10 Signs Your Parents Often Made You Feel Guilty As A Child & It's Affecting You Now
A childhood filled with guilt-tripping can stunt the way you approach life challenges.
Africa Studio | Shutterstock Unresolved childhood trauma and a generally unstable relationship with your parents can be difficult to unlearn, even into adulthood. From a transactional relationship to an emotionally unavailable parent, your relationships, identity and general well-being as a child were directly affected by your parents' ability to show up for you. In fact, there are several specific signs your parents often made you feel guilty as a child and it's affecting you now.
While it might feel assertively directed at you — sparking uncomfortable emotions like shame and anxiety — experts like psychologist Lynn Margolies suggest that a parent's tendency towards "guilt-tripping" is generally fueled by their own self-awareness and insecurity. They're yearning for a means to cope with their own confusion, emotions and anxiety, oftentimes at the expense of their children's well-being and stability at home.
Here are 10 signs your parents often made you feel guilty as a child and it's affecting you now
1. You have people-pleasing tendencies
Fast-stock | Shutterstock.com
Children who consistently had their own physical and emotional needs disregarded by their parents growing up still yearn for supportiveness. Often forced towards attention-seeking behaviors, rather than healthy conversations, to essentially beg for your parent's input, advice, attention, and love, your people-pleasing becomes one of the signs your parents often made you feel guilty as a child and it's affecting you now.
To keep the peace at home and receive positive attention, rather than guilt-tripping jabs and unnecessary criticism, these children resort to people-pleasing to ensure their parents are happy, even if that means sacrificing their own needs. According to Dr. Harold Bloomfield, in his book "Making Peace With Your Parents," this approval-seeking behavior isn't just directed at their parents, it's a constant "approval trap" that influences all of their relationships, even into adulthood, as a result of this childhood trauma and family dynamic.
2. You burden yourself with other people's uncomfortable emotions
TetianaKtv | Shutterstock.com
While children who grew up being guilt-tripped by their parents, whether it was for their own emotional support or to meet their unrealistically high standards, tend to be more empathetic in adulthood, sometimes to a fault. They're overly cognizant of other people's negative emotions and general well-being — shouldering the hurt, trauma, and uncomfortable feelings of their peers to an overwhelming degree.
Similarly, these same children also inadvertently learn a misguided truth about their own emotions through this toxic tendency, like experts from the Manhattan Mental Health Counseling organization suggest: their own emotions are burdens to others.
Instead of making space to feel heard, understood, and supported with their own emotions, they actively work to suppress their discomfort in their relationships, opening themselves up to taking care of others with an anxious mindset about accepting the same kind of help. Unlearning this toxic truth starts when you're alone. Find outlets that help you to release your emotions, whether it's journaling or therapy, and practice overcoming the anxiety associated with support in your close relationships.
3. Your parents used the silent treatment
ViDI Studio | Shutterstock.com
Many emotionally immature parents resort to petty tactics like "the silent treatment" to guilt-trip their children and parents into getting what they want, always at the expense of the healthiness of their family dynamic and relationships. Instead of having healthy conversations about their expectations, needs, and wishes, they instead resort to these toxic habits to burden their kids with shame.
Tied into their misguided victimhood, controlling parents scape-goat their children, like psychology expert Peg Streep argues, to break down their self-esteem and manipulate their boundaries in ways that serve beneficiaries to their own desires.
4. Everything felt transactional at home
DimaBerlin | Shutterstock.com
Parents who feed into transactional relationships at home generally have their own interests in mind over those of their kids or partner, relying on behaviors like condemning their children's individuality and using misguided praise to get what they want and to maintain a certain level of control over their relationships.
Relying on a reward and punishment system at home, transactional parents place "a premium" on their children's behavior, as neuropsychologist Julia DiGangi explains, that discourages the basic empathy and open communication that typically fuels a healthy parent-child relationship.
Instead of feeling supported under the veil of unconditional love, heard in healthy conversations, or generally appreciated by their parents simply for being their child, kids who grew up in transactional homes learn that they're only "worthy" in their relationships when they have something to offer.
In adulthood, it's challenging to unlearn this misguided truth, but not impossible — by committing to clear boundaries with their parents and rebuilding trust and healthy avenues of communication with their relationships, they can find a balance that might be initially uncomfortable, but ultimately healthy for their general well-being.
5. You feel pressured to 'prove yourself' in relationships
NTshutterth | Shutterstock.com
Feeling a pressure to prove yourself in relationships and at home is one of the signs your parents often made you feel guilty as a child and it's affecting you now. Never "good enough" and always manipulated into low self-esteem for their parents' gain, these children adopt an anxious mentality fueled by a fear of judgment and failure.
