Adults who are raised with overly critical or judgmental parents often struggle with decision making. What is that relationship between a critical childhood environment and adult difficulties? And what to do to change?
Critical Environment
Megan was raised with a mother who criticized everything that she did from what she ate, the clothes she wore and the friends that she made. Whenever Megan ate a dessert her mother would say, “You are going to get fat and then no one will want you.” As a teenager, Megan had weight issues and began purging to try to lower her weight. As an adult, she had many symptoms of depression, struggled to make the most basic decisions from what clothes to wear to the major decisions of where to live. After her relationship with her two children’s father ended she was nearly paralyzed as to what she was going to do. She had allowed her husband to make the decisions and found that she was very critical of those decisions.
Not a One Size Fits All
When we put fuel into our cars, that causes our cars to run baring any other issues. Humans, because of this wonderful 3 lb organ between our ears, are far more complex. Not every child who is raised in a critical or judgmental home are going to struggle with decision making as adults. So we cannot say that critical parenting causes issues with decisions for all people. However we can understand who does and doesn’t struggle as adults.
Childhood is the proving ground so to speak. What we hear from our caregivers along with our personalities guide that path into adulthood. Some kids don’t seem to hear the critical parent and act and do as they please. The children who are trying to be obedient or more sensitive are affected by the critical parent.
Meaning Making Machines
Whatever experiences that we have in life are filtered through our brain and we make meanings of those experiences. Let’s look at a very simple example. This morning I woke up and it was 48 degrees. What thought about that temperature would you have? Would you be like me and think, “Oh I love fall and the cooler morning temperatures” or would you think, “dang that’s chilly”? Or something completely different? Due to your own preferences, you will interpret the temperature.
I live where summer temperatures get well over a 100 and fall in my way of thinking is a pleasant respite from the really high temperatures. My dad, who is in his 80’s, sees the temperature as a precursor of cold and pain in his joints. So depending upon the thoughts that we have or the meaning that we make, we will each interpret our experiences both big and small differently.
Age and Development
If an adult encounters their very first negative critically person, it isn’t likely to be as impactful as it would if the first occurs at 4 to 6 years of age. Ages and stages as described by Jean Piaget help us to understand why children are much more malleable at different ages then the fully developed adult brain.
Stage 1 – Sensorimotor (birth to 2 years)
Babies at this stage build an understanding of the world through their senses. They develop object permanence (that the object still exists if the child cannot see it). As we learn more about how traumatic events affect brain growth, there are emerging therapies that work on sensorimotor activities especially in children.
Stage 2 – Preoperational ( 2 to 7 years)
This is a very busy few years. Children learn to speak and read. At this point that begin to mimic the adults around them through symbolic play. They can recall and explain events through verbal expression as well as pictorial.
The hallmark of this stage is egocentrisim which means that the child interprets the events around them as though they are at the center and often seem themselves as the cause. A 6 year old may say that her being bad at school is why her parents are divorcing.
Stage 3 – Concrete (7 to 11 years)
This is the beginning of logical thinking. They learn concrete rules about objects such as balls fall down stairs and not fall up stairs. They also understand that objects don’t change shape but remain the same in appearance. They are able to categorize things such as glass things can be broken whereas rubber things bounce.
Reasoning at this stage is inductive. Abstract ideas are not the norm for this age group. For example, if a child has a friend who is rude, and their other friend is also rude and a third friend who can be rude at times, then they reason that friends are rude. If one thing is true and another thing is true then all related things follow that pattern.
Stage 4 – Formal Operation ( 12 and beyond)
At this stage, the child is able to process abstract ideas. It is at this time they can then begin to make meaning out of abstract words such as justice, respect and begin to see the exceptions in the concrete rules that they once held. Using the above example, children in this stage can reevaluate that friends are rude to some, people can be rude but not all people are so. Then they can decide to be friends with people who are generally aren’t rude.
Criticisms and Stages
Let’s look at the stages and how constant criticism may be interpreted. Remember that interpretations are based on the individual. What I am describing here are patterns. If a child is one who interprets along the lines of it doesn’t matter to me or the parent is bad, then that is going to create different patterns. What I am discussing here are the children who actively try to be obedient, tend to want approval and/or pleasing to the parent.
For those children who will be more affected by criticism, the ages at which they are exposed to criticism may present differently. A young child who is in the first stage who is criticized often may become very anxious or clingy.
