We all live with the consequences of poor parenting. No parent is perfect. ”However, parents who carry a promise of love and care, while at the same time mistreat their child, are called toxic parents,” says Blaz Koz.

A traumatic childhood filled with repeated abuse from dysfunctional parenting creates fear, guilt and obligation and leaves a child with emotional scars.  Toxic parents can re-injure us in ways that make growth and recovery difficult. It can become generational abuse, where familiar abusive patterns are repeated in every generation.

Typically, a toxic parent does not treat their children with respect as individuals. A toxic parent doesn’t compromise, take responsibility for their behaviour, or apologize. Often, these parents have a mental disorder or a severe addiction.

What is toxic parenting?

Toxic parenting is a parenting style that inflicts ongoing and repetitive trauma, abuse, humiliation, ill-will, disparaging, shaming, belittling, and defaming children.

They are the parents who lack insight, compassion, and nurturing abilities to foster healthy emotional growth in their children. They are also the parents who are fearful of abandonment and thus control and manipulate their children, so they are conditioned to depend on them. Just as toxic chemicals break down vital cells that keep our bodies from getting sick, so does toxic parenting erode a child’s self-esteem, confidence, and self-worth.

Once the spirit of a child is broken, the child believes he/she is worthless and unlovable.

Parenthood is a responsibility no parent is ever adequately prepared or equipped for but is executed based on adults’ experiences during their childhood. Parents are only human and have many problems of their own. Most children can deal with an occasional outburst of anger but need reassurance, love and understanding to counter its adverse effects.

Children need to bond with their parents or caregivers, but this need makes them vulnerable to being parented by wounded people during their childhood years. Adults often promise never to behave or react towards their children in the way their parents did towards them. Unfortunately, they frequently struggle to learn from their parents’ past mistakes and repeat their parents’ dysfunctional, toxic parenting patterns.

Signs of a toxic parent

• They fail to provide you with affirmation and security
• They are overly critical
• They demand your attention
• They make toxic “jokes” about you
• They cause you to justify the terrible behaviour
• They do not allow you to express negative emotions
• They scare even their adult children
• They always put their feelings first
• They co-opt your goals
• They use guilt and money to control you
• They give you the silent treatment
• They ignore healthy boundaries
• They make you responsible for their happiness

Why do toxic parenting cycles continue?

Adults who have suffered at the hands of a toxic parent are almost always unable to recognize harmful parenting characteristics in themselves. These wounded children develop into impaired adults, passing on the dysfunctional patterns to their children – sometimes without even realising the behaviours as problematic in the first place. Our prisons are full of people who have toxic parents.

A child’s home and style of upbringing are the norm, and they believe that this is how all other households do it. Therefore, they will often not even look for alternative ways of doing it.

Children rarely do what you TELL them to do – but they will always do what you DO. Children are meticulous observers and duplicators of behaviour, especially those they most frequently spend their time with, such as parents or caretakers. Research indicates that parent-child attachment constitutes the basis of all future relationships.

Parents attempting to climb beyond their toxic upbringing may not have the tools to find and adopt more positive ways to relate to others.

Types of toxic parents

The Inadequate Parent

Constantly focusing on their problems, these parents turn their children into ‘mini-adults’ who care for them. Some parents disclose their deepest feelings and thoughts to their children, using their children as a buffer or a crutch during emotional situations.

The Controlling Parent

They use guilt, manipulation and even over-helpfulness to direct their children’s lives. They are convinced that their children cannot do anything and, therefore, dictate and control their children’s feelings, decisions and even thoughts. They will punish independent judgment-making by using guilt, shame, humiliation and excessive lecturing. This continues into adulthood when they still treat their children as minors.

The Substance Abusers

Their addiction leaves little time or energy for parenthood demands, and they usually require the family to deny and hide the problem. They are easily angered, unpredictable, aggressive and withdrawn. They blame others for their problems and lack of personal responsibility.

The Verbal Abusers

These parents frequently hurl verbal attacks on a child’s appearance, intelligence, competence or value as a human being. They demoralize their children with constant put-downs and rob them of their self-confidence.

There are 2 types of verbal abuse:

Direct verbal abuse: verbal attacks delivered directly, openly, and viciously. They call their children stupid, ugly, worthless, etc.

Indirect verbal abuse: teasing sarcasm, insulting nicknames, subtle put-downs, hiding abuse behind humour.

The Physical Abusers

Incapable of controlling their deep-seated rage, these parents often blame their children for their ungovernable behaviour. Child abuse is defined as the ”infliction of physical injuries such as bruises, burns, welts, cuts, and bone and skull fractures.” Physical abusers may also be considered those who allow or permit abuse, even if that parent’s omission is due to fear or concern about the family’s status quo.

The Sexual Abusers

Whether flagrantly sexual or covertly seductive, they are the ultimate betrayers, destroying the very heart of childhood – its innocence.

The list is from the book ”Toxic Parents – Overcoming Their Painful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life” by Dr Susan Forward.

Assessing the toxic levels in your parenting behaviour

It is not always easy to figure out whether your parents are or were toxic. A lot of people have complicated relationships with their parents. That alone does not mean that your parents are emotionally destructive—many people battle with the question of whether they were mistreated or whether they were just oversensitive.

In her book, Dr Susan Forward, Toxic Parents designed questionnaires to help parents take the first steps toward resolving that struggle. Some of these questions may cause anxiety or discomfort. That is okay. It is always difficult to tell ourselves the truth about how many of our parents may have hurt us. Although it might be painful, an emotional reaction is perfectly healthy.

The original article was written by Adele du Plessis & Mariaan Maartens / Auksano Issue 12/ 2103.

Mariaan Maartens is a therapist at Auksano since 2006 and is also the editor of the Auksano magazine.

Adele du Plessis is a social worker specializing in assessing and therapeutic support for children and teenagers.

If you want to read and print articles from previous Auksano magazines, go to www.auksano.org and click on the Auksanopedia button.

More reading:   Susan Forward, Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life