Your Parents Did A Great Job Raising You If You Are Not Afraid Of These 11 Things As An Adult
When children are raised in a secure environment, they know they don't need to be scared of things that would terrify others.
DavideAngelini / Shutterstock Part of being human means being scared of things we can’t necessarily control.Fear thrives on secrecy. If we don’t talk about what we’re scared of and learn to understand the reasons we feel that way, those fears grow even bigger, sometimes until they feel entirely unmanageable. It therefore stands to reason that if your parents did a great job raising you, you won't be afraid of things they already helped you learn to better understand, manage, and feel comfortable with as an adult.
According to psychology, fear is a “protective, primal emotion,” a response to threats, both real and imagined. When parents create a sense of security within the family, their kids grow up with an inner sense of emotional strength and resilience they carry with them long after they leave home, allowing them to walk through life far less afraid than the average person.
Your parents did a great job raising you if you are not afraid of these 11 things as an adult
1. Asking for help
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Asking for help can be scary because it requires you to reach outside of yourself and rely on others. Many people believe that asking for extra support makes them seem weak, but really, it’s a sign of strength. If you’re not afraid to ask for help when you need it, your parents did a great job raising you.
By making you feel safe, they showed you that you could ask for help without fear. Our families of origin are our first relationships, and the way our parents interact with us lays the groundwork for the other relationships we enter over the course of our lives.
Parents who are inconsistent or critical teach their kids that asking for help makes them a burden. Parents who offer unconditional love and support to their kids teach them that empathy is a superpower, and that asking for help is the antidote to facing their troubles on their own.
2. Being vulnerable
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Parents who build an honest, communicative relationship with their kids model the importance of sharing their feelings, which is a crucial part of feeling close to others. When we know we’re loved, we’re able to channel our vulnerability and share our true selves with the world.
Within most families, kids are expected to listen to their parents, but that rule doesn’t necessarily go both ways. Psychologist Sheryl Ziegler revealed that parents who reciprocate vulnerability make their kids better people.
“You must listen to your child when they speak to you,” she explained. “When they feel valued as human beings, they're more likely to do the same to others in later relationships. So when it’s time for you to talk, they're more likely to listen because they understand relationships are about both sharing and listening.”
It’s impossible to have long-lasting, connected relationships without vulnerability. If you’re not afraid of opening up to others and being authentically yourself, your parents did a great job raising you to recognize your own humanity and the humanity of others.
3. Sitting with your emotions
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If you’re not afraid to feel painful emotions, your parents did a great job raising you to be emotionally intelligent and attuned to your inner world. Because they let you express even your hardest feelings, you learned that those feelings were nothing to fear or feel ashamed of. Being emotionally validated as a kid gave you solid ground to stand on, and led you to become emotionally balanced as an adult.
“When you treat your emotions like problems, that’s how they start to feel,” psychologist Nick Wignall explained. “The solution is to learn to approach your emotions — even the painful ones — and welcome them.”
“The acceptance of all feelings is the heart of emotional strength,” he concluded.
Sitting in the murky depths of your most difficult emotions is never easy, but it's the only way to truly move through them. If you can accept your emotions as is, you’ll come out the other side as a stronger, more self-aware version of yourself.
4. Making changes
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They say that change is the only constant, and trying to resist it will put you at a loss in your own life. If you embrace uncertainty as part of transformation, your parents did a great job raising you. Accepting change is a challenge, but it’s the only way to grow.
Being resistant to change is a normal response, but that resistance often makes adjusting a bigger challenge than it needs to be. As Barry S. Anton, PhD, shared, “Fear of the unknown and fear of unintended consequences often create additional barriers to change.”
“Change includes disruption and requires resilience… yet change is inevitable,” he concluded.
Having consistent, responsive parents sets people up to face change without fear. If you’re able to stay open to the world and all its opportunities, even when it’s scary, your parents did a great job.
5. Learning new things
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Most people want to feel like they’re in control of their own lives, which is why learning new things can be so scary. The more you push yourself to step out of your comfort zone, the more you’ll learn and grow as an individual. It’s not easy to admit we don’t know everything, but having intellectual humility is actually a sign of high intelligence. If you’re not afraid of what you don’t know, but rather, see the gaps in your knowledge as opportunities for growth, your parents did a great job raising you.