The egocentric stage seems to be very foundational in pattern development. The children in this stage blames themselves for the criticisms of the parent and think that they are to blame for every criticism. The patterns begun in the egocentric stage then are solidified and justified in the concrete stage. The patterns for these children may be:
- Clingy and anxious – They will constantly seek the approval of the critical parent and may even try to anticipate the criticism and attempt to fix the issue. The constant seeking approval is a means to try to figure out what is wrong with them. Unfortunately this often gets more criticism along the lines of “why can’t you think for yourself?”
- Shut down – This is dissociation in that the child when criticized which means that the child goes inward. They shut down outer awareness and become inwardly focused. This coping strategy will often persist into adulthood creating a host of issues when it comes to addressing problems. It is difficult to be aware of an emotional state, the thinking that prompted the state when the first sign on a negative emotion and the person shuts down.
- Become passive – This is much like the dissociated child except that the child is aware of what is going on and what is being said. The interpretation is along the lines that the child believes that they are so broken that there is no hope. They may try to meet the demands of the critical caregiver at times. They may just continue to do the behaviors that are heavily criticized because they think that there is no way to change as there is something fundamentally broken within themselves. This can present as a host of depressive symptoms and teens may use self harm.
- Anger – This is more common with the children who interpret the parent as being wrong. The outwardly angry child is likely interpreting the parent as “bad” vs themselves. The inwardly angry child is more likely the obedient style. These children become angry with themselves. The outward angry child may see the criticism as unfair since there is not much the child can do to stop the angry parent. For the pleasing child if they do get angry at the parent, they often feel guilt and shame over being angry with them. They are more often angry with themselves for not being able to do “anything right.”
- Manipulation – This may begin in the egocentric stage and then become more developed into the concrete stage. To understand how manipulation develops, read Marsha Linehan’s work. She does a wonderful job at describing how a child in an invalidating environment may come to disbelieve their own interpretations and emotional states and seek from others what they are supposed to feel. However that is an uncertain situation so then these children begin to manipulate others to try to reduce their own discomfort and to get the wanted attention and love.
- Combination – Depending upon the nature of the overly critical parent, the presence of other forms of abuse or neglect, several patterns may develop. In one child they may begin clingy and anxious, come to see that the criticism doesn’t stop, interpret themselves as broken and then become passive and that passivity is then diagnosed as depression.
Interpretations
So what does this all have to do with decision making struggles? For the remainder of this article, I’m going to focus on the interpretations that the children make that often lead to difficulty in decision making as adults.
First and Foremost
First and foremost, how our patterns develop is based on interpretations. In other words it is our thinking that drives our emotions. To learn more about this, check out my series on 3 Minute Psychology here. I won’t belabor the point here, but in essence the way that we feel emotionally is primarily (for healthy brains not afflicted with traumatic brain injury or other ailments such as schizophrenia) the result of our thinking. This can be thinking in the moment as well as the patterns that we have developed over time.
Decision Making and the Obedient Child
The children who try to make the critical parent proud of them or at least no to be disappointed in them, will more often end up the adult who struggles to make decisions.
How criticism is supposed to work is as a molding of behavior. A child does something such as jump off the back of the couch while pretending to be superman, we will criticize the child out of safety concerns. The parent is attempting to get the child through childhood without ER visits or worse.
When there is an overly critical parent, criticism is less about molding behavior then an inner issue with the parent. The issues that create the critical parent is the topic of another time. For now, I want to focus on the interpretations of the child. But these parents, it is less about parenting and molding and more about something going wrong with the parent. I’m also not talking about the parent who on occasion yells at a child out of frustration. This is someone that no matter what the child does, criticizes the child.
The first example that comes to mind to describe what I mean is Rob. He was raised by a Vietnam Vet with PTSD and drug addiction and then later another stepfather cut from the same cloth. Their favorite statements to young Rob were along the lines of, “Do I need to draw it out in crayon for you dumb #$$^%^^&##?” His biggest fear was to disappoint the male figures in his life.
Or Laney who was raised by a mother that criticized everything that she did especially around food. Food becomes a source of comfort and then a source of criticism. Her mother pushed her very hard in school and wouldn’t let her do things with friends and insisted that she do well in school. A low grade was a B and she was punished. When she graduated from college, her mother was upset that she was going to have a party with other graduates because there was going to be cake.
