.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Polyfuckery/" style="font-size: 1.1rem; letter-spacing: -0.01em;">Polyfuckery</a>:<div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> Teaching them that failure is unacceptable/a sign of laziness or that they just didn&#39;t want it enough. It results in people who can&#39;t take no for an answer or stay it terrible situations because that&#39;s what they&#39;ve chosen so they have to make it work. </blockquote>3.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/radleraz/">radleraz</a>:<blockquote> Psychologist here, parents are frequently their child&#39;s first bully. #1 thing is probably being too distracted by addictions, grief, mental health issues to be emotionally present for their child. Too many adults walking around unaware of their worth because they were never shown or told that they matter. </blockquote>4.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/PsychoPhilosopher/">PsychoPhilosopher</a>:<blockquote> Actual therapist: Failing to admit it when you&#39;re wrong. Kids need to see adults fail and that be OK. Take your lumps with grace and they&#39;ll learn to do the same as they get older. Fight and deny and they&#39;ll do two things: </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div>5.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/iammissx/">iammissx</a>:<blockquote> Actual therapist here- not offering their children unconditional love. </blockquote><blockquote> When a child does something wrong, it&rsquo;s important to explain to them what they&rsquo;ve done wrong. It&rsquo;s a matter of saying &lsquo;I love you so I want to explain why this is an issue for me&rsquo;. Parents need to be open to a conversation with their children about why something is an issue, instead of storming off or shouting at them. </blockquote><blockquote> Children need to feel loved no matter what. That&rsquo;s honestly the most valuable thing I&rsquo;ve learnt as a therapist. </blockquote>6.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/ammavel/">ammavel</a>:<blockquote> Therapist here (LMFT). Probably the biggest and most common fuck up I see is parents shaming their child for having their own identity and personal interests separate from the parent(s). </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> Just support your kid and don&#39;t try to force them to be someone they&#39;re not. Don&#39;t call them weird or tell them their likes are stupid. Show interest in the things they like and let them teach you about those things. </blockquote><blockquote> Also, don&#39;t take it personally if your child is not an exact replica of you. Kids are human, and like all humans, despite all our similarities, there vast differences as well. You can learn to celebrate and value those differences, or EVERYONE can be miserable. </blockquote>7.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/magicpurplecat/">magicpurplecat</a>:<blockquote> Made the child take care of the parents emotions. Its supposed to be the other way around. You control your sadness, anger, disappointment, don&#39;t make your kid anticipate your emotional response and work to regulate you. </blockquote>8.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/robrtsmtn/">robrtsmtn</a>:<div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> Social Worker for 25 years. Inconsistencies: poor kiddo never knows how to react because they never get a consistent response. </blockquote>9.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/p3rviepanda/">p3rviepanda</a>:<blockquote> Therapist here also. I see a number of teens and some of the things I have noticed in the population that really does a number on them are: </blockquote><blockquote> Parents failing to keep their promises and consistently repeating the promises and never fulfill them When your child does something wrong - don&#39;t sweep it under the carpet, be passive aggressive or stonewalling. </blockquote> <blockquote> Not trusting them enough - always in helicopter mode Not validating their feelings - hey it is okay you are angry. Anger is an emotion. Your kids have the right to feel that. This also goes for not encouraging them to discuss their emotions </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> Not apologizing when you should. You are a human as much as your child irrespective of how old he or she is. When you are in the wrong, say sorry and talk about what you can do differently next time. You are setting a positive model for your child ( please remember ) </blockquote><blockquote> Lack of communication - I cannot even emphasize enough how many teens I see or clients in general lack communication skills. </blockquote>10.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/GetMeTheJohnsonFile/">GetMeTheJohnsonFile</a>:<blockquote> Therapist here, the most common thing I hear from clients is they never had proper modelling of emotions, and they now have the inability to identify or articulate their own emotions effectively. </blockquote><blockquote> The most common intervention I use with clients is to show them the <a href="https://i.imgur.com/q6hcgsH_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&amp;shape=thumb&amp;fidelity=medium" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Wheel of Emotion</a> and encourage them to check in with it a few times a day--I like to do it when I refill my water bottle. </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div>11.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/SoYouThinkTHATWasBad/">SoYouThinkTHATWasBad</a>:<blockquote> Ignoring a child&#39;s emotional life by scolding them for having one or telling them to &quot;suck it up.