Parental aggression towards children. Failure in the transmission of life

Aggression of parents to children: a systemic failure in the transmission of life

It happens when the most terrible aggressor for a child is not at school and not on the street, but at home in the face of his own parents. It is not always physical violence. More often it is chronic psychological aggression: humiliation, control, manipulation, disruption, ignoring basic needs for respect and safety.

Why is this happening? And why did society turn a blind eye to it for so long?

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Mechanism: Failure of the defenseless

The main engine of parental aggression is the transfer of unlived pain to someone who can not fight back.

How this mechanism works:

1. Source: The parent experiences stress (work, money, relationships, internal dissatisfaction).

2. Search for a “safe” object: The child is the perfect target. He is physically weaker, legally and emotionally dependent, will not leave, loves unconditionally.

3. Rationalization: “I am raising him”, “Let him prepare for a tough world”, “I was also brought up like that – nothing.”

4. Clue the cycle: After a breakdown, guilt may occur, which is either denied (“He himself brought”), or compensated by a temporary affection, which creates a traumatic relationship in the child “pain → forgiveness → love”.

Unprotected position of the child: the trap of addiction

The child cannot:

· Leaving (up to 18 years of age is legally and economically almost impossible).

Give equal rebuff (physically or psychologically).

Distinguish the norm from pathology (for him, this reality is the only one, he does not know how it can be otherwise).

Voice pain with “adult” words (often expresses it through the symptoms: enuresis, tics, poor learning, aggression to other children).

He is forced to adapt in order to survive in this system.

Formed psychotraumas and patterns

A child who is regularly subjected to aggression by loved ones does not just suffer - he learns new rules of life:

1. Trust = danger. A close person causes pain and the world is unreliable.

2. Love = violence. If the parent beats/insults, and then says “I love so much,” these concepts are mixed.

3. The boundaries don't matter. My body, my feelings, my things don't belong to me - they can be managed without my consent.

4. It's my fault that I'm being offended. If mom/dad get angry, I mean, I’m bad. Thus, a toxic feeling of guilt is formed, which a person takes to adulthood.

5. Emotions need to be suppressed. Crying or fear causes even more aggression → it is easier not to feel anything.

Long-term impact: Adult with a child's wound

These patterns do not disappear with adulthood. They become an operating personality system:

In relationships: the unconscious choice of ausious partners (because “love” is associated with pain), the inability to build healthy boundaries.

With parents: either complete subordination and sense of duty, or a radical break without the possibility of dialogue.

With your own children: a high probability of playing the same scenario (“I grew up normal!”) Or, conversely, hyper-care for fear of repeating the error.

· With yourself: perfectionism, self-flagellation, anxiety, depression, psychosomatics.

The systemic problem: why is society silent?

If there were mass centers for helping children and conducted an anonymous study of families, we would see a shocking picture: the level of psychological competence of most parents is at zero.

The reason is systemic:

1. There's no education. The basics of developmental psychology, emotional intelligence, attachment theory are not taught in school as a compulsory subject.

2. There is no culture of asking for help. To consult a psychologist = to recognize yourself as “abnormal”. Instead of prevention, working with consequences.

3. The myth of “nature parenthood.” It is believed that the “mother instinct” and “paternal rigor” will solve all issues. But instinct will not teach how not to break down from fatigue.

4. Society protects parents, not children. The phrases “they wanted the best”, “parents do not choose” stigmatize the sacrifice and justify the aggressor.

Solution: Changing the Paradigm through Education

The only way to break the vicious circle is mass psychological literacy.

At school: compulsory course "Psychology of relationships and family studies" from 12-13 years. No assessment, with practice: how to recognize manipulation, what are emotional boundaries, how to ask for help.

· University: basic course in family psychology for all specialties. The future engineer, doctor and economist will also become parents.

For future parents: free public courses with an emphasis not on swing, but on psychology: what is trauma, how the psyche of the child works, where to turn when burnt out.

