Your Parents Did A Great Job Raising You If They Shielded You From These 11 Struggles
Raising a child into a happy, healthy adult isn't always easy.
Vlada Karpovich from Pexels | Canva Pro Having kids is a joyous yet bittersweet journey. When your parents welcomed you, they realized life is fragile. They promised to keep you safe from harm and neglect. While some mistakes were inevitable, shielding you from struggles showed their dedication to your upbringing.
Wonderful parents provide unwavering love and support to their children. They act as teachers and guardians, helping and uplifting their kids during critical moments. Parenting can be tough, but if your parents successfully navigated these typical challenges, they excelled in raising you. Consider the following factors that demonstrate the nurturing environment your parents established, which greatly influenced your development.
Your parents did a great job raising you if they shielded you from these 11 struggles:
1. Navigating dangerous digital environments.
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Setting boundaries is one of the most important ways for parents to demonstrate their love. If your parents limit your internet use, they will shield you from the dangers lurking in the shadows of the digital world.
By monitoring your digital existence, your parents built a foundation for you to learn media literacy. They knew every website you went to. They tracked the videos and games you watched, protecting you from harmful content and teaching you the difference between fact and fiction.
As a kid, you resented your parents’ strict rules around screen time, but now that you’re an adult, you realize those rules were in place for a valid reason. Your parents set up a framework for you to develop smart digital habits, which kept you safe long after childhood.
2. Escaping adult conflicts.
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Your parents did everything they could to ensure you had a happy childhood. They wanted you to enjoy being a kid without the weight of their problems. They protected you from adult conflicts that were beyond your ability to understand.
Your parents navigated marital conflicts privately, ensuring you didn’t feel responsible for their emotions. When they encountered financial difficulties, they kept it to themselves, preventing their stress from negatively affecting you. Their commitment to maintaining boundaries helped you feel safe in their care.
3. Avoiding health issues.
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Your parents were deeply attuned to your needs. They fulfilled your practical requirements by providing food, shelter, and clothing, but they didn’t stop there. They also shielded you from potential health issues as much as possible. They took you for an annual check-up and scheduled appointments with specialists. They took you to the dentist and ensured you were flossing before bed.
By consistently paying attention to your health, your parents demonstrated the value of preventive care. They taught you to listen to your body and advocate for yourself when interacting with medical professionals. While they couldn’t always protect you from strep throat or the stomach bug that disrupted your school, your parents gave you the gift of proper self-care, which you can carry throughout your life.
4. Easing academic pressures.
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Some parents expect their kids to sharpen their competitive edges and perform perfectly in school, but your parents opted for a more nurturing approach. They encouraged you to embrace education by focusing on your effort and dedication rather than just your GPA.
Your parents understood that pressuring you to achieve straight A's would increase your anxiety and hinder your ability to learn. They protected you from unnecessary academic stress by encouraging you to view school as a space to expand your intellect, challenge your expectations, and better understand the world around you.
According to Intuitive creativity coach Kathryn Brown Ramsperger, “A student committed to a lifetime of learning is a welcome addition to any classroom. They don't worry if they don't know an answer or have to ask a question because they know there is always more to learn.”
She pointed out that parents can help kids “cultivate an open, eager-to-learn mind [by] having a family discussion at dinner time, encouraging differences in opinion and stressing [that] everyone's opinion is valuable, interesting, and significant to the conversation.”
“Persistence, creativity, and compassion lead to empowerment and success, not only in school but in life,” Ramsperger concluded.
5. Shielding you from bullies.
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As much as your parents wanted to put you in a bubble and lock you inside for 18 years, they recognized that being overprotective would prevent you from becoming the person you were meant to be. They provided protection whenever needed but also knew when to step back and let you figure things out independently.
Your parents shielded you from being bullied, not by inserting themselves into your social life but by teaching you social and emotional skills so you knew when to stand up for yourself and when to seek adult support. They also gave you the language you needed to describe your experience, which Life coach Samin Razzaghi considers essential.
She told parents to “Call bullying out for what it is: Relationship violence.”
“Acknowledge your child's feelings,” she advised. “It's normal to feel sad when someone has bullied them. Avoid telling them they will grow out of it or that it's a normal part of life. This way, you can prevent them from suppressing their legitimate feelings.”
“Reminding kids about their support system and the love that you have for them is key,” Razzaghi concluded. More than anything else, your parents protected you from bullying by loving you completely.
6. Regulating emotions.
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Helping kids reach their full potential requires dedication, patience, and emotional awareness. When parents cannot regulate their emotions, they inadvertently pass that dysregulation onto their children, whether they realize it or not. If your parents protected you from emotional immaturity and imbalance, they succeeded in raising you well.
From a young age, your parents allowed you to process your emotions without fear of judgment or ridicule. They modeled emotional intelligence by teaching you how to identify and express your feelings in healthy ways. Rather than pushing painful emotions aside, you learned that fully experiencing them was the best way to move beyond them.