According to the self-proclaimed "angry therapist" John Kim, it's not impossible to unlearn the perfectionist ideals and validation-seeking behaviors this kind of early family dynamic sparks, but it starts with a kind of self-compassion that's uncomfortable for many adult children with low self-esteem.
Recognize the unrealistic expectations you were held to as a child, set realistic alternatives for yourself, and challenge the negative self-talk and anxiety that urges you to take control of relationships by "proving" yourself in ways that are generally misguided, inauthentic, and toxic to your own well-being.
6. You make decisions based on other people's needs instead of your own
New Africa | Shutterstock.com
While making decisions with only other people's well-being and interests in mind is generally an act of empathy, it's also one of the toxic signs your parents often made you feel guilty as a child and it's affecting you now. Constantly overlooking your own needs, whether they be emotional or physical, you teach yourself that everyone else is more deserving of health, stability, and kindness than yourself — feeding into a spiral of negative self-talk and low self-esteem.
Even if your parents pressured you into always acting in their favor, putting their emotional needs and desires above your own, there's ways to break down this toxic mindset in adulthood. Start with investing time into getting to know yourself. It seems simple, but many people-pleasers and toxically empathetic folks generally lose sight of their own needs, goals, and aspirations while constantly considering others.
You're deserving of healthy alone time, decisions that only benefit you, and a supportive inner circle that not just supports, but celebrates you in being occasionally "selfish" to your own interests.
7. You're chronically anxious about disappointing others
Fizkes | Shutterstock.com
Generally, a lot of the signs your parents often made you feel guilty as a child are fueled by low self-esteem, people-pleasing behaviors, and the toxic mindset that made you believe you were less deserving of love, support, and guidance than your parents were.
You've cultivated an anxious mindset, like therapist Kate O'Brien suggests, influenced by your inability to meet your parents' standards, that's forced you to believe that you're never enough. Chronically feeling like a failure or "less than" as a child, you enter into adult relationships with this nagging feeling of insecurity, urging you to believe that you're going to disappoint others because there's something fundamentally wrong with you.
The truth is: that mindset was only cultivated by your parents, who relied on your insecurity and uncomfortable feelings of shame, embarrassment, and guilt to get what they wanted. That was never you, only the version of you your parents created to better suit their own needs and selfish interests.
8. Your parents were emotionally distant
Fizkes | Shutterstock.com
Hyperfocused on their own needs over their family's, many parents who relied on guilt-tripping to control their children also remained relatively emotionally distant. Unless they were relying on a false sense of support or conditional love to get what they wanted, their children were forced to deal with their own discomfort, anxiety, and emotional needs on their own.
According to a study from the Journal of Affective Disorders, grappling with this constant guilt, typically sparked by their parents, is a common experience among depressed children. So, not only does a parent's tendency towards guilt-tripping negatively impact their child's general emotional health, increasing their isolation, depressive thoughts, and feelings of loneliness, their emotional disconnect and feelings of rejection can also spark uncomfortable emotions like shame.
9. Your parents relied on their victimhood to get what they wanted
ORION PRODUCTION | Shutterstock.com
Many parents who rely on guilt-tripping their children to serve their own interests have inherently narcissistic tendencies that sabotage the health and well-being of their family's dynamic. Whether it was the silent treatment or a misguided sense of victimhood, toxic parents refuse to take accountability for their own toxic behaviors and hurtful language, instead shifting that responsibility onto their innocent children and partners.
While it might feel unfair or confusing for children early in life, this inherent sense of victimhood in their parents eventually becomes a fact of life, urging them to believe they're truthfully the root of their family's problems, rather than a true victim to their parents' narcissism.
There's many ways to unlearn this toxic mindset in adulthood and heal from your parents' narcissism, according to psychologist Akilah Reynolds, from setting boundaries, to investing in other adult relationships, to learning about your parent's narcissism from an outside perspective. However, there's also the forgiveness route, which a study from the Journal of Religion and Health argues can help to decrease anxiety, increase self-esteem, and calm burdening feelings of stress in adult children.
10. You were held to unrealistic expectations at home
Dikushin Dmitry | Shutterstock.com
Unrealistic expectations, like counselor Justin Lioi argues, urge children to believe they can always be doing better than they're currently doing. Even amid celebrations of their success, there's an underlying tone of parental disappointment that lingers in impossible standards at home.
Sometimes a manifestation of their parents' own insecurities, lack of ambition, or narcissistic tendencies that fuel their own "perfect family" image, their kids always feel guilty for not achieving everything all at once.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in social relations & policy and gender studies who focuses on psychology, relationships, self-help, and human interest stories.