&quot; It&#39;s remarkable the amount of clients I see that need to learn that having feelings is OK and not a cause for alarm or punishment. </blockquote>12.) ​​​​​​From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/aMoustachioedMan/">aMoustachioedMan</a>:<blockquote> I used to work as a Counsellor. The thing that stood out the most to me was the number of people, usually women and the oldest female sibling, who were saddled with the left over parenting duties the actual parents couldn&rsquo;t handle.. whether it was babysitting all the time, being the parents&rsquo; shoulder to cry on, being responsible for all of the housework, dealing with the financial burden of raising a family.... </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> This led to wonderful, smart young women who were so used to caring for everyone else, being the &ldquo;rock&rdquo; that their teenage years/childhoods were essentially non existent and their adult relationships suffered as a result. From memory it&rsquo;s called Parentification. And it is incredibly unfair young people find themselves in this type of situation. </blockquote>13.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/mdadvocate/">mdadvocate</a>:<blockquote> Constant invalidation. &quot;You shouldn&#39;t feel sad, you were being too hyper and that is why you are being punished.&quot; </blockquote><blockquote> Seems innocent enough even without context. &quot;Shouldn&#39;t feel sad&quot; is a problematic statement though. People feel what they feel no matter the context, so you need to talk to your child &quot;Why are you sad? Is it because you are being punished? </blockquote><blockquote> Timeout won&#39;t last forever, you only have 1 minute left. I still love you blah blah blah.&quot;... whatever works for your family dynamic, but children need to be able to appropriately label their feelings from a young age. </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> I am sad because I didn&#39;t get what I wanted. I can do better in the future and maybe get what I want. BOOM. I&#39;m out of a job. Hint, their are many parents who cannot do this, and they cannot teach their children to do it either. </blockquote>14.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/piss-mud/">piss-mud</a>:<blockquote> My therapist has been making me realize my dad and stepmom don&rsquo;t validate my emotions and has been trying to teach them how to, it&rsquo;s crazy because I never really noticed it before really. If I&rsquo;d get upset about something my dad would always be like &ldquo;don&rsquo;t get upset&rdquo; or &ldquo;you don&rsquo;t need to cry &ldquo; stuff like that. </blockquote>15.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/loritree/">loritree</a>:<div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> Teacher here. My best advice is only have kids if you want kids. If you treat your kids poorly, doesn&rsquo;t matter the reason, they learn poor treatment. Treat you kids like you love them. </blockquote>16.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Headshothero/" style="font-size: 1.1rem; letter-spacing: -0.01em;">Headshothero</a>:<blockquote> There are a few things: &quot;Cry it out&quot; and other forms of emotional disconnection/neglect. - look into Dr. Bruce Perry&#39;s work on the impacts of neglect. </blockquote><blockquote> Controlling behaviours - it backfires. Have a chunky kid, do not try and control the food, look at the underlying purpose of over eating. Controlling the access to food will develop an unhealthy relationship with food. </blockquote><blockquote> Reduce the amount you praise your kids. It&#39;s not awful, but encouragement is far more effective. &quot;You worked hard on that, you must be proud&quot; vs &quot;you&#39;re amazing!&quot;. </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> Neglect in general - abuse sucks, but at a minimum, the victim can sometimes externalize their experience (although most often they will internalize regardless).. but neglect... that&#39;s damn near guaranteed internalized victimization. </blockquote><blockquote> Ongoing trauma. Seeing your mom get a black eye or getting hit by a parent one time is easier to dismiss than constant abuse/mistreatment. Even if the constant abuse is less &#39;harsh&#39; it is the normalization of the behaviour. </blockquote>17.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Insectshelf3/">Insectshelf3</a>:<blockquote> don&rsquo;t fucking discourage the use of medicine to fix mental health issues for fucks sake. fuck you mom </blockquote>18.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Subtlelights/">Subtlelights</a>:<blockquote> Emotionally invalidating your children Example: Child comes running up to mummy screaming with a minor cut. </blockquote><blockquote> Child: it hurts! Parent: no it doesn&#39;t, you&#39;re ok! Its just small, keep playing. Yes the cut is small and the kid is ok but that wasn&#39;t the point. The child was trying to tell you something important TO THEM and you told them it wasn&#39;t real. </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> This enforces the idea that you wont listen and eventually that child becomes the angry sullen teen who screams the same. </blockquote>19.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Highplowp/">Highplowp</a>:<blockquote> Therapist here- The most common issue I come across us enabling children. Some parents have the ability to actually make excuses or reasons for every challenging behavior and place blame on other people. They are more interested in being seen as friends with their kids than actually parenting and seeing that their children are learning/making mistakes. </blockquote><blockquote> It creates a type of child that is a lazy perfectionist, unwilling to be accountable or try anything outside of their comfort zone. I fear adulthood for these kids </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div>

19 child psychologists share the biggest ways parents ruin their kids.

