How The Inner Critic Is Created Through Parental Messages

During our most crucial developmental stages, our parents' messages help develop whom we become as adults. Ask yourself, did you receive constructive or destructive criticism? Were your ideas and feelings validated or invalidated? Did you feel seen and heard? Do you think about yourself in loving or unkind ways? Do you extend compassion to yourself as you do to others, or are you self-critical and judgmental? Asking these questions helps you think about how your early childhood experiences affect how you feel today and may provide answers about what gave birth to your inner critic.

Why This Is Important

Neuroscience studies discovered that when children are constantly taunted, criticized, or verbally abused, it changes the structure of the developing young brain. What is said or enacted by parents or the primary caregivers gets embedded in the subconscious mind, which grows into harsh self-judgment and criticism.

Parental Influence

Since parents and caregivers have the most influence over the lives of children, they are responsible for instilling healthy belief systems. Although early parental interactions help lay the foundation for how children formulate healthy or unhealthy self-beliefs, the blame rests not solely on parents' shoulders. Children's belief systems are also influenced by their teachers, church leaders, coaches, and other adults in roles of authority. Society, genetic disposition, and cultural factors influence how negative messages and beliefs are personalized or internalized.

Words Have Power

We've heard the famous adage, 'words have power.' Words can uplift and empower or be used as destructive weapons. Moreover, parents' intonation and body language can invoke connection, safety, fear, and disconnection. What parents say or do to children (both good and bad) is what they will inevitably say or think about themselves as adults.

Birthing The Inner Critic

Repeated messaging from authority figures and primary caretakers can take hold of the subconscious and activate an inner critic. Here is a lengthy list of messages clients have reported over the years that their parents have said or done to them.

• Tell your child that their birth was unwanted or a mistake.
• Tell your child they are stupid, incapable, or won't amount to anything.
• Don't believe your child/children when they tell you someone molested them.
• Slap or spit in your child's face.
• Call your child names or be overly critical and demeaning.
• Kick your child out of the house as a tween or teen for a minor infraction.
• Publically humiliate or embarrass your child.?
• Gossip about your child with friends or family.
• Prioritize or choose a romantic partner over your children.
• Condone or not intervene when an adult male (or female) physically attacks your child (kicking, punching, or fighting).?
• Chronic criticism about your child's body or eating habits.?
• Treat your child like your personal confidante; over sharing inappropriate or intimate details.?
• Make excuses; never apologize or own up to your mistakes.
• Frequently engage in negative talk about the absent parent.
• Make negative statements that your child resembles or acts like the absent parent.?
• Leave without notice; Abandon your child/children.?
• Pit one sibling against another or demonstrate extreme favoritism to one child over another.
• Put children down because of their physical features, hair texture, or skin tone.
• Openly express dissatisfaction with the child's assigned sex at birth.
• Frequently leave child/children home alone to party with friends.?
• Designate the older child as the primary caretaker for younger siblings (bathe, dress, feed, and walk siblings to school/bus).?
• Shut down your child from expressing emotional upset or disagreement.
• Mete out extreme punishments for minor infractions (including penalties that last for extended periods)?
• Feed your child/children candy, soda, or sweets incessantly.?
• Unavailable or too busy to attend school events or extracurricular activities.
• Beat/hit/whoop your child with sticks, belts, or cords (to punish, control, invoke tears/submission, or humiliate).
• Deny food/super/meals as punishment.
• Unconcerned with protecting children from foreseeable danger (allow them to hang in undesirable environments with questionable older teens or adults).?
• Steal from your child/children (including taking money from your child's savings, using the child's name or social security number for credit cards or bank loans, etc.)?
• Tell your child they are evil, demonic, or the 'Devil.'?
• Reject the child for being neurodivergent, queer, gay, or trans.?
• Force children to hug, kiss or sit on the lap of grown adults.??
• Teach your children to sacrifice their wants while prioritizing your emotional needs.?
• Make children feel guilty, 'mean,' or disrespectful to you because they set clear boundaries or make choices that don't include you (going off to college, choosing a different career path, wanting to get married, etc.).
• Severely punish, reject, or condemn the child for not excelling academically or receiving all A's in school.
• Shutting down or giving the 'silent' treatment when things don't go your way (including being called out for bad behavior, expressing an opposing opinion, etc.)
• Not provide nor attend to your child's routine medical, dental, or vision care.?
• Abuse or misuse elicit substances: Drive under the influence or introduce drugs/alcohol to underaged children.?
• Act jealous of your child's appearance, friendships, or accomplishments.??
• Exhibit angry, scary, or unpredictable behavior in the child's presence.??
• Being excessively late, disorganized, irresponsible, or an unreliable parent.
• Disengage or emotionally withdraw from child/children for most of the day.?
• Blame your child/children for the adverse conditions of your life.?
• Engage in inappropriate sexual language, touch, or sexual encounters with your child/children or expose children to this with other adults.
• Withhold healthy and appropriate praise or compliments of children.
• Not seek immediate mental health treatment for your child/children for apparent signs of emotional distress.
• Not seek mental health support to be a better parent despite the apparent problems.

In summary, essential caregivers, authority figures, and parents contribute to developing automatic negative thoughts. Other influences include societal, environmental, psychological, and biological factors. When parental messages are overwhelmingly negative; they can change the brain's structure and diminish the development of healthy self-image and positive feelings of self-worth in their children. Over time, inaccurate self-concepts can birth a pathological inner critic in adulthood, repeating negative messages stored deep within the subconscious mind.

Fortunately, you don't have to be a victim of an inner critic. Neuroscience helps us to understand that what we focus on creates billions of neurons in our brain that grow and connect to other neurons, a process called neuroplasticity. This means that, through repetitive action, you can work at re-wiring your brain and changing your thoughts and behavior. Thankfully, a billion or so neurons in the brain are constantly repairing and regenerating because what you practice consistently forms new neural pathways.

In my next article, I will share tips for beginning the healing process when parents and their adult children want to repair a relationship that has been ruptured.

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#rewirebrain

#selfesteem

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Gena Golden, LCSW, NBCCH, is an anti-oppression+holistic psychotherapist and culturally attuned hypnotherapist. She specializes in working with women of color impacted by toxic and traumatic work environments (including spaces of higher learning); strained mother/daughter relationships; religious trauma; social phobias (social anxiety, performance & test anxiety) resulting in internalized forms of oppression, imposter syndrome, and an inner critic. Additionally, she is a coach trained in Positive Psychology and Neuroscience-informed practices.

To learn more, please click the link below.

https://linktr.ee/genagoldenLCSW