Ep 38: Nine Toxic Parenting Styles to Avoid

If you're a parent looking for sound, solid advice on how to raise your child in an ever-increasing dangerous world, then this podcast is for you. So here's your host, Richard Ramos.

All parents make the occasional mistake while learning how to raise their kids. And in most cases, that's nothing to be ashamed of. We can't get it right all the time, but there are a few toxic parenting traits that need to be addressed immediately for the health and happiness of your family. Toxic parenting isn't just letting your kid have too much screen time after a tiring day, using a swear word or two in front of your kids, Or microwaving chicken nuggets for dinner. No, toxic parenting is a repeated pattern of behavior that is hurtful and potentially damaging for kids. Toxic parenting can make children feel unsafe, ashamed, anxious, and can lead to lasting psychological trauma. Hey everybody, welcome to the Parent Whisperer Podcast, and I'm Richard Ramos, your host. Today, what I want to do is go over this article that I found online. Well, actually, I subscribe to parents.com, which is an online magazine that I would recommend to you if you don't already subscribe to it. They often give good articles and helpful hints. And today, I want to talk about the nine toxic parenting habits that are hurting your children's. Development according to this particular author. So I want to go through them with you. These are tips given by Cynthia Edwards Haver. I think that's how you pronounce her name. She's a licensed psychologist. So the first one she says is not understanding your child has their own path. As parents, we have a natural drive to help our kids make good decisions and achieve success in life. But taking this to an extreme can be toxic. That's what she says, and I would agree with her. A lot of times what this has to do is when we are, we kind of have that, as Dr. Friedman refers to it, the herd mentality, or the togetherness mentality. And it's also kind of like a cult Mentality where we just want our children to think like us, talk like us, be like us in every aspect of their life. And as unrealistic as that might seem, a lot of times that's what parents get caught up in. And many times it's because that's the way they were raised, in a very controlling atmosphere, environment at home. And so that is not something that we want to practice. As the doctor, the psychologist is saying, it's unhealthy. One quote here is, quote, the biggest toxic trait that I see loving parents do by mistake is not understanding that their child has their own path and purpose in life, unquote. That's according to Don Friedman, a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor. So now, on the other hand, you know, sometimes our kids do follow our path. They do follow our footsteps and our footprints. And they become, or they follow us, and they become leaders. They become teachers. They become coaches. They become doctors and whatever profession that we may be in, carpentry and other things like that. So nothing wrong with that. But they may express those things in their own style. And so, you know, that's a healthy thing. But this is talking more about control and parents wanting to kind of be on top of the decisions that their children are making and not allowing them to make their own decisions and try different experiences, so to speak. And that is what she's talking about here. Secondly, the second one she talks about is making children choose sides between parents. That is something that usually happens in divorce, and it's unfortunate that parents don't have the emotional maturity to understand that it's very unhealthy for a child to force them or make them or give them a guilt trip over not choosing them to be their favorite parent. Or if there's been a divorce or separation, Giving, making them feel guilty for not wanting to live with them. Things like that. I think we all know and understand that this is just it is very toxic to especially if you're still married to try to manipulate your children to choose sides. It's kind of like when people ask you know parents do you have a favorite child? You know well. I don't think I don't, and that's not a good. I don't think that's a good practice either. But some parents do in fact have a favorite child, and I think most of the time if you talk to the kids about that, the other kids might feel slighted or jealous or you know angry about it. So that's not a good thing. But in this case, to me, it's it's even a little more toxic when you're wanting your children to choose. You know which one of us do you like better? I think again we can agree that's not a good thing to do. Number 3, denying a child's reality. She says, quote, when parents refuse to validate how a child feels or how they perceive a certain situation in your household, especially when it involves a disagreement between parent and child, can cause your kid to question their own reality, unquote. Or close quote. So, you know, again, that is a good principle to follow, not to gaslight, you know, our kids that, no, that's not what you see. Don't believe your eyes. You know, here's what you're seeing. Here's the way it really is. You know, that is not a good thing to do. But I will say, on the other hand, and this is a larger subject that maybe I'll address in another episode, but this can get into the whole gender identity thing. This whole ideology that's being pushed on our kids about, you know, assigned at birth gender, those kind of things. This transgender movement and all of those kinds of things where a child is saying, you know, I'm not a boy, I'm a girl. I'm not a girl, I'm a boy. So that also needs to be handled delicately. I'm not saying that we should, you know, come down on our child if that's happening with them, that whole gender thing, but to handle it with care and concern and understanding and patience. But to deny it outright, you know, I don't think that's healthy either, because that could just cause a lot of destabilization and confusion, because a child may actually feel that way. But I'm just bringing that to say, I think there's a healthy balance even in that reality. where kids are facing, you know, a gender dysphoria situation. So we don't want to completely deny it, but not necessarily completely agree with it and encourage it because a child is so young to be making those kinds of decisions. So that, I just want to bring that as a healthy balance so that those parents that you might be dealing with that. There's a lot of material on that. Again, I just mentioned it here. Maybe I'll go into it. in more detail later. But so denying a child's reality, that's another thing that she says is not a good practice. Another one, being overly controlling. You know, the old helicopter parenting or over-strict parenting or the authoritarian type of parenting. That is not going to help our children develop in their full potential. But in fact, sometimes you know that is what some parents are doing. And in Parents on a Mission, what we advocate is authoritative parenting, which is a healthy balance between being too authoritarian and too permissive. We don't want to be a dictator, and we don't want to be the parent that says anything goes—the permissive parent. The authoritative parent balances nurturing and care and love and affection, but also there's some boundaries and discipline. And character building and confronting and accountability and those kinds of things in a loving way that's not overly controlling. Because kids are going to make mistakes and we have to allow them to learn from the mistakes they make. So another practice is not being overly controlling. We don't want to do that. Another, what she calls being a toxic parent, is