How to Find out If Your Parents were Overly Critical

Much of the way you think, feel and react today is due to your early experiences with your parents. The attachment bond you have formed with them and the upbringing style you grew up with has had a big impact on your personality. Furthermore, it may not have been very positive. If, for example, your parents were overly critical, you now probably suffer from certain limitations and wounds that are difficult to heal.

In fact , living in a debilitating environment that focuses on failure and does not provide encouragement, reassurance, and love is harmful to your self-esteem . Even if you are now a self-care adult, there may be certain attitudes, thought patterns and strong feelings that are triggered when you least expect it. These can cause you pain and difficulty.

The first step towards getting rid of them lies in identifying whether your parents were overly critical. We will explain some of the most notable signs.

Signs that your parents were overly critical

In your childhood and adolescence, it is very likely that, despite being a minor, you realized that your parents were not as flexible, tolerant and encouraging as you would have liked to see.

However, it is common for many people to undermine or normalize this kind of parental attitudes of loyalty to those who gave them life. If today, as an adult, you want to revisit the memories of your childhood, here are some signs that your parents were overly critical.

They did not encourage your independence

When a child is raised in a respectful and child-centered manner, the main goal is to promote the child's independence. To do this, the parents offer the child various opportunities to practice his tasks and skills.

On the other hand, extremely critical parents do not have the necessary patience and tolerance for this. Therefore, they prefer to do everything themselves instead of helping their child learn it.

As a child, you tried e.g. to make your bed, but when you did it slowly or didn't achieve the same results as your parents, they insisted on taking over. Or maybe they told you: "You just can't do anything right".

They always focused on the negative aspects

One of the keys to building a child's self-esteem is for parents to be sensitive and receptive to the child's achievements, efforts and progress. They should actually appreciate and celebrate them and give them recognition.

But when parents are overly critical, they tend to focus on failures or on what can be improved. Or they simply downplay any success. Nothing is ever enough for them.

Their emotional reactions were intense

All children make mistakes, make trouble, get dirty and destroy things. It is because they are learning. Adults are expected to understand this reality and to be flexible and empathetic. Also, they should be able to teach their child something of value in the situation instead of losing control.

If your parents were really critical of you, they may have overreacted emotionally to these small age-related mistakes . Therefore, a broken vase or spilled milk was reason enough to shout, threaten or make you feel excessively guilty.

Your parents were overly critical: They often compared you

They compared you to your siblings, cousins, friends or schoolmates. Perhaps they highlighted their excellent grades in school or their best personal qualities or sporting abilities.

Either way, you always lose in the comparison . Therefore, you ended up feeling that you did not live up to their expectations.

They offered conditional love

If your parents were overly critical, they probably used affection, attention, and recognition as bargaining chips. They offered them to you only when you were obedient, well-behaved and exemplary. But they withdrew them if you expressed anger, disgust or sadness, or if you were annoying to them in any way.

How you feel today if your parents were overly critical

In addition to analyzing your parents' attitudes and behavior, there is another surefire indicator of whether you were raised in an overly critical environment. It is the way you feel, think and react today. The way you were treated in your childhood leaves certain effects that are still visible in adulthood . Among the most common are:

1. You tend to be accommodating and seek to please others, even at the expense of your own needs and desires. This is because you have learned that devotion was conditional. Therefore, you are afraid of losing it if you do not comply with what others expect of you.
2. You find it difficult to take risks, try new challenges or take initiative. In fact, you become paralyzed by your fear of failure and of not being good. This means that you tend to miss out on opportunities that are interesting to you.
3. You are very sensitive to criticism. You may interpret neutral comments as an attack on you or as morally damaging. In fact, you tend to take any observation extremely personally. Your tendency to be defensive is because you grew up in an environment that demanded it. You are also at a greater risk of suffering from social phobia.
4. You have low self-confidence. You generally feel weak, inept and unworthy to cope with your daily challenges. In addition, you are likely to be indecisive and full of doubts. Furthermore, you find it difficult to choose and solve tasks if you don't do it right.

Multiple effects

• You tend to be excessively apologetic, even when a problem is not your responsibility. You are also extremely sensitive to changes in others. If you notice someone acting cold or different, you assume it's because of a mistake you've made and you apologize.
• You have difficulty accepting compliments and acts of affection because you are not used to them. You may even feel that you don't deserve them. This means that you tend to look for a way to divert these positive attitudes towards you. If someone e.g. compliments your shirt, you insist that it is old or that the color does not suit you.
• You are a self-blaming person and are really critical of yourself. In fact, your inner dialogue is constantly negatively judging everything you do and say. As such, you are unable to treat yourself with self-compassion.
• You are a perfectionist and fear making mistakes. For this reason, it may take you too long to complete any task. You may even put it off because of the excessive pressure you feel.

Time to heal your past

As you can see, the damage done to your self-esteem, confidence and emotional management is significant. However, it does not have to be permanent. It is possible to unlearn what you have learned and acquire new, more functional ways of interpreting situations and acting.

To do this, you must learn to be flexible and tolerant of yourself. Start encouraging yourself like a best friend would. Take on challenges, even if you risk being wrong.

If your wounds are deep and this kind of reaction is extremely significant in you, do not hesitate to seek professional help. It will help you integrate your experiences. In addition, you will learn to give yourself the unconditional love, security and support that you feel you have always lacked.