How Did Your Upbringing Shape Your Parenting?
The love a parent has for their child is so indescribable and unquantifiable. Yet, that love is only one side of the coin that would determine what kind of parent anyone would be. The other part depends on your childhood.
Becoming a parent is something a lot of us look forward to. That moment when we look into the eyes of our child can help us start over on a clean slate. As such, we begin to make plans for the future and become more prudent.
According to Psychology Today (1), research shows that a predictor of the type of parents we will be depend on how well we’ve handled our past experiences. Many parents don’t realize how much of their childhood determines their parenting style; yet, it does.
Here are some ways our upbringing shapes our parenting.
Imitating
There’s an inclination within us that makes us replicate the kind of treatment we got from our parents on our children. For instance, when our kids do something undesirable and we shout, “Now look what you’ve done!”. Up until that moment, this expression is something we’ve never used, but it’s an expression that we frequently heard as a child growing up. This can occur in many different instances, even when it comes to physical punishment. We can hurt our kids as a result of this unforeseen force that dictates our behavior. As such, it’s necessary to evaluate our childhood experiences and avoid replicating the unfavorable treatments we got from our parents.
Overreacting
Many of us had very tough childhood experiences. The destructive environment in which we grew caused us to develop rebellious attitudes against our parent’s treatments. With time, we tend to go overboard with these acts of rebellion even though they started with good intentions. For instance, say your parents were overbearing when you were growing up. To avoid imitating such behavior with your child, you can become distant, and your child might feel neglected. In this situation, to avoid parenting your child as you were, you choose a rather extreme approach. The better alternative to this is to focus on qualities that matter.
Projecting
Psychology Today (2) defines psychological projection as the process of displacing one’s feelings onto a different person, animal, or object. It’s a defense mechanism we use to avoid dealing with reality. As parents, we are susceptible to projecting our childhood feelings on our children. Projection makes us see our children as an extension of ourselves, causing us to place on their shoulders expectations that can put them under pressure. As we parent our childhood selves in this case, instead of providing for the actual needs of our child, we meet our imaginary needs. This situation makes us overcompensate for our parent’s mistakes.
Being Defended
If we grew up in a difficult environment, we tend to develop certain psychological defenses that help us adapt to our tough childhood environment. We might not know this, but most of these psychological defenses affect our adult and parent lives. For instance, growing up in an environment where we were constantly rejected and frightened would have made us closed-up and independent of human interaction. As a child, this attitude helped us get through difficult situations. But as adults, it hampers our relationships. We can find it challenging to let people in or open up to people, and this can also extend to our children. Identifying these traits, understanding them, and designing ways to handle it is part of what makes us adults, and most importantly, good parents.
Anger Management
Every once in a while, our kids will get us triggered and frustrated. Most times, present situations that get us triggered reflect past experiences that left us bitter, even if we don’t know it. As a result, we can behave in either parental or childish manners. An example of this is when a child misbehaves, we may react by blowing up as our parents did or get terrified as we felt in childhood because of our parent’s punishment. We would do well if we evaluate our reactions to getting triggered by our kids to ensure we better handle such situations.
Growing up, many of us would have vowed to treat our kids better than our parents treated us. But when the time comes, it turns out we do the exact thing, rather unconsciously. Since our childhood holds much sway on our parenting, it’s important to develop a better understanding of how we can parent our kids better.
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