Toxic Parents: What They Are Like and How to Treat Them

In the following PsychologyFor article we will talk to you about the characteristics of toxic parents, how their behaviors seriously harm their children and different ways to deal with these situations of abuse. If you are interested in the topic, keep reading to find out What toxic parents are like and knowing how to treat them.

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Toxic parents and codependent children

Toxic parents are people who have suffered great emotional deficiencies in their childhood so they have not been able to develop in a healthy way. It is precisely these emotional deficiencies that have led them, in order to survive, to develop certain negative behaviors they direct towards their children the most vulnerable people.

These are people with high degrees of emotional instability and passivity/aggressiveness who, with their negative behaviors, nullify their children and turn them into codependent people. Sons and daughters internalize that they are not valid and they disconnect from themselves (dissociation). Not being able to attend to their own needs, they attend to those of others but become addicted to them since it is the only means of personal satisfaction.

Characteristics of toxic parent

There are several types of toxic fathers and mothers: physical, verbal, emotional, sexual abuser, substance addict, immature, rigid, with personality disorders, overprotective, etc. Many of them can combine several of these behavioral patterns since some, on many occasions, reinforce the others. For example, a father or mother who is addicted to substances may end up attacking in different ways; Parents with personality disorders, who are rigid and immature, can also include abuse of all kinds in their behaviors.

The characteristics that all these behavior patterns share arise from their own emotional shortcomings that lead them to act in these ways, trying to fill the internal emptiness they feel. In this way, they are usually people:

Egocentric: they are governed according to their own needs, unable to empathize with the needs of their children. In most cases, they seek to cover them up unconsciously since they cannot even recognize them.
emotional instability which leads them to alternate states of anger and dullness.
Authoritarian, critical and manipulative: They only feel safe when everything works the way they need it to. Otherwise, their aggressive emotional responses are activated.
Dependent on their children: the imbalance in their adult social relationships and in their own emotional management makes them unconsciously use their children as they wish to meet their needs, making them dependent on them (and turning them into codependents: their caregivers).
Not very affectionate: They have not received any emotional basis, so they are incapable of offering it to their sons and daughters. Therefore, it is common for children to feel that their father or mother does not love them.

How to deal with toxic parent

In our family environment we learn our knowledge about ourselves, others and the world. Innately, a child expects care and protection from his parents, so what we learn in our family we internalize as the way everything should work. Thus, in a family with toxic parents, children assume that they are not valid and believe that loving relationships are based on the control and power that they have received.

Children who are victims of toxic parents find it difficult to accept the truth of the drama they have experienced. When, however, they become aware of this fact, it is important that they seek help to strengthen their self-esteem and, thereby, modify their behavior towards their parents. To stop this toxic relationship, children must:

Put limits their parents
Respect yourselves: deal with toxic parents from a position of self-respect
Get away from them in cases where their change in behavior does not have any effect on the behavior of their parents

1. How to set limits on toxic parents

Setting limits for toxic parents is essential to stop the abusive relationship. If you do not feel strong enough to do it yourself, it is recommended that you ask for help in friends, family or even professionals:

Do not allow any abuse physical, verbal or emotional.
Expose and validate one’s own needs and ideas, differentiating them from those of their parents.
Be affectionate and sensitive to the needs of your parents while respecting our limits (it is not easy considering that the treatment received sometimes generates a lot of contained anger).
Express yourself calmly and respectfully, being a living example of another way of family coexistence. Here you can see How to improve my relationship with my parents.

2. How to deal with toxic parents

In cases in which the attitudinal change of the sons or daughters has no effect on the behavior of the toxic parents but it is not possible to distance themselves from them (in the case of minors, for example), it is appropriate:

Avoid contact as much as possible directly with them.
Do not succumb to his authoritarianism but do not activate it, as a strategy to appease him.
Maintain physical, psychological and emotional personal care that keeps us strong in the face of difficulties.
Ask for help and refuge from those people and professionals you can trust.

3. How to get away from toxic parents

In the serious cases of abuse, it is recommended get away as soon as possible of toxic parents so as not to continue damaging our self-esteem. In the minor cases it is important that a family member or close friend can intervene and remove the child from this environment through the Social services and other public or private institutions.

In the case of having reached the age of majority, the young person himself can leave home. To move forward, he may also be advised and helped by Social Services and any institution providing social assistance to minors.

If you are a child who experiences abuse at home If you know someone who is experiencing this situation, ask for help. It is important to stop this abuse as soon as possible to stop the psychological consequences that these experiences generate. ¡You can get out of there. Don’t worry, everything will be fine!

This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Toxic parents: what they are like and how to treat them we recommend that you enter our Clinical Psychology category.