Kids Raised By Parents Who Didn't Believe In Boundaries Usually Carry 6 Habits Into Adulthood
Marina Malades | Shutterstock Parents who don't teach healthy boundaries early on will often raise kids who grow up with habits that make healthy relationships hard to maintain.
Boundaries are important for children because they build self-trust. When kids aren't taught to understand their own needs and the needs of others, they usually struggle with their adult interactions, even in the workplace.
Habits kids carry into adulthood when they were raised by parents who didn't believe in boundaries:
1. They often overstep and struggle to respect other people's needs
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When kids are raised unable to set boundaries for themselves, they grow into adults who have no idea how to respect the boundaries other people set.
Pushing a boundary once or twice won't be a big deal, but repeatedly doing it will make people withdraw. That can get lonely and feel isolating. It's been proven clinically that loneliness is detrimental to mental and physical health, making a boundary lesson in children even more important than most parents probably realize.
2. They can't easily identify emotions
There is a technique in therapy called name it to tame it. Basically, it means knowing when, why, and how something affects us.
When kids grow up without boundaries, they are allowed to act however they want, whenever they want. They are never taught how to understand their emotions and don’t know how to cope with them, either.
3. They have a hard time handling conflict
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People without boundaries don’t learn how to handle conflict. They don’t know when to say sorry or how to address issues properly. If they don’t feel like addressing conflict, then they won’t. Or, on the flip side, they will make everything an issue and pick fights for no reason.
Licensed counselor Tamara Hill explained, "Individuals who lack appropriate boundaries often struggle with telling others how they feel (for fear of rejection or ridicule), struggle with feeling burdened by how others perceive them (due to a desire to people-please), strive to make everyone happy with their performance (at work, in school, at home, etc.), and tend to stay in negative relationships (for fear of not finding someone else to love)."
4. They don't trust themselves as much as they should
Boundaries are important for developing self-trust. Self-trust means knowing how to make the best decision for yourself and not always thinking about other people’s opinion of what you should be doing.
Many people struggle with self-trust because they learned at a young age that they should trust someone else to make their decisions. According to Jess VanderWeir, MA, setting boundaries with children is important because it teaches them “the logical thinking behind boundaries and develops better decision-making abilities.”
5. They usually really hate being alone
Parents who don’t believe in boundaries might be with their kids all the time or not at all. These kids then grow up believing that being alone is a bad thing.
To make it all worse, they may not understand when people say they want to be alone because the concept seems completely foreign. This fear of being alone is only compounded by the fact that they struggle with isolation because of their tendency to overstep other people's boundaries.
6. They tend to people-please because they don't want to be rejected
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Part of boundaries is teaching kids how to be resilient and how to handle rejection. VanderWeir explained that boundaries teach kids to deal with “limits and minor frustrations” and how to build the “capacity to handle more significant challenges later in life.”
For example, when kids are told no, it teaches them that the world does not revolve around them. As adults, this makes them more aware of how to handle rejection and that it is not a terrible thing, but just part of life.
Sophie Bagheri is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and theatre who covers lifestyle topics.
