Are you concerned about messing up your kid because you’ve had a difficult life or childhood? It’s a more common fear than you may realize. People who understand their trauma or their history and want to do better realize that there is a gap. But it’s hard to do better when you don’t know what to do. Many in that position just know what they don’t want to do, based on their experiences.
That is, you don’t want your child to suffer the same way that you did. You don’t want them to live in discomfort, fear, and insecurity. Unfortunately, it is possible to overcompensate, which can cause problems too.
Perhaps you don’t have a difficult history, or at least don’t realize that you do, but you’re still interested in learning about common fears that even parents with the best of intentions can pass on.
Whatever your situation, you can avoid a lot of unintentional damage by understanding which fears you can accidentally instill. After all, awareness is always the first step. Here are 8 of the most commonly inherited.
1. A fear of failure.
As Psychology Today shares, love tied to achievement is not love; it’s emotional abuse, manipulation, and coercion. Take Bill as an example. Bill was raised in a home where his parents regularly withheld love and affection if he was not performing as they desired. As a result, Bill becomes a perfectionist because he has been conditioned to think that acts of love need to be “bought” with achievements. It’s more common than you might think.
As a result, people like Bill may overcompensate when it comes to taking care of their kids. Bill accidentally becomes a “helicopter parent.” Bill still struggles with his perfectionism, but he tries to shield his kids from accountability for their own mistakes by jumping in and rescuing them instead of letting them fail. It comes from a good place, but his kids need to be able to see their dad be imperfect and fail at things, so that they can learn to tolerate the inevitable failure they will experience in life, and so that they learn they will still be loved either way.
2. A fear of conflict.
Conflict is an essential part of the human experience. It usually happens when you brush up against another person’s boundaries. In a healthy relationship with good communication, you would normally talk out the issue and find a resolution. But that doesn’t always happen when you don’t have it modelled for you.
For example, Jane grew up in a home where having boundaries meant she would get screamed at or beaten. Jane is therefore conditioned and traumatized into silence. She learns that her silence meant she would be safe-ish, so she avoids conflict as an adult.
Jane may inadvertently pass that fear down by encouraging her kids to be quiet instead of having boundaries or standing up for themselves. It’s not that she is actively trying to harm them or set them back. She just has these unhealthy, trauma-driven behaviors that aren’t addressed yet. She may also stay in bad relationships because she’s so used to not standing up for herself, and her kids will see that behavior and may internalize it.
3. A fear of uncertainty.
There is no greater contributor to personal happiness and satisfaction than the ability to be comfortable with uncertainty. Any kind of change a person makes in their life is going to bring uncertainty with it. And uncertainty can be a primary driver for people’s anxiety, particularly when they’ve grown up in chaos or with inconsistent or conditional affection. Circling back to the example of Bill, as a means of subconsciously self-soothing, he tries to minimize any unknowns in his life.
And as a result, he overcompensates and avoids taking risks. His children are watching his behavior, seeing their dad settle for less in life because of his extreme desire for comfort and predictability. That may inadvertently teach them to settle for less than what they deserve. They may choose safety instead of taking risks like going to college, leaving a bad relationship, or traveling the world.
4. A fear of being a burden.
Some people grow up in homes where they are shouldered with responsibility beyond their age. It’s known as parentification, and Jane’s example illustrates it well. Any time she expresses her needs, her parents either ignore or yell at her. Living that way for years teaches Jane not to rely on the people who are supposed to love her most. And if her parents can’t love her unconditionally, what hope is there of anyone else doing that, she figures?
People like Jane may develop hyper-independence. That is, they start feeling uncomfortable when they have to rely on anyone else for anything. If Jane is very self-aware, she may try to instruct her kids on not doing that, but kids tend to learn most by seeing, not listening. If they see Jane unable to do things like ask for help or stand up for herself, that is the habit they are more likely to develop.
It isn’t that Jane is trying to harm her children. She is just acutely aware that some people are unreliable, and her actions are inadvertently teaching her children the same.
5. A fear of the loss of control.
Bill the perfectionist is all about control. Perfectionism is often an extreme response to trauma and anxiety, and it’s often common in neurodivergence, too. It’s the brain trying to subconsciously cope with the stress of life.
Uncertainty means unpredictability, unpredictability leads to fear, and fear is an unpleasant feeling that many people’s brains don’t want to feel. People like Bill may even experience anxiety attacks when they feel out of control.
A perfectionist is often a micro-manager. They want things done in a predictable way, their “right” way, and if it’s not right, then it’s all wrong. But micro-managing parents teach their children helplessness. They step in to fix problems for their kids or excessively direct their actions when the child needs to learn to deal with the unknown themselves.
Again, this teaches the children that they should not put themselves in uncertain situations and passes on a fear of losing control.
6. A fear of intimacy.
Some people learn that intimacy is a vulnerability that will leave them open to harm from their parents, and they may carry that behavior into adulthood. For example, in Jane’s situation, this manifests as her not telling her loved ones she loves them verbally, because it makes her grossly uncomfortable. Even in her romantic relationships, she is emotionally distant from her partner, and she struggles with expressing affection to them.
“Monkey see, monkey do” is a big part of how kids learn. Jane’s kids will pick up on the fact that she is uncomfortable with affection, and they may mimic her behavior. They may also find that they struggle with vulnerability and intimacy as they transition into adulthood.
To be intimate is to be exposed, vulnerable, and raw. It requires trust, which is Jane’s primary struggle. Yes, sometimes we will get betrayed or hurt by someone we are intimate with, but sometimes we won’t. That’s just part of the normal human condition.
7. A fear of financial instability.
People who grow up in poverty or around parents who don’t or can’t handle money well often develop a number of unhealthy habits surrounding finances. Why bother to pay to keep the lights on when there’s beer to buy? Why bother to waste money on things like buying groceries when they could instead spend it on drugs?
Sometimes, it goes too far the other way, though, and develops into a fear of poverty. For example, Bill grew up in poverty and overcompensates too far. He never touches a substance, period. Not only that, but he also works harder than he needs to, and he has to have savings. That is his safety net, his point of security. It’s him knowing that the electricity will be on and food in the cupboards.
And Bill’s kids will see this behavior and think of it as normal. Now, few people would choose being broke over having a healthy savings account, granted. However, the lengths to which some people will go can be informed by trauma. Bill is teaching his kids avoidance because he is opting to save every penny, never indulging in himself, and never taking risks.
That can turn into extreme behaviors such as hoarding. People like Bill may feel compelled to keep everything to ensure that they never go without.
8. A fear of being alone.
Most people crave connection. We want to have social connections and love. That’s a totally normal desire to have. However, people who were abused in childhood may develop codependent relationships as a survival mechanism. They may stay locked in bad relationships because that’s what they know, and they feel scared and uncomfortable being alone.
That often translates to poor boundaries. The children will watch their parent suffer abuse and internalize that love is supposed to be painful. They will believe that love and disrespect can coexist in the same space, and they can’t. They are inherently at odds with one another. A parent in this situation has to learn that boundaries are healthy and that being alone is better than being with the wrong person.
Closing thoughts…
I want to stress that by no means am I saying that anyone in these situations is a bad person. In reality, much “bad” behavior is a harmful pattern created by traumatic experiences. Bill and Jane are trying to keep themselves safe, as much as they are trying to shelter their children from their struggles.
However, overcompensation can derail those efforts. If we don’t have good control over our habits and choices, our kids are going to learn our trauma or anxiety-driven behaviors and repeat them. The best way to break that cycle before it starts is to unmake those habits, work through our own issues, and resolve the trauma, preferably with the help of a trained professional.
