Its not normal for parents to say negative things to their child is it?

[lottieandmia]

I'm an only child. My mother has always been very critical of me although she would fiercely deny it. Now that I have three daughters of my own I couldn't ever imagine saying the things that she did to me, to them. As a parent I never say anything negative to my children about who they are or what they do.

Examples;

I was good at art. Not as good as my dd but good enough to have got an A at GCSE. My mum said I wasn't very good at it and it made me decide not to study it further. My dad was a graphic designer so it was normal that I should have been interested in it.

Always telling me other people were better than me at things.

At school I was in the choir and in competitions she would point at another school and say 'they were better'

In dance competitions she would say to me afterwards 'don't do X, Y or Z - it looks silly'

I ended up feeling that I would never amount to much. And my parents gave me no direction or support. Because of this I worry constantly that I don't give my children enough support or whether I should be doing more to encourage them. This is partly because I've had various mental health problems and one of my psychiatrists said that my problems are partly to do with lack of support/direction from my parents.

I always tell my children constantly how good they are at something or how well they did at it. I never, ever compare them to someone else. It just feels so wrong to me.

Is this something anyone else can identify with?

My mum thinks her dgc are deprived. She is always full off those poor children.

I remind her of the deprived life I had but I am supposed to be grateful to her for what I didnt have.

I feel as thoughy life is one huge missed opportunity.
I have had zero confidence all my life.

I dont believe in children being totally sheltered to the point of everything is constantly amazing (if so they will be in shock with the world once they get to secondary and above) however there is nothing so horrible as a truly unkind, jealous , unsupportive parent .

Nobody is suggesting sheltered children user.

Just not insulting their appearance, academic ability, physical ability, university, job, life aka everything about them

How many of these parents who criticise are total failures themselves?

Nope, Im definitely not pro insulting, I had extremely unsupportive parents, so know what thats like and you are very right, a lot of thes eparents who are like this often dont have that much going for themselves either!!

I may have worded it a bit badly!

Well done OP for seeing the light and not treating your DC's like this. Unfortunately this type of behaviour is handed down from generation to generation. It has to be stopped somewhere and it our generation has this responsibility.

I can only hope that you used all this criticism competitively to become a better person. Of course it is not a healthy to be raised and I can never imagine why a mother would do that, but I do think it is something a person deals with sooner or later. At the very, very, very least, you now know that your children should be supported, not criticised :)

No. Ive never managed to escape the feelings of inadequacy and am too scared to go for things in life.

I can relate. My DM had an extremely hard childhood and youth in vastly different circumstances to my own, which she has (sadly) never sought proper help for and has taken out on our family. She is fantastic in a lot of ways, but like PPs I suffer from depression and deep self-esteem and identity issues from her criticism. She reminds me of Lucille Bluth from Arrested Development when she's on a roll

So much of this thread resonates with me and I've toyed with joining the Stately Homes threads a few times...

I am aware that I have a constant inner voice that criticises out of habit- a learned behaviour from both my cold parents. As I get older I'm becoming even more determined/able to firmly stamp on any inappropriate attempt it makes to be heard.

DD is about to chose her options - I am opened mouthed at so many of her friends being 'told' what to chose or what their parents consider 'soft options'

There's a balance

I want DD to chose the things she enjoys or finds interesting - anything else will ale her miserable!! I will support her choices whatever she decide.

I suppose there's ways of keeping children happy - for example she not strong on PE - but that's OK - we can't be good at everything - but there are ways of dealing with it!

I think confidence will get them further than exam results - because they will be able to have a go - try new things and find their way..

My mother told me that I was very lucky abortion was an option whenI was pregnant with all of my beautiful children ( who of course she adores now and who of course have done so well, despite having me as mother...), because if she had had that option we wouldn't be here; she put me off going to RADA, where I had an audition, because I 'just wanted people to look at me'; she has spent my entire life putting me down and making me feel stupid, and even now when I am looking after her in her old age and she keeps telling e I am wonderful I just cannot get over it - there's the odd snide comment. It is awful and painful and horrible, and sadly, it seems, not uncommon!

And then we went to school and was left at the mercy of (some) teachers who confirmed parents assessments of our stupidity or some other put downs. Or coaches of the sports we chose, who would name call, on the premise that we would perform better. The of perpetrators of this kind of unkind put down remarks id endless.
DP's, GP's, Aunts, uncles, teachers coaches, DP's/DH's/DW's, society, culture, religion, politics, media, and today social media.
There are two documentaries on Netflix. The mask your in and Miss Responsibility that highlight this programming and conditioning of children and the damage it causes to their emotional health.

I don't understand how someone can treat their child badly just because their parent treated them badly. I suppose it is down to a lack of self awareness. My mother genuinely sees herself as some kind of perfect mother Theresa type figure

So does my mother lottie. She has no recollection of what a nasty cow she was.

My theory is they are worthless and inadequate themselves and dont know any other way to deal with it then put their own children down.

Sadly I think that's true. But when you're a child it feels so personal doesn't it?

She tries to put my girls down as well (not usually to their faces) but I always tell her she's talking rubbish.

Sadly, I think it happens quite a bit. But it's rubbish parenting.

Evidently it does. :-(

My mums a total fucking coward when it comes to anyone else though.

She has no back bone at all. She can only bully her children.

This thread is so sad. I had a very similar childhood to most of the posters in this thread and it's still painful even now, in my mid 40s. I just hope our own self-awareness means we are able to break the cycle for the next generation...

Just to throw a different perspective in - my mother was wonderful, but my dad was hyper critical and said some truly nasty things over the years. The impact was the same - problems with depression and mental health. I've come out the other side after extensive counselling. The worst was that he would try and damage my relationship with my mother. When I left my first marriage, which surprisingly was abusive too, he told me "as long as you know we are supporting him, not you' and promptly invited my exh to go and stay with them for a weekend.

My mother is exactly the same, the thing is she genuinely thinks that the things she says are out of love and because she wants us to do well, be happy, stay out of trouble and have nice happy lives. She would say that parents who never point out when their children do something less than admirable are not doing their children any favours. Well, yes, but you are supposed to say the odd positive thing and throw in some praise too!

As a result of her criticism and negativity, I moved as far away as possible for uni and didn't return home often. One sibling has ostensibly done very well in life but actually struggles horribly with depression and prescription drug dependency, and the other has no self esteem so she jumps from one dreadful cocklodging bloke (sometimes married!) to another. My mother would argue that this outcome is why she says the things she says, so that we wouldn't end up like this, but we have done anyway as we didn't listen to her .

It's recently occurred to me that her own parents must have been less than ideal, going by a few things she's said. It's funny as I only remember my Grandmother as a warm loving granny, but I now suspect she wasn't the woman I remember from being a small child. My mother has had no model for how to speak to her children - the only positive things I've heard out of her mouth in years are odd comments she makes that I am a lot more patient with my kids than she ever was, and I'm obviously more cut out for motherhood (it's said with a martyr tone though, and I'm supposed to say don't be daft back). She has always said in front of us that she loves us, but if she did things over again she wouldn't have kids. I had grasped that long before she said it though!

Dragonbait

I think the best compliment I've ever recently had from my mother is 'one thing I will say for you is you're good at choosing decent places to go on holiday' wow thanks

Roomba - I fit the cocklodger after cocklodger model! Sadly my father is no better in fact he's worse. He doesn't like me and has never pretended to and is extremely cold.

I think it totally fell on deaf ears when I said it to my mum.

This made me feel uncomfortable when I saw the trailer in the cinema.