|
Parenting Gone
Wrong
Parenting goes wrong for many reasons. Your adult
teachers may have been neglectful, inexperienced,
inadequate or impaired with substance abuse or
mental illness. Sometimes divorce or loss of loved
ones leaves a parent grieving and unable to
adequately nurture a child. Perhaps your parents
learned bad lessons from your grandparents if they
were addicted or abusive. If a parent is selfish,
self-centered, abusive, critical or too demanding,
the child often believes that the parent is right,
even though that kind of parenting is very wrong.
You may have difficulty feeling comfortable in
close relationships as an adult because you
experienced trauma or betrayal by people you cared
about and trusted when you were a child. If you
avoid your family or feel an aversion to being just
like your parents, you can do something about it.
Free yourself by forgiving them and start today to
be thankful if only the gift of life.
Although you cannot change
your past, you do have the power to make big
changes to have a better future. You can stop
personal patterns of substance abuse, neglect or
insensitivity when it comes to you, your partner or
your children. Often we react habitually like our
parents or abusers unless we become aware and
choose to behave differently. We can subconsciously
carry all the issues we had with our parents or
siblings into our new love relationships, heavily
burdening our partners and ourselves. However,
everyone can improve his or her relationship
interaction by taking remedial action to learn how
to be more open and skilled in love and parenting
relationships.If you had disappointing parents,
look beyond just one generation.
Feel the Force. You are
more than just an individual; you have history!
Your DNA goes back to the first people on earth.
You have a connection with all the people who have
ever lived and strived from the beginning of human
history. You can add self-esteem by the ton to
whatever you have accomplished in your own life if
you think of yourself as a link in a wonderful
chain. Remember the people who have died to win us
our freedom from prejudice, chauvinism, religious
intolerance, serfdom, slavery and cruelty— the
list goes on back through history. You come from a
long line of winners who made good enough decisions
to survive and reproduce. Pretend the heroes and
heroines of yesterday are watching. A good decision
gene is in you, inherited from a thousand
generations.
If necessary, you can
unlearn the negative lessons from childhood. You
can reeducate yourself with new better ways to
interact or discover new teachers that you want to
emulate. Let go of old grudges and unforgiving
stances and just start your new life today. You
always have the option of selecting new wonderful
people to become your “family.” Then you
can throw away the old baggage. Begin a happy new
way of living and loving that is your own chosen
style, not an imposed or borrowed one. Just trying
to ignore the well-worn lessons from your childhood
is not effective. You may need a great therapist to
help you make any big changes. It is a good idea to
learn to protect your future spouse and children
from unconscious copying of poor relationship
skills and inadequate parenting lessons. Recognize
any problem areas that were passed on to you and
let your partner know an honest account of
memories, rough times or hurts in your childhood.
Because your past so often effects your current
relationships, you and your partner will benefit
from working together to protect your relationship
and to reclaim your present from a negative
past.
©2009, Molly
Barrow
* * *
Dr. Molly
Barrow holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and is
the author of the new book, Matchlines:
A revolutionary New Way of looking at relationships
and making the right choices in
love. She is an
authority on relationship and psychological topics,
a member of the American Psychological Association
and a licensed mental health counselor. Dr. Molly
has appeared as an expert on NBC, PBS, KTLA, and in
O Magazine, Psychology Today, Newsday, MSN.com,
Match.com, Women's Health and Women's World. Please
visit: www.askdrmolly.com
or Take the new relationship compatibility test,
Match Lines Systems for Successful Relationships
for Singles, Couples and Business at
www.DrMollyBarrow.com.
Molly has a radio program, Your Relationship
Answers at www.blogtalkradio.com/drmollybarrow
Contact
Us |
Disclaimer
| Privacy
Statement
Menstuff®
Directory
Menstuff® is a registered trademark of Gordon
Clay
©1996-2023, Gordon Clay
|