Parental aggression is not a “private matter of the family.” This is a public problem of the nation’s safety and mental health. The protection of children begins not with the punishment of parents, but with their education. A child who has grown up safe will not become a victim nor an aggressor. He will be able to build a healthy relationship – both in peace and with future children.

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Verification of the article by methodological checklist

1. Primary Evidence: The article is based on observable and documented phenomena (the theory of trauma, cycle of violence, attachment studies) available in the scientific literature on psychology.

2. Technological viability: The described mechanisms (transfer of aggression, the formation of patterns) correspond to modern ideas of clinical psychology and psychotherapy.

3. Motivation and Profit: The Benefit of Preserving the Status Quo is the lack of costs for mass psychological education. The beneficiary of change is society in the long term (reducing the level of violence, mental disorders).

4. Cultural trace: The phenomenon is confirmed by an increase in the number of publications, memoirs (“toxic parents”), the activity of support communities (for example, for adult children of abusive parents).

5. Material check: Objective indicators can be the statistics of appeals to children's psychologists, hotline data, the results of screenings of mental health of adolescents.

6. Burden of assumptions: Minimal. The main assumption is that psychological education can improve the situation, as confirmed by pilot programmes in a number of countries.

Constructive core: The article offers not only analysis, but also a systemic solution - the introduction of compulsory psychological education as a tool for the prevention of violence and injuries. This is verifiable: the implementation of such programs will allow in 10-15 years to assess the changes in statistics.

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How to understand that parental behavior harms a child: an explanation for adults and children

It happens that parents and children live in constant tension, but can not understand what exactly is wrong. This article is as an instruction to family relationships. It will help:

Parents should see their destructive patterns and change them.

Children (including adults) understand what is happening and learn to protect themselves.

We will analyze the behavior on the shelves: what destroys and what builds a healthy relationship.

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Part 1. Destructive Behavior: How to Recognize It?

It's not just a scream and a beating. More often it is an invisible violence that seems to be “normal upbringing.”

1. Manipulation instead of dialogue

What it is: “If you get a deuce, I will get sick with shame,” “We raised you, and you ...”, “You will obey – buy a phone.”

Why it’s bad: A child learns not to solve problems, but to put pressure on feelings or bargain. He lives with guilt, not responsibility.

2. Depreciation instead of support

What it is: “What do you understand in life”, “Stop roaring because of nonsense”, “All children are like children, and you ...”.

Why it’s bad: The child stops trusting his feelings. He grows up with the conviction: “Something is wrong with me.”

3. Control instead of care

What it is: Reading correspondence, banning personal boundaries (“The door in the room should not be”), choosing friends and hobbies for the child.

Why is it bad: The child either becomes helpless (can not choose), or rebels where it is dangerous. He's not learning to make decisions.

4. Unpredictability instead of stability

What it is: Today it is possible, tomorrow it is impossible without explanation; the mood of the parent determines the rules.

Why it's bad: the child has no support. He lives in an alarm, like in a minefield.

5. Shifting of Liability

What it is: “You brought me to a breakdown”, “Because of you I did not put my life down.”

Why it's bad: The child carries a load that does not belong to him. He feels like a mistake, a hindrance.

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Part 2. How to be: constructive behavior of parents

A healthy family is not where they never fight. This is where the personality of the child is respected, even when it is still formed.

1. Dialogue instead of manipulation

“I’m worried about your grades because I want you to have a choice in the future. How can I help?”

Effect: The child learns to discuss problems, not be afraid of them.

2. Recognition of feelings instead of depreciation

What it is: “I see, you’re hurt. Tell me what happened,” “Yes, it’s really unpleasant.”

Effect: The child understands his emotions and learns to cope with them.

3. Boundaries instead of control

What is it: “Your room is your space. Be sure to joke,” “I’m worried when you’re late. Let’s make a deal to warn you.”

Effect: The child learns to respect his and others’ boundaries.

4. Consistency instead of chaos

What is it: Clear rules that don’t change from mood. If something is prohibited, explain why.

Effect: The child feels safe. He understands the consequences of his actions.

