Kids Raised By Parents With Zero Respect For Authority Usually Carry 9 Habits Into Adulthood
rsooll / Shutterstock Kids learn how to respect themselves and others from their parents. However, when their parents have zero respect for authority and only demonstrate entitled behaviors, those are the same expectations that their kids bring into adulthood.
They miss out on the social skills adults need in the workplace or the respect students offer teachers at school, because their parents instead modeled selfishness and disrespect due to their beliefs in their own superiority. As adults, these children adopt the same kind of habits, and it affects their lives in a wide variety of ways.
Habits kids raised by parents with zero respect for authority usually carry with them when they become adults
1. They aren't curious about anyone else
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The more open-minded someone is and the more interested they are in learning about the people and environments around them, the happier they end up being. We often learn how to be open by watching how our parents interact with the world as kids, which is exactly why kids from these families suffer.
Not only are they actively disrespectful toward authority, but the entitlement their parents passed down affects their interest in learning. They need to be the most interesting and envied person, so why would they create space to learn about someone else?
2. They gossip about everyone
When they grow up hearing whispers of gossip at home and being around parents who don’t respect anyone, let alone authority figures they perceive as threatening, these children believe it’s okay to speak behind people’s backs. Even when it comes at the expense of their relationships and cultivates an aura of negativity that affects their own emotional health, they continue to do it, even at home with these parents.
Unfortunately, the more negativity we bring to conversations about others, the more unhappy we become. We believe that everyone is viewing us through a similarly judgmental eye, and it greatly affects how we view ourselves.
3. They interrupt people often
Even though interruptions aren’t always a sign of maliciousness or disrespect, they do tend to convey the message that you don’t care about what someone has to say. When we interrupt, we’re saying “my voice is more important than yours,” whether that’s our intention or not.
However, kids who grew up with parents who believed they were superior to everyone often hold onto a similar mentality. They lead with entitlement, and rarely offer respect in the form of active listening that could actually make their social interactions and relationships better.
4. They avoid or suppress emotions
According to a 2020 study, the amount of empathy parents show their children is directly associated with how emotionally open they are later in life. So, if someone grows up in a home with parents who refuse to treat their children with respect or empathize with their struggles, they may be emotionally delayed compared to their peers.
Especially if they become entitled over time, whether that’s to a sense of comfort or access to other people, suppressing their emotions might feel like a way to grab onto some sense of control. They try to control others and use disrespect as a weapon, because they aren’t sure how to control and process their own emotions.
5. They struggle to trust people
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When parents constantly express concern about people taking advantage of them, which is often the case when someone doesn't respect authority, it lowers their children’s ability to cultivate social trust. The same is true for a lack of compassion. Kids struggle to trust others when they’re not taught how to understand and empathize with them.
If a child spends their most impressionable years hearing parents rant about their teachers’ incompetence or their lack of respect for a boss at work, there’s a chance they’ll struggle to trust most people later in life. Even if it’s not obvious that there’s a connection between the two, their pessimistic attitudes run deep.
6. They get defensive easily
Kids are usually taught what respect looks like by their parents. If they’ve only ever grown up witnessing disrespect, however, they may not realize that how they treat others or speak about them behind their backs is wrong.
They are likely to feel an innate sense of entitlement, and they also won’t know how to take accountability when they’re called out as adults without immediately getting defensive. It’s a perfect storm of lacking trust and internal disarray that only strains their life more as they get older.
7. They assume the worst of others
Along with a lack of trust for people in positions of power, many of these kids are taught to be skeptical all of the time. Without discipline or accountability around disrespect modeled at home, they learn to expect authority figures to take advantage of them or boss them around.
They were never taught about workplace hierarchies or how to regulate their emotions when someone else is acting poorly. They never watched their parents cope with frustration at work without blaming their boss or manager. Instead, they learned that most people in authority positions were inherently bad and a target for all their internal frustrations and anger.
8. They don’t use basic manners
Especially at impressionable ages when kids still need adult support with emotional regulation, learning to respect authority seriously plays into their emotional growth. They learn to process emotions, use basic manners, and respect others even when they’re hurting internally, all from trusting and respecting the authority figures in their lives.
However, when parents discourage their kids from trusting these authority figures early on, whether it’s their teachers or bosses in teenage jobs, they miss out on the chance to practice these fundamental skills. Suddenly, their everyday behavior is shaped by entitlement, rather than empathy and consideration for others.
9. They’re passive-aggressive
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Instead of having the empathy and emotional intelligence to express concerns out loud, people raised in these sorts of childhood environments get passive-aggressive when they’re upset about something.
Especially without trust in authority figures who are supposed to support them, they often rely on passive-aggressive habits to cope with their anger in the moment. This not only creates resentment in their relationships, but also builds a mound of internal emotions they never truly process or cope with.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a senior editorial strategist with a bachelor’s degree in social relations & policy and gender studies who focuses on psychology, relationships, self-help, and human interest stories.