Coach and consultant Amy Bracht described having a growth mindset as the “belief [that] our abilities and intelligence can be developed through dedication and effort. “This mindset empowers you to embrace challenges, persist in the face of setbacks, and see failure as an opportunity for growth, which helps you achieve your goals when times get tough,” she shared.
Identifying your limiting beliefs and mental barriers, she explained, is the first step to “reframe your thinking and develop a more empowering mindset.”
6. Failure
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Fear of failure is tied to our self-worth. We worry that failing will define us forever, that doing something wrong means we’re not worthy of love, happiness, or success. But failing is part of being a living, breathing human being on this earth, and it has the power to make you into your fullest self.
As YourTango expert Dr. Akshad Singi explained, fear of failure “prevents us from going after the life we want to live.”
“You have to fail a certain number of times in order to succeed,” he shared. “Every time we fail, we’re a step closer to success.”
“Failing is good,” he concluded. “It simply means you’re getting closer. If you’re able to say these words — ‘Yes! I failed one more time. I’m one step closer to getting what I want.’ — you’ll never ever fear failure.”
If your parents taught you that failing wasn’t a direct missive on your value as a person, they did a great job raising you.
7. Saying ‘no’
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Most people worry that saying “no” makes them ungrateful or selfish, when really, it’s a sign of self-respect. If you’re not afraid to set boundaries around your time and energy, your parents did a great job raising you.
Coach and consultant Amy Bracht pointed out that fear of setting limits often starts in childhood.
“Perhaps, when you were younger, you got the impression that to be liked or admired or gain attention, you had to be agreeable,” she explained. “Something good would happen if you just said ‘yes’ — so you prioritized saying ‘yes!’ But as an adult, the same strategies for keeping yourself safe and cared for are not as effective.”
Learning to say ‘no’ with confidence starts with deciding your boundaries, laying them out, and sticking to them. Starting with small ‘no’s’ can help you feel brave enough to declare the bigger ‘no’s’ that will inevitably be asked of you.
“It might take a little work, but learning to say 'no' without guilt is worth it,” Bracht concluded.
8. Taking responsibility
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It’s easier to sidestep accountability than it is to own up to our decisions. If you take responsibility for your choices, even when they don’t work out like you planned, your parents did a great job raising you. They taught you that you have agency over your life, and that no one but you can make decisions about how that life will unfold.
A survey from Pew Research Center revealed that teaching kids independence is a main focus for parents, which includes giving kids “the freedom to just be kids and the autonomy to make their own choices.”
Parents shared that their concept of autonomy involved “allowing their kids to learn and grow from their mistakes, giving them the freedom to make their own choices, and wanting them to think for themselves.”
Learning to be responsible for yourself is an essential lesson, one we learn and keep relearning over time.
9. Facing challenges
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When parents fix every problem their kids face, they become adults who can’t handle hard things. If your parents let you face challenges on your own, they did a great job raising you to know your own abilities, even in tough times.
Child psychologist Dr. Becky shared a hard truth of parenting, which is that “making our kids happy is almost the opposite of what matters most in life, which is building resilience.”
When we focus on making our kids happy, we start seeing difficult feelings as problems to fix instead of experiences to tolerate,” she explained. “If we can’t sit with their discomfort, they learn that distress is bad or threatening—something to avoid rather than manage. As adults, this makes tough moments even harder.”
It’s not an easy lesson, but parents who know that coming to the rescue does their kids a disservice in the long-run lay a foundation for their kids to believe in themselves as they grow.
10. Being rejected
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Rejection is such a deeply human fear because it touches the core of what we’re most scared of: the idea that we’re not lovable. Yet knowing the difference between being rejected and being unworthy is an essential part of being a successful adult, and if your parents taught you not to fear rejection, they did a great job raising you.
They raised you to believe in your own worth, without relying on other people to boost your confidence. You might stumble and fall along the way, but you get back up every time. You keep trying, even when it’s scary, because you know that you’re worthy.
11. Letting go
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If you’re not afraid to let go of things that don’t serve you, your parents did a great job raising you. There’s a difference between giving up and letting yourself evolve. Having a stable upbringing, rooted in love, will lead you to understand when to move on.
Whether it’s a relationship where you can’t be your full self or habits that are harming you more than they’re helping, being able to let go is a sign that you know yourself deeply, and that you love yourself enough to let yourself change.
Alexandra Blogier, MFA, is a staff writer who covers psychology, social issues, relationships, self-help topics, and human interest stories.