Feel like you might mess up your kids because you haven’t improved or healed your own stuff yet?
Is it possible to raise kids to be less dysfunctional than we are? I certainly hope so!
I’ve never been a parent. I’ve been a stepdad, but only when I entered my partner’s life when her child was already a young teen. His other father was in the picture, so I never really learned what it was like to be a parent from the ground up.
What I have done is study relationships for most of my life. I’ve spent years understanding how people connect, how they hurt each other, and how they heal. I know relationships well enough to maybe help you relate to your children, whether they’re young or already grown.
Everything I’m about to share comes with a massive disclaimer: I have never raised a child from birth.
With that in mind, feel free to throw all of the following out the window if you want. But I’m going to share it anyway because I believe my understanding of relationships, at their core, can help guide you even in the most complex family dynamics.
Even when these suggestions are good, they still may not be perfect for your situation. There’s often so much background and history in a family that can build up and become incredibly complex. Sometimes, even the best parental advice will lead someone in a direction that doesn’t work or fails miserably.
But here’s what I know. If you’re asking how not to screw up your kids, you’re already ahead of many parents out there. You’re self-aware. You’re looking at your own behaviors and wondering if they’re helping or hurting.
That awareness alone puts you in a better position than those who refuse to see that anything they’re doing might be wrong, hurtful, or dysfunctional.
Eight Principles That Might Help
What follows are eight relationship principles that apply to parenting. Some might resonate with you. Others might not fit your situation at all. Take what works and leave the rest.
1. Your self-awareness makes a difference
When we become self-aware, our goal is to improve ourselves. We recognize our faults, dysfunctions, problems, and toxic behaviors. That awareness is our opportunity to grow. And your kids will learn from that growth, even if you never sit them down and announce that you’re working on yourself.
They’ll notice the course corrections. They’ll see that you used to yell when they were late getting up, and now you don’t. Those changes get absorbed into their mental and emotional state.
Children are observant and reactive. They’re trying to figure out how to behave in a brand-new world, and if we aren’t there to guide them or serve as a role model, that becomes the challenge they face.
2. Understand that what you do in challenging situations shapes who they become
What you do in challenging situations is either what your children will do or won’t do. This isn’t set in stone, but it’s a pattern worth understanding.
I’ll use my own parents as an example. What my mom did in challenging situations, usually with my stepfather, is what I chose to do. What my stepfather did is what I chose not to do – with a vengeance, actually.
He drank himself into oblivion every night. That made me want nothing to do with drugs or alcohol after witnessing that.
That sounds like healthy behavior, right? But I pushed those behaviors to the extreme and became judgmental and critical of those who drank or smoked. I became highly judgmental, which turned into one of my dysfunctions and emotionally abusive behaviors in my earlier relationships.
Our parents, when they do something dysfunctional or harmful, create a fork in the road for us. We either follow their path or go in the extreme opposite direction. I’ve witnessed this pattern throughout my life, in my siblings, in people I’ve known. They either follow the behaviors of one parent or resist and swing hard the other way.
The more you believe that who you are will influence who your child becomes, the better you’ll understand the weight of your own actions. They could see you as a role model or as someone they never want to become. But either way, they’re watching.
3. Model the boundaries and self-respect you want them to have
If you want your children to have strong boundaries, you need to model what that looks like. If you want them to stand up for themselves when someone is being disrespectful, they need to see you do it.
This doesn’t mean picking fights or being violent. It means sometimes you have to stand up for yourself. Sometimes you need the courage to say what’s on your mind so that somebody doesn’t hurt you, disrespect you, or put you in a bad position.
If your child sees you back down every time someone is disrespectful, they’ll learn to do the same. If they see you accept being treated poorly, that becomes their template for how relationships work.
It’s tough because if we want our children to grow up with values, self-respect, and worth, we kind of have to have it in ourselves. Or at least show it. If we show the world how we want to be treated, that’s what our children will hopefully take away.
Work on your boundaries. Work on dealing with challenges. Work on being okay expressing your truth. Work on feeling the fear and doing it anyway. This is what your children need to see.
What you do when they’re looking matters more than what you tell them to do. It’s like the philosophical perspective of who you are when no one’s looking.
If we flip that around and apply it to children, it might become: What do you do when your children are looking?
4. Support the direction they’re taking, not the direction you want them to take
If you support the path they want to take, they’ll find their way. If you decide they should stop playing with crayons and push them into becoming a doctor when they’re clearly not interested, you might get rebellious behavior.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t have conversations about good career paths or suggest things that might interest them. But if they seem to be going in a certain direction and you keep trying to push them another way, you’re setting up a conflict.