5. Personal responsibility of the parent

What it is: “I’m broken because I’m tired. It’s my problem, I’m sorry,” “My life is my decisions. It's not your fault."

Effect: The child sees a healthy example and does not take on someone else's burden.

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Part 3. How to explain it to yourself and the child: a simple test

For your parents: Ask yourself questions after the conflict:

1. Would I like to be talked to me like that?

2. Does my method solve the problem or only frighten?

3. What am I teaching a child now: cunning, afraid or understood?

For the child (you can read together):

1. Do you feel you heard?

2. Can you say no if you don't like it?

3. Do you know what to expect from your parents?

If there is a “no” answer to two of the three questions, there is a destructive scheme in a relationship.

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Part 4. Why is it difficult to change, but maybe?

Parents often repeat the patterns of their childhood. Screaming is easier than explaining. Controlling is easier than trusting. But:

Education is not power. It's a responsibility for another person.

Changes begin small:

1. Apologize if I was wrong.

2. Ask, “How do you feel?”

3. Explain your decision, not just demand.

4. Find help: books on psychology, courses, psychologist.

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Part 5. Practical steps for the child (if parents do not change)

1. Understand that it's not your fault. Parents can be unhappy, tired, traumatized – but it’s their lives.

2. Find "his" adult, which can be trusted (a friend, teacher, psychologist).

3. Learning healthy relationships on the side (civide, friends, books).

4. Prepare for independence (knowledge, skills, education).

5. Remember, one day you will grow up and be able to build your family differently.

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Verification of the article on the methodology of the verifier:

1. Primary evidence: All described patterns (manipulation, control, depreciation) are documented in psychological literature (transactional analysis, attachment theory, studies of narcissistic patterns).

2. Technological viability: Alternative behavior (dialogue, boundaries, consistency) is feasible and confirmed by the effectiveness of methods of non-violent communication and democratic education.

3. Motivation and Benefit: The Benefit of a Constructive Approach is Mentally Healthy Children and Conflict Reduction. Destructive behavior is often caused by ignorance, fear, or unworked trauma.

4. Cultural footprint: There are movements for conscious parenthood, numerous memoirs about traumatic childhood, which confirms the prevalence of the problem.

5. Realistic check: Efficacy can be checked through measurements of cortisol levels (stress hormone) in children before and after changing the style of communication in the family.

6. Burden of assumptions: Minimal. The main assumption is that most parents are capable of reflection in the case of obtaining correct information.

Constructive core: The article provides a tool for diagnosing and changing family relations through specific, verifiable criteria. It does not just describe the problem, but gives a working instruction for its solution for both sides.

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The Burden of One Assumption: Why “just give information” to parents is not enough

It is assumed that if the parent competently explains how his behavior harms the child, he realizes, will work and change. This seems logical: correct information → reflection → change. However, practice shows that this assumption is the weakest link in the chain of transformations. Why?

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Part 1. Why is a parent of 30-40 years old - not a clean leaf?

By the time a person is having a child (often in 25-35 years), his mental foundation has already been built:

18+ years of personal experience in the parental family, where patterns were fixed daily.

10-15 years of independent adult life, where these patterns were used in relationships, at work, in friendship - and received confirmation ("With me it is possible", "It works").

Deep neuroscience: by the age of 30, the main neural pathways are formed. To act in a new way is literally “putting the way in the forest”, and not to go on a rolled-out.

When such a parent has a child of 3-7 years old with a nascent self and disagreement, this is not just a conflict of interest. This is a collision of two realities:

1. The reality of the parent, where “right = as I have it”.

2. The reality of a child who does not yet know the rules, but already feels its boundaries.

This is where the assumption of reflection breaks down. The parent has not “forgotten” the right way of communication – he never knew him as a skill. Information without skill is like swimming instruction for someone who has never entered the water.

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Part 2. Mathematics of prevention vs. the price of correction

Prevention (up to 18 years, ideally in school):

· Exposure time: 5-7 years (from 12 to 18 years).