In both examples, Rob and Laney as children, wanted very much to get their parent’s approval. Both describe being so anxious as children and fearful about the things that he parents criticized the most. Each became hopeless or passive in their abilities to please the critical parent and reported depressive symptoms that persisted into adulthood. And both struggle with decision making.
They begin to doubt their own abilities to make good decisions and seek the parent’s approval. The degree that they struggle may be related to the degree and nature of the criticism.
Irony of the Human Thinking
This is a term that I use to describe a seemingly counter phenomenon. The thing that we are most afraid of is the thing that we tend to bring into fruition. The child that is afraid of being criticized for eating too much then tends to have issues with being overweight for example. The criticism is interpreted that the child must do better to please mom or dad and they feel anxious. To feel better they then seek a coping strategy which for children is often food.
A cycle is born: The child is criticized for something, they feel anxious and bad and want to feel better so they eat. We never crave carrot sticks so they head for the chips, cookies, etc. Often the child has to sneak the food. When they are caught, then they are criticized more.
Or in Rob’s case, he is doing something that his father wanted him to do, but he is thinking about not screwing up and is so afraid that he will mess something up. Sadly when the flight system is engaged, blood flow to the brain is reduced andour body is prepared to run not do a complicated task. Therefore he is nearly guarantied to mess up. Then when he does, he was yelled at and called all sorts of names.
No Magic in Adulthood
Once we grow up with these patterns and interpretations of our own abilities, that doesn’t change with our 18th birthday. Instead these patterns are repeated throughout adulthood with different people. As adults, the caregiver is now replaced by partners who may or may not be critical.
Megan from the beginning of the article found that she would defer to her husband to make decisions. She would go to him for everything from what clothes to buy the kids, what to make for the family dinners to what to do at work. He encouraged her to try for herself and eventually her seeming inability to make decisions he decided he no longer wanted to remain in a relationship. She said that he was mostly frustrated with her vacillating and then when he finally made a decision, she was critical of it and often asked him to reconsider.
When asked she would say she wanted to be sure that she/they were making the right decision. She would ask her mom and then take the point back to her husband who would get frustrated with what he saw was the mother-in-law’s meddling. Her interpretation as a child was that if she could just get it right, then her mother would finally be happy with her. As an adult she said often said that she “had to be sure” and her uncertainty over getting it wrong (anxiety symptoms) she saw as maybe making a mistake. Then she second guessed herself or others in their decision making. She often went to her mother who was as critical of the adult Megan as the child Megan.
Changing these childhood patterns
First step is to identify the patterns and the interpretations made that are driving the difficulties now. Is it an anxiety thought such as “what if I get this wrong?” Maybe it is a passive/depressive thought such as “I’m going to blow it no matter what anyway.” Perhaps guilt/shame thinking along the lines of “if I get this wrong, I’m going to let someone down again.”
Next step is to dispute those patterns of thinking. For example, someone who believes that they always make bad decisions, can examine that statement and see if it true. 100% of every decision bad? Probably not. The one time that a person decides to eat a healthy option over fast food has made a “good decision”. Very often, we don’t see all the decisions made every single day that are “good”. People often get their kids to school, dressed, fed and homework sent, themselves to work, complete work tasks, etc. They don’t see these as decisions. Yet every action where there is a choice even if the choice is between things we don’t like, is still a decision. We can decide to ignore our alarm clock but most of don’t or at least not to the point of missing work.
These seemingly mundane good decisions are minimized. In other words, we may not see all the “good” decisions that we make everyday and then deem them as “not very important.” Ask yourself if you are minimizing. In these cases, the ability to make decisions is there, the issue isn’t ability but confidence. When one sees that they are making good decisions every single day then that is building confidence.
The next step is to realize that there really isn’t such a thing as the “perfect” decision and few decisions are really set in stone. “A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking,” Martin Fisher. Another way to think of decision making is that we know what we know at this moment. Based on the knowledge of this moment, we make the best choices that we can. We can change those choices if new material becomes available. There are arguably some decisions that result in permanent results but for the most part the majority of decisions that we make can changed.
Want to Learn More?
In the system of Rational Living Therapy, we examine these thought patterns and actively work on disproving the thought and creating a new replacement. Then practice making decisions, dealing with the discomfort and evaluating the outcome. If you would like to learn more, please look at other articles or my website at Rational Lifestyle Consulting.
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