The upbringing that parents provide to their children influences them to the point of molding their personality and shaping their behavior and emotional relationships in their adult life. “All reference figures are part of the attachment style that is given to a child,” he says. Patricia Zori, clinical psychologist specializing in attachment and trauma at the Retiro Psychology Center, in Madrid. For this expert, all people reproduce the emotional bond they had in childhood with their parents. “An upbringing can be a mix multifactorial; “You can have one figure, father or mother, who controls, but the other be more permissive, therefore, you can counteract that anxious attachment,” he explains. “However, if imposition parenting predominates, it may be because both parents have had negative experiences or because this was transmitted to them in their childhood, a stage where they felt insecurity and now perceive the world as a threatening and hostile place.” , keep going.
And the personality of both parents will largely shape the parenting style they will give to their children throughout their lives. The American Psychological Association (APA, for its acronym in English) includes four main types of parenting, including authoritarian and controlling, a style in which parents tend to be demanding, are severe, inflexible and try to control their children’s behavior. The other three types are: authoritative parents, those who are loving but, at the same time, set limits; the permissive ones, who are also affectionate, but more relaxed and do not usually demand much from the child; and, finally, passive parents, who tend to be indifferent, not very accessible and, sometimes, may even be absent.
“When it comes to parenting we put a large part of who we are, we tend to want to repeat what has been good for us, and save our children from those things that have been bad,” points out Paloma Díez, a clinical psychologist specialized in psychology. child and youth For Díez, personality is formed by experiences and usually influences the parenting style. But does this mean that if a woman or man is anxious or controlling she will be a bad father or mother? “Of course not,” she says, “in general, the parents are good, they do the best they can.” In this sense, Zori agrees that it is inevitable to do bad things, and that it is human to feel fear and thus transmit it to one’s children. “It is something uncontrollable, although watching them all the time generates overprotection and makes children dependent,” she adds. However, it is important to know that almost all experiences can be repaired. “If you ask for forgiveness from a child and say: ‘I’m sorry, what I just did is not right,’ the child will understand and the situation will be resolved,” she continues.
In the specific case of mothers, the Journal of Family Studies published in 2022 the report Maternal control and the internalization and externalization of childhood symptoms in the neighborhood safety environment. In it, Controlling mothers are defined as parents who interfere in almost all aspects of their child’s life. Furthermore, she adds that they are women who criticize any choice that the minor tries to make independently, they have high and unattainable standards, their rules are rigid and, in addition, they show a lack of empathy and respect. The study adds that they also punish severely, manipulate with gifts, and use shame and guilt in parenting. “Even if you have a mother who, for emotional reasons, encourages a more anxious, even negligent, parenting style in the child, there can always be another figure in the environment who rescues and complements education,” says Zori.
“Educating involves a lot of balance and achieving it varies a lot from one woman to another or from one man to another,” says Díez. This expert describes controlling parents, who are included in the authoritarian parenting style, as anxious: “Often this need for dominance comes from a lack of tolerance for uncertainty and a lot of fear that something bad will happen to their children.” . A fear that, according to the psychologist, has different consequences: “Either it generates excessively dependent and fearful children, who are not capable of doing things alone without first receiving the approval of their parents, or, on the other hand, they can become aggressive, “They rebel against excess control, they are perfectionists, they do not tolerate errors and they are very liars.”
That is why the child and adolescent psychologist Ursula Perona highlights the importance of conscious parenting. In the book 9 rules for conscious education, Published in May 2023, coordinated by Perona and written by a group of child psychologists, it explains how becoming aware of the child’s age, their needs, their evolutionary stage and their particularities according to each type of personality and temperament is crucial. “so as not to project our frustrations or shortcomings.” In the book, the idea is also emphasized that each child is independent, has his or her own learning and must and has come to make his or her own path, so parents must help them in that process and not hinder or limit it.
Díez explains that being a controlling mother or father can be molded with effort and perseverance, before reaching a psychotherapeutic process, if necessary. in extremis necessary: “The first thing of all is to recognize and detect the problem and, from there, begin to establish clear, healthy and firm limits.” Furthermore, he points out that children who grow up in this type of parenting may begin to take action on their own when they reach adolescence: “Some will confront this trait of their mothers or fathers through aggression. While, if they are accompanied by good reference figures, friends, teachers or psychologists, they will be able to do it through assertiveness.” This psychologist clarifies that in this way they will be able to set limits appropriately for their parents, expressing how they feel about controlling behaviors and always with empathy towards them. For her part, Zori emphasizes that the important thing is that there is good communication: “You have to give them a good emotional translation, that is, explain the why of things, so that they know what and why they feel afraid or insecure.” ”.
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