It&#39;s the most wonderful time of the year to dig up childhood resentments! One thing almost every human being has in common is that we are all at least a little bit screwed up by something our parent(s) or guardians did (or didn&#39;t do). And no one knows more about the things our parents did wrong than therapists. Parenting mistakes are their bread-and-butter.Someone asked therapists of Reddit: &quot;what is the number one thing parents did to screw up their kid so they had to seek help in adulthood?&quot; These 19 therapists weigh in on the biggest mistakes parents make that are keeping them steadily employed:(Read with caution, cookies, and Kleenex on hand as these answers may be triggering if you have imperfect parents, which most of us do.)1.) From Chubuwee: Behavioral therapist here. Catch your kids being good! Parents are always telling kids what they did wrong. You have to balance it out by telling them what they are doing right. 2.) From Polyfuckery: Teaching them that failure is unacceptable/a sign of laziness or that they just didn&#39;t want it enough. It results in people who can&#39;t take no for an answer or stay it terrible situations because that&#39;s what they&#39;ve chosen so they have to make it work. 3.) From radleraz: Psychologist here, parents are frequently their child&#39;s first bully. #1 thing is probably being too distracted by addictions, grief, mental health issues to be emotionally present for their child. Too many adults walking around unaware of their worth because they were never shown or told that they matter. 4.) From PsychoPhilosopher: Actual therapist: Failing to admit it when you&#39;re wrong. Kids need to see adults fail and that be OK. Take your lumps with grace and they&#39;ll learn to do the same as they get older. Fight and deny and they&#39;ll do two things: 5.) From iammissx: Actual therapist here- not offering their children unconditional love.  When a child does something wrong, it&rsquo;s important to explain to them what they&rsquo;ve done wrong. It&rsquo;s a matter of saying &lsquo;I love you so I want to explain why this is an issue for me&rsquo;. Parents need to be open to a conversation with their children about why something is an issue, instead of storming off or shouting at them.  Children need to feel loved no matter what. That&rsquo;s honestly the most valuable thing I&rsquo;ve learnt as a therapist. 6.) From ammavel: Therapist here (LMFT). Probably the biggest and most common fuck up I see is parents shaming their child for having their own identity and personal interests separate from the parent(s).  Just support your kid and don&#39;t try to force them to be someone they&#39;re not. Don&#39;t call them weird or tell them their likes are stupid. Show interest in the things they like and let them teach you about those things.  Also, don&#39;t take it personally if your child is not an exact replica of you. Kids are human, and like all humans, despite all our similarities, there vast differences as well. You can learn to celebrate and value those differences, or EVERYONE can be miserable. 7.) From magicpurplecat: Made the child take care of the parents emotions. Its supposed to be the other way around. You control your sadness, anger, disappointment, don&#39;t make your kid anticipate your emotional response and work to regulate you. 8.) From robrtsmtn: Social Worker for 25 years. Inconsistencies: poor kiddo never knows how to react because they never get a consistent response. 9.) From p3rviepanda: Therapist here also. I see a number of teens and some of the things I have noticed in the population that really does a number on them are:  Parents failing to keep their promises and consistently repeating the promises and never fulfill them When your child does something wrong - don&#39;t sweep it under the carpet, be passive aggressive or stonewalling.   Not trusting them enough - always in helicopter mode Not validating their feelings - hey it is okay you are angry. Anger is an emotion. Your kids have the right to feel that. This also goes for not encouraging them to discuss their emotions  Not apologizing when you should. You are a human as much as your child irrespective of how old he or she is. When you are in the wrong, say sorry and talk about what you can do differently next time. You are setting a positive model for your child ( please remember )  Lack of communication - I cannot even emphasize enough how many teens I see or clients in general lack communication skills. 10.) From GetMeTheJohnsonFile: Therapist here, the most common thing I hear from clients is they never had proper modelling of emotions, and they now have the inability to identify or articulate their own emotions effectively.  The most common intervention I use with clients is to show them the Wheel of Emotion and encourage them to check in with it a few times a day--I like to do it when I refill my water bottle. 11.) From SoYouThinkTHATWasBad: Ignoring a child&#39;s emotional life by scolding them for having one or telling them to &quot;suck it up.