Therapist Reveals 4 Signs You Were Raised By A ‘Misattuned Helicopter Parent’ And It's Affecting You Now
These parents mistake presence for connection.
Dean Drobot | Shutterstock Helicopter parenting gets a lot of criticism as overly intrusive and responsible for a sense of learned helplessness among young adults, but it's not often associated with neglect.
Although the spectrum of childhood trauma varies across numerous parent types and behaviors, some are less obvious than others. One therapist identified the "misattuned helicopter parent," often unrecognized as responsible for emotionally neglecting their kids despite still being present, as a common source of childhood trauma that impacts adults later in life.
A therapist took to TikTok to reveal 4 signs you were raised by a ‘misattuned helicopter parent,’ and it’s affecting you now:
Stephanie, who goes by Steph the attachment therapist, is a licensed mental health counselor and a licensed marriage and family therapist who uses her social media platform to spread awareness and education about relationships, trauma, and self-growth.
She recently shared a video discussing a specific subtype of emotional neglect wounds: the chronically invalidated. She described parents who frequently invalidated certain aspects of their child’s emotional needs as the “misattuned helicopter parent.”
1. Your parent frequently invalidated your experience as a child
As you may know, validation is the act of recognizing and accepting an individual’s experience and feelings as valid, while invalidation is the opposite. Stephanie clarified how everyone experiences and inflicts invalidation at some point in their lives, as it’s a natural human mistake that fosters our learning experience.
“What sets this apart as something that is distinctly a wound is that there is a core organizing factor in the relationship that is inherently invalidated,” Stephanie said. “It’s like when parents won’t recognize a medical or psychological diagnosis that a child has, and so that child is just chronically gaslit about what they are experiencing in their own body and minds.”
Individuals with certain cognitive differences and conditions that set them apart, including neurodivergent people, may have experienced this form of chronic invalidation growing up. They were likely told they were “too sensitive,” and their unique emotional needs were disregarded.
These parents may have provided their children with their basic needs and desires and were actively involved in their lives. However, if they refused to acknowledge and accept their child’s experience, that child’s invalidated cognitive differences likely escalated into a more serious problem later in life.
2. Your parent had a ‘misattuned’ response to your emotions
This type of parent was likely physically present in your life, making it a priority to attend important events and activities. Because of your parent’s “enmeshment” in your life, unlike other parents who simply weren’t around to notice their child’s emotional needs, these misattuned parents recognized when you were in distress. Stephanie acknowledged that the problem with this parenting type was how they responded to your emotional needs.
“In reality, being physically present does not mean someone is emotionally available,” Stephanie identified. As she suggested, parents are responsible for meeting all of their children’s needs — physical, developmental, and emotional.
Stephanie shared how this type of parent may have frequently responded to their child’s needs with “misattunement,” the failure to understand an individual’s nonverbal needs out of their own fears surrounding their child’s negative emotions and failure. This doesn’t mean they responded negatively or critically. Rather, they attempted to find means of removing their child’s negative emotions, but this won’t do any good either.
3. Your parent tried to ‘overcontrol’ your environment
Stephanie shared how these misattuned parents may have tried to manipulate their child’s environment to help eliminate any sadness or frustration from their lives. They could have done this by spoiling their kids with gifts or alleviating certain tasks from their routines.
This response, however, hinders a child’s ability to self-regulate and problem-solve. So, when these kids grow up and continue to experience challenging feelings in adulthood, they’ll struggle to understand how to manage their emotions.
While it’s natural and healthy for a parent to find ways to cheer their child up and turn their frown upside down, it shouldn’t necessarily take the place of teaching them how to process the difficult and uncomfortable emotions they will experience.
4. Your parent resorted to ‘toxic positivity’
On the other hand, Stephanie said these parents may have also responded to your emotional distress as a child by trying to downplay your experience, forcing a positive mindset that essentially invalidated your needs.
While it’s important to teach kids to be grateful, it’s equally important to teach them how to process and embrace the inevitable negative emotions that will come up rather than trying to force them away altogether.
All this toxic positivity does is inhibit the child from understanding and accepting the complexities of their emotions. It teaches them to feel ashamed of themselves if they ever experience anxiety or stress.
The therapist acknowledged the issue with the frequency and intensity of a parent’s misattunement.
She affirmed that it’s natural for people to misattune on occasion, as we’re only human and are all gradually learning how to understand and navigate our emotions. Too much misattunement, however, can cause kids to grow up feeling heavily confused and dysregulated.
“If the parent is hovering and consistently having these misattuned interactions with their child, but they’re having so many interactions with their child … it’s just so intense, it’s too much,” Stephanie explained. “And then, all the while, the child’s needs are going unseen.”
These individuals may not consciously distinguish this experience as having unmet emotional and developmental needs, especially if they had loving and present parents, but they feel the impact. If they ever do try to address the issue with their parents, the parents may continue to unknowingly invalidate or downplay the experience by arguing that they were always present.
The bottom line is, regardless of the level of a parent’s involvement, if they aren’t able to respond effectively to their child’s emotional distress by embracing it as a natural experience and teaching them healthy coping mechanisms, these kids will inevitably become chronically invalidated and emotionally wounded, and it will take some time for them to unlearn these patterns.
Francesca Duarte is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team based in Orlando, FL. She covers lifestyle, human-interest, adventure, and spirituality topics.