Transformational parenting coach Mia Von Scha posed a crucial question to parents: “Is what you are doing right now going to empower or disempower your kids to go out into the world as authentic, confident human beings?”
“Our job as parents is not to be so involved in our children’s lives that they cannot live without us,” she explained. “Our job is to provide the basic structure for them to learn about the world and to find their own way in it.”
Your parents understood something many other parents overlooked: shielding you from emotional turmoil didn’t involve removing every obstacle. Instead, it meant allowing you to confront the challenging parts while guiding you through with love.
7. Avoiding toxic friendships.
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Making friends is fundamental for social and emotional development, but kids don’t automatically choose healthy friendships. If your parents shielded you from having toxic friends, they did a great job raising you. They reinforced the importance of being empathic and understanding, which helped you find genuine friends.
Parents play a pivotal role in how their kids create connections outside the family unit. As Coach Samin Razzaghi pointed out, “Parents model what it means to be compassionate through their daily actions.”
“Kids learn to behave by what they observe,” she explained. Having a baseline of empathy is how kids “learn to look beyond themselves and feel what someone else might be feeling.”
Razzaghi shared a simple lesson for avoiding toxic friendships: “Be the kind of friend you’d like to have.”
“Even one good friend is enough to help, and even save, your child,” she explained. “Ask your child which of their friends always supports and cares for them. Ask them, ‘Who is someone who you know has your back?’”
When kids understand that they’re inherently worthy, they can show up for themselves and build friendships that revolve around mutual respect and love.
8. Reining in unrealistic expectations.
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If your parents shielded you from unrealistic expectations, they did a fantastic job raising you. More often than not, our world demands perfection, even though being human means being flawed. Your parents were well aware of the emotional damage that perfectionism can inflict, especially regarding self-worth. They helped you understand that your worth is not tied to productivity or achieving perfect results.
They practiced radical acceptance daily by setting realistic goals. They encouraged you to do your best, but that didn’t mean you had to be perfect. Your parents shielded you from excessive self-pressure and burnout by steering clear of unrealistic expectations.
Your parents celebrated your victories, large and small, and they made it acceptable for you to fail. They created space for your disappointment but didn’t allow you to define yourself by your mistakes.
9. Overcoming mental health hurdles.
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Your parents did everything they could to make you feel safe. They believed in open, honest communication and clarified that you could talk to them about anything without facing punishment or criticism. No topic was too shameful or too difficult to discuss. Their unconditional support protected you from having to confront mental health struggles alone.
They taught you that asking for help shows inner strength and emotional resilience. They were attentive enough to recognize the signs of anxiety and depression, and they wasted no time in securing the professional support you needed.
“Family systems are the schools in which emotional learning occurs,” Psychotherapist Nadine Macaluso explained. “You want to make relational and emotional deposits to raise your family’s emotional capital, so your family has the resources to deal with inevitable stress and other major challenges along the way in life.”
Empathy is a core component for shaping a child’s emotional resilience because “an empathic response allows children to know it is safe to express how they feel. This is called ‘feeling felt’ or attuning to your child.”
Parents can’t shield children from every psychological struggle, but by validating their most difficult emotions, they show them that it’s okay to be exactly who they are.
10. Boosting self-worth.
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If your parents shielded you from having low self-worth, they did a great job raising you. They were affirming and affectionate, providing a stable foundation for you to grow into yourself. They celebrated you in your entirety, teaching you to accept your flaws and see yourself in a positive light.
According to Therapist Nancy Adino, our essential human needs revolve around “belonging, a sense of self-worth, and having a purpose.”
“When we don't witness, experience, feel, and receive love as children, our ability to love ourselves and others healthily gets compromised,” she explained.
Your parents’ love was a powerful force lodged deep in your soul, echoing out, allowing you to see how amazing you are.
11. Conquering the fear of failure.
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Kids are often raised with a profound fear of failure that inhibits their personal growth. Because they’re so scared of failure, they avoid learning new things. They stay well within their comfort zone, eventually stalling out and stagnating. They lack the resilience to face life’s inevitable hardships.
Your parents knew that certain hardships were unavoidable, so they taught you how to handle failure gracefully and self-compassion. They contributed to your resilience by modeling accountability and admitting when they failed.
“One of the most powerful gifts you can give your child is an admission that you made a mistake,” Dr. John Gottman revealed.
When your parents messed up, which all parents are bound to do, they offered you a whole-hearted apology. According to Dr. Gottman, when parents say sorry, it shows they respect their kids’ emotions and teaches them how to repair an emotional rupture,
Every time your parents owned up to their mistakes, they reinforced an invaluable life lesson: It’s okay to do things wrong.
As Dr. Gottman explained, “That feeling of unconditional love, of being able to repair negative interactions, of being mindful of your own emotions and those around you— that’s a wonderful foundation upon which any child, with their parent’s guidance, can build a fulfilling and successful life.”
Alexandra Blogier, MFA, is a staff writer who covers psychology, social issues, relationships, self-help topics, and human interest stories.