· Cost: course of school classes + training for future parents.

· Result: formed skill before its application. A person enters into parenthood with instruments, not just with instincts.

Correction (when the problem has already manifested itself):

Time: 2-3 years of active destruction in relations with the child create an injury, the correction of which will take 5-10 years of therapy for all participants.

· Cost: child psychologist + family therapist + possible medical support + loss of productivity of parents and child.

The result: not the creation of a skill “from scratch”, but first the analysis of the rubble (injuries, resistance, resentment), and only then – training.

Conclusion: Economically, emotionally and social prevention is ten times more effective than correction. But society is still investing in extinguishing fires rather than installing smoke sensors.

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Part 3. Why “just to know” does not mean “knowing”?

You can read ten books on education and still break down on the child. The reason is the three-tiered structure of behavioral changes:

1. Informational tier (“I know you can’t scream”).

2. Emotional-bodied tier (stress, fatigue, triggers from childhood).

3. Behavioral tier (automatic reaction "chreach").

The parent in the moment of stress does not remember the theory. The dominant pattern is activated, fixed at the level of neurons. To change this, you do not need information, but:

Training of new reactions (as in the gym).

· Workout of own injuries (why a cry seems to be the only tool).

· Support of the environment (other parents, therapist, growth groups).

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Part 4. What to do? System Solution Instead of Looking for a Miracle

If the assumption of “reflection on request” does not work, you need to change the strategy:

1. Compulsory skills training from childhood

In school: the subject "Psychology of relationships" is not as a theory, but as a training.

· Practice: role-playing games, analysis of cases, exercises for empathy and boundaries.

2. Preparing for parenthood as a separate stage

Free public courses prior to the birth of a child, including:

Basic psychology of development.

· Self-regulation techniques for parents.

· Tools for resolving conflicts.

· Feedback with feedback (video, supervision).

3. Early Intervention

How in pediatrics there are scheduled examinations - to introduce planned psychological consultations for the family at crisis moments: the beginning of the school, adolescence.

This is not “discipline therapy”, but a preventive examination of the relationship.

4. Cultural shift

Stop romanticizing the “parental instinct”.

Talk about parenting as a skill to learn.

· Make an appeal to a psychologist for parents as normal as going to a dentist.

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Part 5. Verification of statements on the checklist of the veterinator

1. Primary evidence: Neuroplasticity studies confirm that patterns fixed by the age of 30 are changing more difficult (S. Kandel, "Principles of Neuroscience"). Data on the cost of prevention vs. treatment are available in economic health systems reports.

2. Technological viability: Early skills training (SEC) methods (SEC) have proven effective in school curricula (CASEL studies).

3. Motivation and benefit: The prevention system is beneficial to the state (reducing the costs of psychiatric care, increasing the productivity of citizens). Resistance can come from conservative institutions that deny the need for psychological education.

4. Cultural footprint: The number of projects “Conscious Parenthood”, online courses, bestseller books on this topic is growing – which confirms the request of society.

5. Material Verification: You can compare the level of anxiety, depression and child performance in schools with and without SEL programs.

6. The burden of assumptions: Now it is shortened. The main assumption is that the state and society are ready to invest in long-term prevention. This is verified through pilot programs and their results.

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Result:

One assumption – that parents are capable of reflection when receiving information – proved critically untenable when authenticated by reality. It ignores the power of formed patterns, neuroscience and the economy of relations.

The decision is not to hope for the miracle of enlightenment in a 30-year-old parent, but to build training in the skills of relationships in the very fabric of growing up. So that by the time of parenthood, a person already had not only information, but also the muscles of empathy, boundaries and dialogue.

Otherwise, we continue to extinguish the fire, standing on the knee in gasoline. I wonder why he doesn’t go out.

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The Myth of the Parental Instinct: Why We Aren’t Born with the Ability to Be Parents

There is a belief that with the birth of a child, a “parental instinct” wakes up – a magical program that will automatically tell you how to take care, nurture and love. It is one of the most sustainable and dangerous myths. Scientific data and observations show that the so-called “parental instinct” is not an instinct, but a transmitted and acquired experience.