My wife experienced this with her father. Every time he said she should do something, she wanted to do the opposite. She became rebellious because he kept pushing her in the direction he wanted her to go, not the direction she wanted to explore.
Even when she went in her own direction, he didn’t necessarily support her. He might say things that made her feel like she was going to fail. Those words rolled around in her head for years, creating an internal struggle. She had to fight against his voice in her mind telling her she wouldn’t succeed.
It wasn’t until she realized he didn’t know what he was talking about and that she was going to pursue her path anyway that she finally let it go and could move forward.
When you support someone’s path to happiness, at least what they believe will make them happy, that’s how you show love. I apply that to children, too. It’s a healthier approach than forcing them down a road they don’t want to travel.
5. Create a non-judgmental space where they can share their challenges and mistakes
One of the most important things you can do is give your children a safe place to share their challenges and mistakes. This builds trust and lets them know they’re not alone.
When they come to you and say they did something wrong, or they’re afraid you’re going to be mad, your response matters. Don’t immediately react with anger or disappointment. Instead, say something like, “Go ahead and share. Tell me what’s going on.”
Many of us have gone to someone, admitted a mistake, and had them get angry and yell at us. We already felt bad. We already knew we messed up. And their anger just made it worse. How often do you feel like going back to that person and sharing something else?
That’s how kids think, too. If every time they tell you the truth, you get angry, they’ll learn to lie. They’ll learn it’s better to hold things in than to face your reaction.
Kids are going to do things they shouldn’t lie about, things you should know about. When I was four, I took a lighter and tried to make a poster look like an old scroll by burning the edges. Before I knew it, the thing was on fire. I shut the bathroom door and pretended nothing was wrong.
My mom smelled the smoke, opened the door, and put it out. I don’t remember if I got punished, but I remember feeling terrible. I remember thinking it was better to hide my mistake than admit it. I didn’t want to get in trouble!
In that case, of course, it wasn’t smart of me to hide something I had lit on fire. That’s why I fully endorse giving a child a safe space to communicate. If they know they’ll face extreme anger every time they tell you something you don’t want to hear, they’ll stop telling you things.
The safer they feel telling you something, the more likely they’ll actually tell you. They may still hide things, but you’re increasing the odds that they’ll come to you when it matters.
There’s another benefit to this. If anybody ever does something to them and tells them not to tell you, you want them to feel safe enough to tell you anyway. I’m talking about dangerous situations, including child sexual abuse.
When a child is in a dangerous situation, that person is going to tell them not to tell anyone. They might even threaten them or tell them they’ll hurt their family if they say anything.
If you’ve built an open, honest, transparent line of communication with your child, they’re more likely to come to you even when they’ve been told not to.
If I had a child, I would probably tell them something like, “If anybody ever tells you to keep a secret from me, they are a dangerous person, even if they’re acting nice. Because if they tell you to keep secrets from your mommy or daddy, they can’t be trusted.”
6. Enter their world before trying to lead them out of it
When your child is struggling with something, enter their world before you try to fix it. This is about empathy. It’s about being in the same space with them so they don’t feel alone.
If your child has a math problem and they’re frustrated and angry, saying “I can’t do this,” don’t immediately jump to “Yes, you can.” That’s supportive, sure, but it doesn’t acknowledge where they are right now.
Instead, try something like, “I can understand why this is making you angry. It’s making me angry, too, just looking at it. I can’t believe they give you these hard problems.”
You’re entering their reality. You’re getting into the same space they’re in. They don’t feel isolated, like they’re the only one who can’t figure it out.
The next step is to lead them to a better reality. “I can’t believe they make these math problems so hard. So let’s figure it out.” You’re connecting with them where they are, then guiding them to a place that’s healthier and more resourceful.
This works for more than just homework. If your teenage child comes home saying someone dumped them, you could say, “Wow, that sounds really frustrating. If that happened to me, I would feel the same way.” Suddenly, they’re not alone. They feel understood.
When you understand them instead of immediately telling them what to do, you create space for real connection. Most kids, especially as they get older, believe they know everything. They have this false sense of understanding the world. They think they know exactly how to handle situations, but they often don’t because they haven’t yet gained enough life experience.
When you enter their world and then lead them out, you’re helping them arrive at better conclusions without forcing those conclusions on them.
My suggestion is never to say “don’t cry” or “don’t be mad.” Just ask questions instead:
“Why are you crying?” “Why are you mad?”