&quot; It&#39;s remarkable the amount of clients I see that need to learn that having feelings is OK and not a cause for alarm or punishment. 12.) ​​​​​​From aMoustachioedMan: I used to work as a Counsellor. The thing that stood out the most to me was the number of people, usually women and the oldest female sibling, who were saddled with the left over parenting duties the actual parents couldn&rsquo;t handle.. whether it was babysitting all the time, being the parents&rsquo; shoulder to cry on, being responsible for all of the housework, dealing with the financial burden of raising a family....  This led to wonderful, smart young women who were so used to caring for everyone else, being the &ldquo;rock&rdquo; that their teenage years/childhoods were essentially non existent and their adult relationships suffered as a result. From memory it&rsquo;s called Parentification. And it is incredibly unfair young people find themselves in this type of situation. 13.) From mdadvocate: Constant invalidation. &quot;You shouldn&#39;t feel sad, you were being too hyper and that is why you are being punished.&quot;  Seems innocent enough even without context. &quot;Shouldn&#39;t feel sad&quot; is a problematic statement though. People feel what they feel no matter the context, so you need to talk to your child &quot;Why are you sad? Is it because you are being punished?  Timeout won&#39;t last forever, you only have 1 minute left. I still love you blah blah blah.&quot;... whatever works for your family dynamic, but children need to be able to appropriately label their feelings from a young age.  I am sad because I didn&#39;t get what I wanted. I can do better in the future and maybe get what I want. BOOM. I&#39;m out of a job. Hint, their are many parents who cannot do this, and they cannot teach their children to do it either. 14.) From piss-mud: My therapist has been making me realize my dad and stepmom don&rsquo;t validate my emotions and has been trying to teach them how to, it&rsquo;s crazy because I never really noticed it before really. If I&rsquo;d get upset about something my dad would always be like &ldquo;don&rsquo;t get upset&rdquo; or &ldquo;you don&rsquo;t need to cry &ldquo; stuff like that. 15.) From loritree: Teacher here. My best advice is only have kids if you want kids. If you treat your kids poorly, doesn&rsquo;t matter the reason, they learn poor treatment. Treat you kids like you love them. 16.) From Headshothero: There are a few things: &quot;Cry it out&quot; and other forms of emotional disconnection/neglect. - look into Dr. Bruce Perry&#39;s work on the impacts of neglect.  Controlling behaviours - it backfires. Have a chunky kid, do not try and control the food, look at the underlying purpose of over eating. Controlling the access to food will develop an unhealthy relationship with food.  Reduce the amount you praise your kids. It&#39;s not awful, but encouragement is far more effective. &quot;You worked hard on that, you must be proud&quot; vs &quot;you&#39;re amazing!&quot;.  Neglect in general - abuse sucks, but at a minimum, the victim can sometimes externalize their experience (although most often they will internalize regardless).. but neglect... that&#39;s damn near guaranteed internalized victimization.  Ongoing trauma. Seeing your mom get a black eye or getting hit by a parent one time is easier to dismiss than constant abuse/mistreatment. Even if the constant abuse is less &#39;harsh&#39; it is the normalization of the behaviour. 17.) From Insectshelf3: don&rsquo;t fucking discourage the use of medicine to fix mental health issues for fucks sake. fuck you mom 18.) From Subtlelights: Emotionally invalidating your children Example: Child comes running up to mummy screaming with a minor cut.  Child: it hurts! Parent: no it doesn&#39;t, you&#39;re ok! Its just small, keep playing. Yes the cut is small and the kid is ok but that wasn&#39;t the point. The child was trying to tell you something important TO THEM and you told them it wasn&#39;t real.  This enforces the idea that you wont listen and eventually that child becomes the angry sullen teen who screams the same. 19.) From Highplowp: Therapist here- The most common issue I come across us enabling children. Some parents have the ability to actually make excuses or reasons for every challenging behavior and place blame on other people. They are more interested in being seen as friends with their kids than actually parenting and seeing that their children are learning/making mistakes.  It creates a type of child that is a lazy perfectionist, unwilling to be accountable or try anything outside of their comfort zone. I fear adulthood for these kids 

It&#39;s the most wonderful time of the year to dig up childhood resentments! One thing almost every human being has in common is that we are all at least a little bit screwed up by something our parent(s) or guardians did (or didn&#39;t...