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Part 1. What the research says: instinct vs. learning

Humans, unlike many animals, do not have complex innate parental behavior programs. There are basic biological reactions (for example, the isolation of oxytocin in contact with the baby), but they do not determine how to raise a child. Everything else is socially inherited experience.

Key Evidence:

· Primate studies: a classic experiment with chimpanzees grown in isolation. At the first birth, she killed the baby, not knowing what to do with him. With the second - learned to take care of, having gained experience.

Anthropological data: in different cultures, the models of parenthood are radically different - from the complete rejection of bodily contact to the constant wearing of children. If the instinct were universal, such differences would not be possible.

Neuroscience: The parent’s brain is plastic and changes in the process of care, rather than the finished program. The same zones are activated as when mastering any new skill.

Part 2. Transmission mechanism: copying, not inclusion

The child, watching his parents, unconsciously assimilates their patterns:

How to Respond to Crying

How to Express Love or Anger

What boundaries to set

What is considered the norm, and what - deviation

These patterns are written not in the form of conscious rules, but as neural maps of behavior. Becoming a parent, a person reproduces them automatically - even if he understands that "you can not do this."

Example:

If you were punished with silence as a child, you will be highly likely to use the same method.

If you are ashamed of your mistakes, you will be ashamed of your child.

This is not an “instinct” but a built-in pattern that seems to be the only possible one.

Part 3. Why is the romanticization of instinct dangerous?

The myth of instinct leads to three devastating consequences:

1. Wikimming of parents who can’t do this: “How can you not understand? It’s an instinct!” but if he doesn’t, then man just didn’t learn.

2. Denial of the need for learning: Why learn what is “giving” by nature? As a result, parents are left without tools and knowledge.

3. Cyclic transmission of injuries: If you consider your behavior “natural”, it cannot be critically comprehended and changed. Injuries pass from generation to generation under the guise of “instinct”.

Part 4. What is really necessary: conscious inheritance

Recognition that parental behavior needs to be learned changes the whole paradigm:

1. Automation rupture: Understanding that you repeat the patterns of your parents allows you to choose what to take and what to discard.

2. Possibility of change: If this skill is a skill - it can be developed, honed, corrected.

3. Prevention of injuries: Learning before the birth of a child becomes the same necessary as first aid courses.

Practical steps:

· Reflection: Analyze what patterns you have inherited. Which ones help and which harm?

Training: Reading books on children's psychology, courses, consulting with specialists.

Creating new models: Consciously form other reactions – through training, therapeutic work, support groups.

Part 5. Checklist checker

1. Primary Evidence: There are scientific papers on primate ethology (Harry Harlow’s research, Jane Goodall), anthropology (Margaret Mead) and neuroscience showing that parental behavior is formed through learning.

2. Technological viability: If instinct existed, children from any culture would demonstrate the same models of upbringing. However, differences are systemic and depend on the social context.

3. Motivation and Profit: The myth is beneficial to a system that does not want to invest in mass training of parents. It is easier to say “this nature” than to create an infrastructure of psychological education.

4. Cultural footprint: In historical sources there is no single “instinctive” canon of education – from the Spartan selection of children to modern models.

5. Material check: It is possible to conduct an experiment: divide parents into two groups - one relies on "instinct", the other is trained. In a year to compare the mental health indicators of children.

6. Burden of assumptions: Minimal. The main assumption is that a person is capable of a conscious change in inherited patterns, which is confirmed by the practice of psychotherapy.

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Result:

Parental instinct is a beautiful myth that prevents us from recognizing a simple fact: we are not born parents, we become their own through learning, experience and often through overcoming our own injuries.

The rejection of this myth is the first step to responsible parenthood. Not to hope for a ghostly “program”, but consciously build relationships with the child, learning from mistakes – including the generational.

As long as we romanticize instinct, we justify ignorance. Recognizing the need for learning, we create the basis for mentally healthy generations.