Affects of parenting

Below is an extract from a book, 'Million Dollar Habits' by Brian Tracy

Starting early in childhood, as the result of the things your parents do and say, you begin to learn the two basic negative habit patterns that then become the most destructive influences in your life as an adult.

The first negative habit pattern that you learn is called the inhibitive negative habit pattern. This is what soon becomes the fear of failure, risk and loss. As a child, your natural urge is to explore your environment. You eagerly reach out to touch, taste, feel and experiment with everything around you. But often your parents react and even over react to this behaviour by discouraging you as much as possible. They say, “No! Get away from that! Don’t touch that! Leave that alone!” Many parents reinforce their words and threats with spankings and punishment.

Children need love like roses need rain. Love is as important to the developing child as is food. Any interruption of the flow of unconditional love to the child causes the child to feel nervous and frightened. Psychologists say that virtually all adult problems are rooted in the phenomena of “love withheld” in early childhood.

When your parents become angry with you as the result of your natural desire and drive to explore your world and your environment, you have no way of understanding that this is because of their fear for your safety. Instead, as a child, you merely react and respond with the idea that, “Every time I try or touch or taste something new or different, my mother or father gets angry at me. It must be because I am incapable and incompetent. It must be because I am no good. It must be because I can’t do it.”

Fear of Trying Anything New

This feeling of “I can’t” begins the development of the fear of failure. If you are discouraged or punished too often as a child, very early in life you will become fearful of trying new things. This fear will then carry over into later childhood, adolescence and adult life. Thereafter, whenever you think of doing something new or different, something that entails risk or uncertainty, your first reaction will be “I can’t!” As soon as you say the words “I can’t” to yourself, you will begin immediately to think of all the reasons why such a thing is not possible for you.

You will think and talk in terms of failure, rather than success. You will think of the uncertainties and all the possible risks of loss that may occur. Before you even try something new, you will talk yourself out of it.

The kindest words that a parent can tell his or her child, in addition to the words “I love you,” are the words “You can do anything that you set your mind to.” It is amazing how many people’s lives have been dramatically affected by the influence of a single person, a parent, relative or friend, who simply told them, over and over again, “You can do it.”

The second fear that we learn early in life, which then affects us for the rest of our lives, is the fear of rejection, or criticism. We are all sensitive to the opinions of others, especially to the opinions and reactions of our parents when we are growing up. Parents often take advantage of this need to please to control and manipulate their children. The way they do it is by giving or withholding approval and support, based on the behaviour of the child at the moment.

When the child does or says something that the parents don’t like, they immediately become rejecting and critical of the child. Since the approval and support of the parent is like a psychological lifeline to the emotional health of the child, the child is immediately affected and pulls back from the behaviour in order to regain the love and approval of the parents.

Parents very soon slip into the habit of manipulating the child with “carrot and stick” treatment. They alternate with approval and disapproval, with compliments and criticism, to control and manipulate the child’s behaviour.

As a child, you are too young to understand what is going on. You know only one thing. The love and approval of your parents is indispensable to your well-being. It is the key to your emotional health. You therefore learn that, “If you want to get along, you go along.” At an early age, you begin to conform your behaviours to earn the approval, and avoid the disapproval, of your parents.

The Approval of Others

As you grow older, you become increasingly sensitive to the approval or disapproval of others, starting with members of your family, and then your friends and associates. Teenagers especially become extremely sensitive to whether or not they are liked or disliked by their peers. Instead of being fearless and spontaneous, completely open, honest and expressive, they begin to shape their behaviours and conform to whatever they feel their peers will approve of at the moment.

The child does not know why the parent is behaving this way. The child simply concludes that, “Every time I do something that Mommy or Daddy disapproves of, they stop loving me. Therefore, whatever it is, I have to do what makes them happy. I have to do what pleases them. I have to do what they want if I want to be safe.”

This feeling generates what is called the “compulsive negative habit pattern,” which is characterized by the words “I have to!” As an adult, the child who was subjected to disapproval and destructive criticism becomes hypersensitive to the attitudes and opinions of others. They are continually saying, “I have to do this” or “I have to do that.” When the fear of rejection becomes extreme, the individual becomes so hypersensitive to the opinions of others that he or she cannot make a decision until he or she is absolutely convinced that everyone in the world around them will approve and support the decision.

The worst situation of all, which is quite common in most people, is the combined feeling of, “I have to” but “I can’t.” The individual feels that he has to do something in order to win the approval of an important person in his life, but simultaneously, he is afraid of trying anything new or different, and becomes extremely sensitive to the reactions and comments of anyone around him.

The root cause of negative habit patterns can almost always be traced back to “destructive criticism” in early childhood. Often, destructive criticism is accompanied by physical punishment. In either or both cases, the child very quickly loses his or her natural spontaneity and becomes fearful and hypersensitive to others.

All the other fears that hold people back - the fears of loss, of poverty, of embarrassment, of ridicule, of ill health, of the loss of love of someone, of public speaking, of taking a chance, of starting or trying something new or different – are all rooted in the fears of failure and rejection that begin in early childhood.