The Psychology Of Old-Fashioned Parenting: If Your Parents Taught You These 11 Skills, They Did A Great Job Raising You
RgStudio from Getty Images Signature | Canva Pro There is a certain psychology associated with old-fashioned parenting that seemed to have raised really great kids. Good parents want their kids grow up to be self-reliant and successful adults, and if your parents helped you do this, you should go thank them immediately.
It's not easy for parents to strike a balance between protecting their children in a healthy way and coddling them, which can teach them learned helplessness. If your parents kept you safe while also challenging you to grow and learn essential skills for a happy, healthy adulthood, then you definitely owe them a big "thank you" next time you see them.
If your parents taught you these 11 old-fashioned skills, they did a great job raising you:
1. To stand up for yourself and your boundaries
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Standing up for yourself isn’t always easy, but if you practice self-advocacy, your parents did a great job raising you. The National Alliance on Mental Illness describes self-advocacy as promoting and supporting your need, interests, and well-being. While the specific details of one person’s needs likely differs from another’s, the basis for self-advocacy remains the same.
On a personal level, self-advocacy requires being assertive and expressing your needs in a firm yet respectful way. It involves establishing a balance between your personal and professional life, which means setting workplace boundaries and being clear and communicative about what you need to take care of yourself. Another important part of self-advocacy is building up support networks of friends, family, and care providers.
The more you know yourself, the easier it is to advocate for yourself. If your parents gave you the skills you need to be self-reflective and stand up for yourself, they did a good job raising you.
2. How to use healthy coping mechanisms
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Having healthy coping mechanisms is another seemingly old-fashioned skill that kids today often have a hard time learning. If you’re able to manage emotional stress in ways that don't cause you harm, it means that your parents taught you effective coping skills.
Experiencing hard emotions is part of life, yet knowing how to handle those emotions when they pop up is an essential part of taking care of yourself.
According to The Gottman Institute, practicing mindfulness can help you deal with difficult emotions. In a mindful state, “You have space to reflect and thoughtfully respond, rather than react.”
Sitting with your feelings and accepting them is the first step of mindfulness, followed by identifying and labeling what you’re feeling. In the article, The Gottman Institute shares that accepting your emotions allows you to release them.
“You will soon come to realize that you are not your anger, fear, grief, or any other difficult emotion you are feeling… Opening yourself up to your emotions allows you to create a space of awareness, curiosity, and expansiveness that you can then apply to your relationship, as well as any other aspect of your life,” they conclude.
If you can accept your emotions, you’ll be able to recognize that you’re not defined by them, which allows you to move through them with grace.
3. Being able to work well with other people
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Another life skill that old-fashioned parents taught well is how to work well with others. It’s one thing to produce good work on your own, yet working collaboratively requires a different set of skills. Working as part of a team means you can express your thoughts clearly and integrate your ideas with other people’s.
According to an article published by the Wharton School of Business, collaboration is a process that paves your way toward success, and is one of the most important workplace skills. They posit that it will be this way for along time, too.
Learning alongside other people puts your perspective in context and allows everyone’s ideas to flourish. Successful collaboration means knowing when to speak up and when to listen, which shows you have intellectual humility and a high level of intelligence.
It’s not always easy to take a backseat and let others shine in a group project, but your ability to pitch in for the good of the team shows that your parents raised you to be collaborative, and that's a skill you should thank them for!
4. How to balance your time well
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Having time management skills is another sign your old-fashioned parents did a good job raising you. As professional organizer Diane Quintana points out, time management is related to how you coordinate tasks and activities over the course of a day to maximize your efforts. She shares the benefits of good time management, including less stress, higher productivity and better focus, and more free time in the long term.
“Remember to place your focus on things that support the way you want to live,” Quinata advises. “It can be tempting to place your focus on something that your peers think is important. Resist that temptation, unless it also aligns with what matters to you.”
She notes that dividing your time effectively means knowing what to pay attention to and what to let go of.
Knowing yourself is an essential part of time management, and if you can balance your time well, you should thank your parents immediately. They gave you the gift of a deep understanding of your strengths and weaknesses, you can organize your schedule in a way that benefits you most.
5. To communicate effectively with kindness and strength
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Having strong communication skills shows that your parents did a good job raising you. Every relationship we have is built on meaningful communication. In order to connect with other people, we have to express what we think and how we feel in a clear way, but even more than that, we have to be able to listen.
Professor and educator Yvonne K. Fulbright shares that “there may be nothing more valuable than working on your communication skills” to improve your relationships.
She notes that withholding criticism and owning your opinions are important parts of communicating, along with keeping an open mind and being able to receive feedback.
“There are three sides to any issue in a relationship: your perspective, your partner’s perspective, and the truth. You’re a player in what’s going on, and you need to be open and available to how your partner sees matters, including your role,” she concludes.
When you can communicate effectively, your relationships will thrive professionally, romantically and even within your family, and that is a gift you can thank your parents for immediately.
6. To prioritize self-care
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If your parents taught you how to prioritize and take care of yourself, they did a great job raising you back in the day. It’s easy to push our own needs aside, yet the more we ignore our needs, the more we risk burning out. Having a consistent self-care routine can ensure that you’re meeting your needs before it’s too late.
While self-care is often categorized as a frivolous activity, the true point of self-care is to live a balanced and fulfilling life.
Therapist Gloria Brame shares that “the optimal goal of self-care is to build your internal resources for dealing with life’s stresses.”
“Sleeping well, getting a restful nap, making sure to move your body throughout the day, practicing gratitude, and making time for meditation all help your body and mind feel more vigorous and alive, and help you weather problems that life may throw your way” Dr. Brame concludes.
Knowing your stressors and how to calm yourself down means paying attention to what makes you feel like your truest self, which shows your parents did a good job raising you and they deserve a big "thank you" for that.
7. How to make (and keep) great friends
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The ability to maintain strong friendships over the course of your life is an invaluable skill, one that means your parents did a good job teaching when we were growing up. Having strong social skills allows you to put others at ease, which enhances your ability to connect to each other.
Not everyone is born knowing how to be a great friend. In fact, most people have to learn the social skills that can help keep friendships alive. According to Joanna Schroeder, co-author of the book Talk To Your Boys, this is a skill many parents don't realize they need to teach (and keep teaching) their kids.
"This is especially true when you're raising boys," she insists. "We think boys will just 'bro out' and know how to be buddies and that they don't need to practice the deeper, emotional skills that are essential when building the types of friendships that are truly life-sustaining for most people."
With that in mind, if you're someone who knows how to build strong friendships, go thank your parents. That goes double if you're a man with these skills.
8. Adapting to new situations
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Being flexible and adapting to unknown environments shows that your parents did a good job raising you and you should go thank them immediately. This skill is rooted in resilience, which is the ability to face challenges and overcome setbacks. Being resilient allows people to learn from their mistakes and see failure as an opportunity to become their truest selves.
Being resilient means you can walk into a new situation and assess how to approach it. It means you have the confidence you need to stick with difficult tasks and the ability to bounce back when life throws curveballs your direction.
Research published in a psychiatric journal showed parents who showed support and taught coping skills effectively raised resilient children. One key finding that may surprise readers is that hope played a big role in what helped the children in this study grow into resilient adults.
So, if your parents raised to to always be able to find hope, even when things get tough, you should thank them. Not only is that a beautiful life skill, it also helps you adapt to new situations with ease.
9. How to practice mindfulness
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Adults who know how to stay present and practice mindfulness, both of which help mitigate stress and bring more balance into your life, were likely raised by parents who knew what they were doing. The non-stop demands of daily life can be overwhelming, but knowing how to be mindful lets you slow down and tune into your intentions.
Grief coach Pamela Aloia notes that part of practicing mindfulness means paying attention to the little things and working toward understanding why you feel the way you do. Aloia says mindfulness “doesn’t have to be a rigid, difficult practice.”
“All it takes is a few moments each day to be fully engaged in the present, fully aware of yourself physically, emotionally, and mentally in pure observation mode, without any judgment,” she concludes.
This theory is supported with data, too. As Harvard Health reports, "Practicing just 10 minutes of daily mindfulness can ease depression and anxiety and motivate people to adopt healthier lifestyle habits."
Part of mindfulness is letting ourselves just be, which is a difficult skill to cultivate. If you incorporate mindfulness into your life, your parents did a good job raising you.
10. Truly love and respect yourself
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Having a routine rooted in self-love shows your parents did a good job raising you, and that is a gift you can thank them for profusely. True self-love is the basis for self-acceptance, which opens the door to living our fullest lives and loving other people.
As social media specialist Michelle Horton shares that once we learn to love ourselves, we can dismantle our walls and let other people in. She emphasizes that self-love is a lifelong practice, noting that “Sometimes, the most loving thing you can do is to just accept yourself.”
“Remind yourself that you're okay,” she says. “You've always been okay.”
Often, we think that someone who love themselves fully will be egotistical in ways that make them hard to love. In reality, being accountable for your mistakes and how your behaviors affect other people is a skill that is best practiced from a place rooted in self-love.
In other words, when you truly love yourself, you're confident enough to know that admitting a mistake or apologizing isn't going to harm you in anyway. In fact, your apology and accountability will help you (and your relationships) grow.
11. Set long-term goals
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If you set long-term goals for yourself and work toward achieving them, you can probably thank your parents for that, as it is a gift. This is even more true if your goals aren’t based on external validation or proving your worth to anyone else. Rather, they’re about accessing the world around you and showing up to every situation as your most authentic self.
Setting goals can keep you focused on what you want to achieve in the long-run. Your goals might be career-oriented or they might focus on what you want in your personal life. Knowing what you want means spending time with yourself and trying out different things to see what fits you best.
Allowing your goals to change as you change shows that you have a flexible mindset. Remaining committed to yourself, above all else, shows you prioritize your well-being. It shows that you nourish every part of yourself, which is a sign your parents did a good job raising you.
Alexandra Blogier, MFA, is a staff writer who covers psychology, social issues, relationships, self-help topics, and human interest stories.
