Kids Raised By Highly Anxious Parents Usually Carry 6 Specific Habits Into Adulthood
New Africa | Shutterstock A parent's personality traits have a huge impact on their kids, and that's especially true when it comes to anxiety. Anxious parents raise anxious kids who become anxious adults.
Kids reflect the behavior they see growing up, and if the default is nervous and stressed out, they'll turn to that emotion instead of learning to mitigate their anxiety. They’ll develop coping mechanisms for their uneasy emotions that become habits that follow them as they grow up.
Habits kids develop when raised by anxious parents that follow them into adulthood:
1. They overthink everything
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Kids with anxious parents don’t learn emotional stability. They don’t have an example to teach them. Their parents are too anxious to show them what being calm and stable looks like.
They’ll think anxiety is the norm and won’t try to manage it. It'll cause them to constantly stress over every decision or difficult experience. Even as adults, they’ll keep up their habit of overthinking.
They’ll be anxious about how they acted throughout the day and replay their memories to analyze them. They’re trying to confirm their belief that there’s something to be concerned about. They probably just assume there's something they did wrong, and they just need to figure out what it was.
2. They feel safer staying home
Kids with stressed-out parents struggle to make friends. They struggle in social situations and won't want to talk to other people. They won’t be able to push through their social anxiety to form good friendships.
Friendships in childhood are really important because they teach kids about how to act in relationships. They’ll learn how to handle conflict when issues arise and how to accommodate others. It also shows kids that they can be comfortable and trust someone outside of their family. Lonely and anxious kids won’t learn these lessons, and it hurts them as they get older.
As adults, they’ll end up staying home because they don’t want to endure the anxiety of social situations.
3. They live by their routines
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Kids who don't know how to handle excessive anxiety cling to their routines to give themselves a sense of security. People with a lot of anxiety tend to be a little inflexible because the unexpected can make them spiral.
They don’t want to switch things up because they’re afraid something could go wrong. With their routine, they have more security that things will work out. They’re used to it, and they’ve already seen how well their routine works.
When an anxious person finds a routine that works for them, they’ll struggle to let go of sticking to it strictly. If their friends invite them out, but they already reserved that day to prep their food for the week, they’re not going to go. They’ll be too worried about their meals for the rest of the week.
4. They strive to be perfect
Kids raised by anxious parents often become perfectionists. Their parents probably stressed out about every little thing they did when they were younger. Kids often don’t really know how to behave, and that stresses anxious parents out a lot.
They try to control their kids' behavior to make sure no issues arise. They’ll try to make their kids perfect. They think that if everything their kid does is just right, they'll be more likely to succeed when they’re older.
It makes their kids overanalyze every little detail well into adulthood. It will cause them a lot more stress, though, because life isn’t perfect. They’ll inevitably run into failure, just like everyone does, but they won’t be able to handle it.
5. They escape into hobbies like video games
Video games are a great way for people to unwind after a long day. It takes their minds off the other things happening in their lives. For a lot of gamers, it makes their worries fade into the background while they’re caught up in what they're playing.
Video games also help manage stress, which is a major reason why kids raised with anxious parents love them. It’s an outlet for them to work through the anxiety they felt throughout the day and the stress their parents put on them. Video games become a tool for these kids that they still use later in life.
6. They are insecure
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Anxiety causes people to feel insecure about themselves. Some people experience it now and then, but for kids raised by anxious parents, that self-doubt will be present all the time.
Anxiety makes people worry about future issues, causing them to only think about everything that could go wrong. They’ll worry about their own behavior, which will make them think really critically about how they act. Their anxiety will probably make them think there is something wrong.
When someone searches for an issue, they’re probably going to find one. Kids who grew up being criticized by their parents and feeling anxious will be able to pick out something they’re doing wrong, which will make them more insecure overall.
Lily Bell is a college student studying English and Publications who covers relationships, mental health, and personal narratives surrounding the human experience.