leveraging guilt. Quote, leveraging guilt is a practice that many toxic parents engage in. Parents might think they are merely guiding their children, but they are actually manipulating them into making what they think is the right choice without actually teaching them any valuable life Skills. So I call this, you know, the guilt trip. Putting kids on a guilt trip because they're not agreeing with everything, or we don't want them to allow them to make their own decisions. You know, this is probably for a little older kids that are hitting those preteen and teen years where we may not be in alignment or agreement with the decision they're making or the things they want to do or try. But we allow them to do it anyway because we just want to help them develop and learn about decision-making and risk-taking and maybe even failure, but that through that failure they can learn from it. They can be built up from it. They can grow stronger from it. And so we don't want to put a guilt trip on our children every time they may be wanting to do something or try something that we don't agree with. So the next one she talks about in this article is not managing your own emotions. As parents, it's normal, she says, to experience intense emotions. Parenting is stressful and exhausting, after all. But when you aren't effectively able to manage them, your emotional outbursts can have a strong impact On your children's well-being. So what we teach in this one is personal growth and emotional maturity. We emphasize in Parents on a Mission how important it is to recognize that we must not stop growing. Personal growth and emotional maturity is a lifelong journey. Nobody gets it right all the time, but it's something that we are focused on and practicing all the time. Building up our emotional maturity and not just kind of taking for granted that we have it all together. And then we have these outbursts. Maybe we had a hard day at work, or maybe we're struggling in our marriage, or some circumstance or situation of pressure we're dealing with. And then we burst out, you know, we yell at our kids and kind of take it out on them. Obviously, we don't want to do that. And so Not managing our own emotions can be something that hinders our relationship with our children, and our children do need to experience emotional consistency that allows them to feel safe at home. Next, commenting on their body or eating habits. Quote, commenting on your child's body type Or weight is never a good idea. Even if you are saying something to— you think is complimentary, putting too much focus on your kids make them feel pressured to look a certain way. So that is something that often, a lot of times, happens with young women. Their mother or father is commenting on the way they look. The way they eat, what they're eating, and things like that. I'm not saying it doesn't happen with boys, but for some reason, it's kind of more acceptable that boys are you know eating a lot, you know even gaining some weight. Of course, not overly excessive weight, but it just seems like there's a more conscious effort to want young ladies to look a certain way, have a certain body image, comparing them to certain you know neighbors or even siblings or somebody on TV or something like that. It's just. It's not a good idea to pressure our children in the way that they look. Quote here in this article here says, as an eating disorder therapist, one thing I know can be an issue is constantly commenting on a child's body or the way they eat, even if it's meant to be positive, shares Rachel Goldberg, a therapist and founder of Rachel Goldberg Therapy. She recommends again saying things like, "Oh, you look really good in that outfit today," or "That doesn't really suit your body." You also shouldn't make negative or judgmental comments about the amount they eat. So that's what she suggests, and it's just warning us as parents to be careful about the comments that we are making about our children's. Body and eating habits. Another, lack of boundaries. In the article, she suggests it's important to have clear, healthy boundaries. And the reason for that is it really— boundaries are an act of love. If our children can understand that the reason we're preventing them from doing this or going here or there, it's because we love them, And we want to protect them from some of the temptations and/or dangers that are out there. And trying to explain that when children get a little bit older, because, you know, they want to know why. Why can't I go here? Why can't I do that? Or he does that, she does that, they do that. But if we can help them understand that these are healthy boundaries because we love you, we want to help you to not have to experience things that we experience, etc., etc. And so examples of a lack of boundaries are things like oversharing about your personal life and struggles at inappropriate times, or being, you know, just overly involved in your child's life, invading their privacy, so to speak. We have to set those healthy boundaries. In other words, if we're having a problem in our marriage, that's not something that we should be dumping on our children as a boundary for them. They don't need to know that or be the counselor or be the listener to the problems that we're having. Things like that. So lack of boundaries is not a good practice. We need to have healthy boundaries with our children. And I agree with that. The last one here is making comments about how your children make people feel. Let me just read the comments that she makes here. Another example of toxic parenting is when parents make kids feel judged or ashamed for how their behavior affects other adults. This might be saying things like, every time you're in the room, you bring the energy down, or, you always make people around you feel anxious. So again, suggesting that's not a good comment to make for your kids. It's just giving them more pressure, and they can internalize this idea that their presence is a burden and unwelcomed. And certainly we don't want our children to feel that way. So making comments about how your children make people feel, we have to— that's something we should be aware of and be careful about how we have that discussion. So what do you do about— how do you eradicate these toxic things in our parenting style? Well, there are a lot of ways to do it, and I just want to suggest to you that one of them is by listening to this podcast, the Parent Whisperer Podcast. And that's the reason that I have this podcast, is to provide a resource to you, to parents and stepparents of blended families, that you can come here, you can look at the different topics I've addressed over the time that I've been doing this podcast, I've addressed many issues. A lot of them will help you deal with these and other kinds of things in your parent-child relationship. So I hope that today's episode has given you some more thought about different things about not being a toxic parent or having a toxic parenting style. And for more resources, I always suggest you can go to my website, richardr ramos.com and you'll find other resources. My books are there as well. And I hope that as you visit my website, you can find the things that will be helpful to you in your daily parent-child relationship. You've been listening to the Parent Whisperer Podcast. I'm Richard Ramos. Thank you for your time. Subscribe. Leave a review. If you have questions, I would love to hear from you how you're receiving the things I've been teaching. You can send me an email @pom@richardrramos.com. I would love to hear from you. And always remember that Parents on a Mission is not for bad parents. It's for good parents who want to get better. See you next time.

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