Or if you know why they’re upset, and you don’t think they should be, still enter their world. “I’d be mad too if I were you.”
This allows them to express their emotions instead of repressing them. Repressed emotions can lead to dysfunction later in life. When you tell a child not to cry or not to be mad, you’re opening the door for them to stuff down those emotions.
When you ask questions, you’re giving them space to process what they’re feeling. You’re showing them that their emotions are valid, even if the situation doesn’t seem like a big deal to you.
7. Never talk badly about the people your child loves, even when those people talk badly about you
Kids are smart. If your ex is talking badly about you to them, they’ll figure it out eventually. Kids connect the dots eventually. They’ll wonder why the person who has nothing bad to say is always being blamed, put down, or made to look like the bad guy.
My wife dealt with this. Her son would come back from his dad’s house and repeat all kinds of bad things his dad said about her. She never said anything bad about his dad because she wanted her son to have a good relationship with him.
It took several years, but her son eventually figured it out. He realized he always heard bad stuff from Dad but never heard bad stuff from Mom. As he got older and spent more time with his dad, he started experiencing the same difficulties his mom had experienced. He figured out on his own why they got divorced.
Some kids will be manipulated into thinking the good parent is actually the bad parent. That does happen. But when the child comes back repeating what the other parent said, don’t say “that’s not true” or “they’re lying.”
The manipulative parent has usually prepared the child for this. They’ve said something like, “Your mom is going to tell you I’m lying.” So when you defend yourself, the child thinks, “Oh, that’s exactly what I was told would happen. Dad was right.”
Instead, ask questions like:
Do you think that’s true?
Do you think that’s what I did?
What do you believe is the truth here, when you really think things through?
This forces them to go into their own head instead of staying in the manipulated state. They’ll start connecting with their own thoughts, emotions, and feelings toward you.
Trust that children are brilliant and they’ll figure it out. Help them reach the conclusion you know is true without pushing them to it.
8. Teach through accountability, not punishment
Teach a child through accountability, and they’ll learn what they have to lose.
Teach them through punishment, and they’ll learn your breaking point, and may even push you further each time.
If a child thinks they’re going to lose something, they’re more likely not going to want to do that thing again. But if all they’re learning is what your breaking point is, they’re learning how far they can push you.
Punishment is different for everyone. It could be yelling at them or physically hurting them. I’m not a proponent of corporal punishment, though it happened to me a couple of times as a child. When my dad was made, that’s how he taught me a lesson. Though I think I got over it when I was about 40, so I guess I’m okay now.
There’s also the type of punishment where a parent gets really emotionally upset. That kind of upset isn’t the child losing something, like what accountability does. It might put them in fear, but it’s not the same as accountability.
When I saw my mom or dad get upset about something I did, was it enough for me to change my ways? Sometimes. Seeing them upset felt like a loss to me. I felt like I was losing their love, even though that wasn’t true.
That was accountability for me: Losing something I valued. But if a child doesn’t see a parent’s upset as a loss, it doesn’t do anything.
Accountability is about consequences. “You’re not going to have your phone for a month.” That’s a tangible loss. It’s not about you losing your temper or screaming at them.
If children learn that all they have to do is push your boundaries to the point where you lose it, they’ll keep pushing.
This is very similar to what happens in emotionally abusive adult relationships. The person causing harm learns the boundaries of the person they’re hurting and pushes them further and further. The person being hurt becomes more resilient, more tolerant, and, over the years, they end up in a cycle that never ends.
With children, show them there’s going to be a real loss. Not just your anger, but a consequence they can understand and feel.
The Reality of Parenting
Even when you do everything right, your children may still not turn out the way you want them to. Even when things are perfect, they’re going to have influences outside of you. The more influences they have outside of you, the less control you’ll have and the less likely they’ll follow the path you want.
All you can really do sometimes is always be there for them, no matter what happens. When they come crying to you, saying someone dumped them or hurt them, you can say, “I’m here for you. Tell me all about it.” But don’t say, “I told you they would do this!” That doesn’t help anyone.
Parenting is difficult. And I respect anyone who can raise children. I’m impressed by you! I definitely bow to your wisdom when it comes to parenting because I’ve never done it. But I do know relationships. And at the end of the day, the relationship you have with your child is built on the same foundations as any other relationship: Trust, respect, safety, and allowing them the freedom (well, some freedom, at least) to be themselves.
If you can give them all that, you’re already doing a great job.
