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10 toxic things parents do that make their children less functional in adulthood
Invalidating your kid’s feelings, being overprotective, and expecting perfection can stunt and damage their emotional growth.
By Amy Morin
Mary Trump’s new book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” has some people wondering how family dysfunction affects kids. What kind of adults do they become when they’ve been exposed to toxic parenting behaviors?
Most people clearly recognize that serious maltreatment, like abuse or neglect, can have a lasting impact on children. But what about toxic parenting strategies that don’t rise to an extreme level of abuse? Or what about destructive parenting behaviors that might be less obvious?
As a therapist, I see some families who appear to function okay to the outside world yet are riddled with dysfunctional family dynamics behind closed doors. And just because these don’t constitute abuse, or because they aren’t visible to anyone outside the family, doesn’t mean they won’t prevent kids from becoming healthy adults.
Here are 10 toxic parenting behaviors that can make children less functional in adulthood:
