Weak Parents Who Raise Aggressive & Controlling Kids Usually Have These 11 Sad Habits
Pathdoc | Shutterstock Cultivating healthy parent-child relationships into adulthood can be complicated for everyone involved, especially as your kids grow into adults. However, weak parents who've raised aggressive and controlling kids often pay the price, as these bad habits come back in the form of their own children's traits.
If a teenager or adult child is aggressive or ill-tempered, it's likely a reflection of their parents' behavior, not just when their children were small, but also now. In order to help their child break these sad habits, weak parents need to face the truth of how they contributed to creating that situation. Then, parent and child can heal and learn to trust one another.
Weak parents who raise aggressive & controlling kids usually have these 11 sad habits
1. They isolate themselves
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It's in human nature to seek connection and to yearn for healthy, fulfilling, and secure relationships. Weak parents who raise aggressive or controlling kids often didn't meet their kids' need for this connection, even if they didn't intend for that to happen.
According to a study from the European Journal of Ageing, parents who have non-supportive or selfish adult children experience higher rates of loneliness than their peers with healthier family dynamics. Especially if they're made to feel guilty or shamed by their kids, the people-pleasing tendencies continue, sparking a toxic cycle of validation-seeking behavior and mistrust.
Sadly, this cycle of isolation then appears to continue, with the adult child acting as the one who rejects their parents' need for connection.
2. They struggle with setting boundaries
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While experiences from childhood and general family dynamics may seem random, family therapist Merle Yost writes, "As a therapist for more than thirty years, I've seen it proven time and again that how we operate in the world has everything to do with our childhoods and our relationship with our parents and siblings."
While empathetic responses and leading with compassion are important, the most essential part of mastering healthy boundaries is knowing yourself. What do you need? What makes you uncomfortable? What is entirely in your power and what can you never control? When do you feel most like yourself?
If a parent doesn't know these things, they appear weak. By asking yourself these questions, you can clearly define what boundaries look like for you. Not to control other people's behavior, but to set expectations for what you'll tolerate in your space.
3. They rely on passive aggressive behavior
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Many people who struggle to advocate for themselves fear conflict or the discomfort of openly speaking about what they need, whether it's an internal struggle or they're anxious about another person's response. Weak parents who've raised aggressive and controlling kids relied on this type of communication, and now their adult kids have this habit, too.
However, passive-aggressive behavior only builds resentment in relationships, especially if one party isn't adamant about setting healthy boundaries that enforce a clear separation of space and energy. Passive behavior, according to a study from the International Journal of Women's Dermatology, is almost always perceived to be "weak" or ineffective by others, reinforcing an adult child's willingness and ability to walk all over their parents.
4. They people-please
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While childhood trauma is often discussed from the perspective of an adult child, many parents struggle with their own unresolved childhood trauma. This informs the way they parent their kids into adulthood. Too often, weak parents raised their kids to be aggressive or controlling because they didn't address their reactive responses.
When they're being taken advantage of, whether financially or emotionally, by their kids, it's often because they've fallen into the trap of people-pleasing behavior.
Coping with their own trauma by trying to protect themselves from conflict, these parents tend to go out of their way to protect the happiness and comfort of their adult children, even at their own expense.
This toxic cycle of not having their needs met, being walked all over by their adult kids, and failing to set appropriate boundaries only drives resentment in both the adult kids and parents.
5. They allow insecurities to get the best of them
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While many emotional conflicts and toxic behaviors stem from insecurity, parents who've raised aggressive and controlling kids often have a complex and complicated relationship with their self-esteem. They wanted their kids to like them, so they were way too permissive, which has been shown to be detrimental to kids.
As a result, a few sad habits develop between the parents and their kids.
Even if they can acknowledge that their adult child's behavior is harmful to their emotional and physical well-being, like relationship coach Lisa Lieberman-Wang argues, these parents still struggle with self-esteem issues, because they can't make decisions or set boundaries that act in their best interest. This isn't a good outcome for the parent or their adult child.
6. They don't prioritize self-compassion
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While self-esteem and self-compassion are inherently intertwined, parents who are too weak with their adult kids usually have issues showing themselves general kindness, grace, and empathy as they navigate their daily life. According to research from the Social and Personality Psychology Compass, this ability to practice self-compassion on a daily basis is actually more influential on our mental health than self-esteem.
With people-pleasing tendencies, these parents are more concerned with external validation and recognition than self-compassion, relying on other people (here, specifically their kids) to validate their emotions and empathize with their difficult feelings.
In many cases, they're not able to reaffirm their parents, and it restarts the constant cycle of pursuing and being disappointed by every interaction. This makes them seam weak, allowing them to be taken advantage of by their adult kids.
7. They seek external validation
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Children are hard-wired, according to experts, to want their parents' validation, but it's not necessarily healthy when it's the other way around. Parents should be able to feel confident and strong even when their young children are angry at them. No, it's not fun, but it's part of being a parent and creating limits and stability.
Teens, in particular, can be a challenge. According to the Child Mind Institute, "Teenage anger is normal — they experience more intense emotions and have less ability to control them than adults do." Unfortunately, parents often feel weak at this stage and start giving in so their kids will like them.
Weak parents who raise aggressive and controlling kids, on the other hand, often seek validation from their children, and feel desperate or miserable if they don't get it. Of course, we all want for our kids to like us, especially when they're adults, but needing that level of validation from your kids is likely to create an imbalance.
When there's not a mutual balance of gratitude and validation between parents and their adult children, resentment grows underneath the surface, resentment and discomfort can grow between them. This isn't healthy for anyone.
8. They avoid dealing with their own childhood trauma
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Weak parents who raise aggressive or controlling kids often have a history of unaddressed childhood trauma.
Older people are at a high risk for PTSD symptoms as they age, often induced by unresolved childhood trauma that they didn't have the resources or knowledge to heal from earlier in their lives. For men, especially, therapy and treatment for trauma was often discouraged, so they spent decades trying to push away experiences that don't simply go away on their own.
This is often especially noticeable when in contrast to their adult children who have hyper-analyzed their childhoods or been privy to more helpful therapy tools and information about mental health. These parents tend to push their own struggles and emotions to the side in response to shame about their own parenting styles and experiences.
For adults who already struggle with anxiety or depression, developing emotional intelligence and effective communication styles in adulthood can be difficult, further isolating them from a healthy relationship with their children and the ability to advocate for their own personal boundaries.
9. They're overly generous and pretend to be OK with it
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Parents who were weak and now struggle with aggressive and controlling kids often had weak boundaries and were overly generous to the point of excess. Yes, generosity can become a subtle and unsuspecting trait contributing to a toxic dynamic.
When they're willing to make excuses for the children they love, and help out whenever possible, they can unknowingly craft a dynamic where their own needs are constantly unmet. They may also be stunting their adult children's growth by refusing to let them experience consequences of their choices.
Generosity isn't an inherently bad trait; in fact, it's present in many healthy relationships. But knowing when to step back, prioritize yourself, and create boundaries is important, especially for kind-hearted and compassionate people.
10. They set low standards for their kids
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These days, there are lots of parents who are perfectionistic and impossible to please. In response, some parents set very low expectations, thinking they're being helpful. Instead, they look like weak parents and often raise aggressive or controlling kids.
When parents make excuses for their children, they reveal the kind of behavior they're willing to accept. Often, this comes at the expense of their own well-being. They may feel more inclined to ignore unhealthy behavior, feel guilt when they doubt their kids, or make decisions that are counterproductive to their own needs and undermining to their kids' growth.
When parents set low standards, the kids will generally achieve down to them. This is not a good response to today's high-pressure childhood culture. Instead, healthy parents who raise kind, competent kids find a healthy balance between being understanding and being overly permissive, which tends to lead to very poor outcomes for children.
This parenting style is called authoritative, and is a great model for those who wish to avoid being weak parents. It involves structure and rules, but also compassion and trust that goes both ways.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a news and entertainment writer at YourTango who focuses on health and wellness, social policy, and human interest stories.
11. They're manipulative
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Weak parents don't set out to raise aggressive or controlling kids, it's something that happens through years of reinforcement. Often, adult or even teenage kids who are aggressive toward their parents do so because it's their only way of feeling secure. When they become controlling, it may be in response to their parent's manipulative behavior.
A strong, healthy parent will be direct with their children. As researcher Dr. Brené Brown teaches in her best-selling book, Dare to Lead, "clear is kind" and healthy parents are clear with their children about what they want and expect. As Brown says, unclear is unkind, and manipulative behavior is as unclear as it gets.
A healthy parent will tell their child what time they need to be home, and set a logical consequence before hand, for when that rule is broken. Then, when it happens, that consequence is enforced. While a kid may not like that system (nobody wants to face consequences), it provides security and a sense of trust.
A manipulative parent, on the other hand, may pout, be passive-aggressive, or even give their kid the silent treatment when they break a rule. In contrast, this leads to insecurity and mistrust in a relationship. It can also lead to a kid growing up to be exactly the same way with their parent, utilizing pouting, passive-aggression, snarky comments, and the silent treatment themselves.
