No one has perfect parents. We’re all a product of our upbringings—and those who faced childhood trauma tend to unknowingly carry forward those same behaviors to their own kids. But what if a bit more reflection and awareness could stop the cycle of emotional damage? Childhood trauma therapist Morgan Pommells shared a number of things she wishes parents would stop doing, including ones you may not have thought twice about.
The first three items on the list? Yelling at your kids as soon as you get home from work, giving the silent treatment to the whole family when you’re upset, and waking up your children with aggression.
“Your children are not receptacles for your unresolved and unmanaged emotions,” she wrote. “When you rely on your children to manage your emotions, you put an undue and unfair burden on them. In my practice, I often see this lead to deep feelings of anxiety, guilt, and shame.”
The fourth, fifth, and sixth things she’s asking parents to stop doing are favoring one sibling over another, especially boys over girls; saying “I guess I’m a bad parent” when your child expresses hurt; and refusing to apologize.
These are all signs of lacking emotional intelligence—the inability to handle the big feelings that occur in daily life. “Children don’t need perfect parenting—they just need *safe* parenting. This means parents must regulate their own emotions,” she wrote.
The seventh, eighth, and ninth things she is asking parents to stop doing is expecting everyone to walk on eggshells when they’re in a bad mood, not protecting their children from the other parent when they did something legitimately wrong or harmful, and depending on their kids for emotional support in the way you would a partner.
“Parents must regulate their emotions and not look to their children as the ones responsible for their own well-being,” Pommells explained.
Next on her list of things she wants parents to stop doing is treating their children unfairly because “the world isn’t fair,” seeing their children as extensions of themselves, and believing their children should be grateful for being given a home and food to eat.
Children are individuals, and human in their own right, and parents shouldn’t burden them with the expectations, guilt, and trauma they are dealing with in their adult lives.
She follows with wanting parents to stop using the argument that “they need to learn” as a way to justify rage, weaponizing the other parent against the child, and using shame to manipulate their children into doing what they want the child to do.
“Your children’s future self-perception needs to be important to you. Your children’s ability to connect with people in adulthood needs to be important to you,” Pommells wrote.
Last on her list of things is using sacrifice to guilt (“I give you everything, and this is how you act in return?”), reminding their child that their primary allegiance is to the other parent and they will never take that child’s side, and labeling their child as “dramatic” when they have a legitimate reason to be upset.
“What if instead of hard and rigid rules, we learned to meet our kids where they needed us the most and held space for all the blunders and emotions and mistakes they will make?” Pommells asks.
She even has a holiday edition of her list, which includes other things parents do that can have lingering effects, and honestly, you might be surprised at one or two (it’s the holidays with family, after all).
From the comments sections, it’s clear that many of the actions she’s highlighted have had long-lasting repercussions.
“The silent treatment did so much damage for me 😢 I perceive lapses in communication as punishment even when it has nothing to do with me – which is MY responsibility to fix but lawd it’s hard,” one commenter wrote.
Another added, “When I was a kid my mom told me she always wanted a boy and not a girl. Then said it doesn’t really matter as long as baby was healthy, but that first part was telling and has always stuck with me. I once had a small disagreement with her too and her sister, my aunt, sighed and said ‘I’m so glad I only had boys.’ My brother was far and away the Golden Child, even got more food, more lunch money, more expensive xmas gifts.”
As Pommells states in her posts, parenting doesn’t come with a guidebook or instructions. “To be clear: I firmly believe that 99.9% of parents are doing the absolute best they can,” she wrote. “Most of these mistakes are made at a subconscious level. But that doesn’t mean they are without consequences or that we shouldn’t strive for better.”
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