DEAD POETS’ SOCIETY’s Neil Perry listens to his dad’s commandments about what clubs he will join and how they will affect his future.
Source: Touchstone Pictures
The critical/harsh parent position is not good for children. This type of parent has been providing Hollywood with wounded characters for over a hundred years. Who would Iron Man be without his demanding father backstory? Who would Liesl be if she didn’t have to sneak around behind Captain Von Trapp’s back to experience her first crush? What would have happened to Neil Perry’s character in Dead Poet’s Society if his father had listened for once? Unfortunately, in real life, you can’t leave the consequences of this sort of parenting at the movie theater door.
The critical/harsh parent position is typically identified by the parent’s rigid and rule-bound discipline along with a critical view of the child. The child’s weaknesses are treated as flaws and his strengths as a simple fulfillment of what was expected. The parenting posture is cold, lacks understanding and appreciation, and demands compliance. For example, in Iron Man, young Tony Stark’s feelings were not typically recognized as meaningful or worthy of attention. In Dead Poet’s Society, Neil Perry’s dad wants obedience and performance. In Sound of Music, any child not meeting expectations is an offense, resulting in severe consequences and a general lack of understanding and disregard.
The Psychological Consequences of Critical Parenting
Exposing young people to harshness, criticism, and coldness has serious psychological consequences. Affection is a key driver in most psychological operations. Children need parental affection to fuel self-liking, to facilitate risk-taking around developmentally appropriate tasks, and to restore the child’s confidence in the face of inevitable disappointment and failure. Positive regard from a parent is a kind of emotional armor, insulating the child from injury and insult, both at home and in the larger world. Without affection, the child will struggle, as she lacks the mature skills and abilities to provide for herself.
The Negative Impact of Critical/Harsh Parenting
Children respond to critical/harsh parenting in different ways.
It contributes to the development of a negative self-concept and a lack of confidence.
Children who are treated as unworthy often end up feeling unworthy. That negative self-concept can persist over time and prove resistant to change even in the face of positive feedback from others.
Reverend Moore yells at his daughter for questioning his authority.
Source: Paramount pictures
It encourages the development of manipulative behavior.
Many children in this environment focus on finding ways to meet their own needs, like Ariel Moore, Reverend Moore’s rebellious daughter. In a sense, the child is saying, “If my parent will not provide me with what I need, then I must get it for myself.” Becoming manipulative, or simply becoming proficient at getting what the child needs, can be an accommodation to a barren home life.
To continue our Hollywood examples, the Reverend Moores of the world (Footloose) typically view their children as unworthy or deficient. As a parent, if you believe this, you typically feel obligated to intervene and instruct far more than you should. The combination of this dysfunctional view and treatment of the child can lead to the development of manipulative behavior in the child (in the case of Footloose, a daughter who pretends to be perfect and sneaks around to do what she wants).
It contributes to the development of mean and controlling behavior.
Other children become mean and controlling, like Andrew Clark in The Breakfast Club, a bully who flies under the radar. They can be rebellious, oppositional, and preoccupied with exercising power over others.
It encourages emotional dysregulation and even aggressive behavior.
In THE BREAKFAST CLUB, athlete Andrew Clark, whose father pushes him to win at all costs, ends up in detention for physically bullying a weaker student in the locker room.
Source: Universal Pictures
Another type of child responds in a less socialized manner, being prone to emotional outbursts and/or becoming aggressive and even unlawful, without much concern for negative consequences.
In all cases, the child has managed the lack of affection in the home with an emotional deficit that encourages the development of less-than-healthy coping strategies. These strategies interfere with the development of healthy relationships. Critical and harsh treatment interferes with self-liking and, in the end, makes it difficult to be emotionally close to others.
The Legacy of Critical Harsh Parenting on Adult Children
Children and adults who are the product of a critical/harsh parent vary widely.
The risk to the development of satisfying relationships.
Adult children raised with criticism and harshness are not inclined toward intimacy and affection, and can see people as a means to an end. Their potential lack of empathy in interpersonal relationships interferes with the establishment of meaningful connections, denying them the connection they have always needed.
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The danger of manipulative behavior that persists over time.
Some children grow up to be adults who harness their well-developed skills of manipulation to succeed in business and in other professional endeavors, amassing great fortunes or power. Despite being disliked by employees and friends, such individuals are generally tolerated because of their influence, persuasiveness, and aggressive leadership. These tyrants are handled carefully by employees and underlings, since crossing them often leads to unpleasant confrontations and negative outcomes.
The potential for risk-taking and volatile or aggressive behavior.
Not every child of a harsh and critical parent grows up to be an adult who obtains a powerful position and bullies subordinates, but they nonetheless can show a propensity to take risks, making them prone to dangerous behavior, even white-collar crime. They can be known for establishing volatile, even aggressive, relationships with others.
Gordon Gecko from WALLSTREET wasn’t known for his generosity of spirit.
Source: Twentieth Century Fox
The likelihood of low self-esteem and a sense of being unworthy.
Another subset of adult children of the harsh/critical parent resorts to a more passive kind of adaptation, sliding into a settled position of unworthiness and general lack of self-regard while falling victim to depression and lack of productivity.
Undoing Critical Harsh Parenting
Luckily, with understanding, comes change. On the silver screen, the harsh dad learns to listen, the tough-as-nails mom changes her ways, and that broken family is mended. That this sort of parent is such a staple in American storytelling speaks to a need in all of us: be better than we are, learn from our mistakes, grow healthier, and become more fulfilled.
Overcoming the influence of a difficult parent is not easy but possible. We can all change for the better. We can give what was not given to us. We can love in ways we were not loved.
A version of this post also appears on drmaryannlittle.com
