10 signs you grew up with overly critical parents, according to psychology

Kathy Copeland Padden by Kathy Copeland Padden | August 20, 2024, 7:03 pm

Nobody ever said raising kids was going to be easy. There are days when your patience is at its limit and it’s hard to keep your cool.

Be that as it may, it’s vitally important that you do because harsh words from their parents have long-reaching, negative effects on children well into adulthood. 

Research shows that children who endure consistent parental criticism often feel negative experiences more acutely and gain less satisfaction from their successes. 

This can be the impetus for endless issues with self-esteem and validation seeking that can last a lifetime.

Before anyone mentions the phrase “little snowflakes,” it’s important to understand that children are more sensitive to criticism than adults typically are. 

Grownups can (usually) laugh off our mistakes or consider criticism as useful and constructive. Children haven’t matured enough emotionally to grasp that perspective yet. 

Instead, kids tend to internalize criticism, constructive or not, and take it very personally. Since children take that kind of negativity to heart, it forms emotional wounds that might force children to rely on outside validation or second guess their gifts and abilities for decades.

Most parents have their children’s best interests at heart and want them to be happy, healthy, and successful. They don’t realize how much damage they might be doing to their kids, and many would be horrified if they did because they mean well.

Was this you as a kid? How are you doing now? 

Here are ten common characteristics that could indicate that you grew up with critical parents, and it may have had long-lasting effects on your mental health.

1) Low self-esteem

When you’ve been exposed to continuous constant criticism during childhood, you may grow up believing that your thoughts or feelings are “bad” in some fundamental way. 

You probably find it challenging to trust yourself or anyone else for that matter. Because of this, you might have doubts about your ability to face a new challenge and rise to the occasion. 

According to Harvard University, “change sparks positive change” but if you never leave your comfort zone, you don’t have to worry about failing.

2) You push yourself too hard

Growing up in a critical environment can compel you to push yourself to the limit so you can garner the approval of others.

According to psychology, this is a bid for outside validation, because your opinion of yourself is pretty grim, probably unduly.

You may hustle big-time on the job to the detriment of your health and happiness. Instead, you need to set appropriate boundaries to safeguard your energy and mental health.

If you grew up with critical parents, you may have people-pleaser tendencies and always do what’s expected of you, whether you like it or not. 

3) Perfectionism

People who push themselves too hard have perfectionism to thank. We all make mistakes in life, but when your parents harp on every little imperfection, a child’s self-esteem can take a serious blow. 

After enough parental nagging, every tiny error undermines your self-confidence. You may become a perfectionist just because you are afraid of making more mistakes.

This perfectionism can have a major impact on every aspect of your life and can make it take much longer than it should to complete simple tasks.  

You could even be struggling at work or missing deadlines because of your impossibly high standards. This is because you’re terrified of messing up. 

If a parent’s love for a child always felt conditional while they were growing up, this can translate to an adult who feels they’re only as good as their latest accomplishment.

4) Always apologizing

Do you sometimes find yourself apologizing all the time?  

If you always felt inadequate or in the wrong as a kid, you might assume that others view you harshly and always apologize profusely, almost on auto-pilot, even when you didn’t do anything wrong. 

Adults from overcritical families are always on guard for the next attack. Psychology Today says this could cause you to be overly defensive or take things the wrong way during social or professional interactions.

5) Distrustful

If you grew up with parents who sent mixed messages more often than not, (all love one minute, all harsh criticism the next) you may be waiting for definitive proof your adult friends don’t like you either, with no definitive proof whatsoever.

Even when the people in your life shower you with love and support, you’re still questioning whether or not their feelings are authentic. 

Compliments probably make you squirm a bit and you’ll downplay any positive feedback coming your way.

6) Struggles with negative feedback

You may struggle with positive feedback, but negative feedback can ruin your whole week–if you let it.

Adults who grew up with hyper-critical parents often feel like they’re right back in the hot seat with mom and/or dad and get defensive over the most innocuous feedback.

According to experts, you and your inner critic have been besties for decades so you feel like every facet of your life is under a judgemental microscope.

 7) Social anxiety

This long history of mistrust often results in the fear of more judgment and further criticism from others. 

Adults who had critical parents as children are terrified of embarrassing themselves publicly. In more severe instances, social anxiety can cause someone to avoid any social interactions at all. 

Their parents’ criticism becomes internalized as negative self-talk and feelings of insecurity, which all too often lead to depression during adulthood, if not before. 

8) Complicated relationships

As we grow up and into adulthood, we naturally model the behavior we observed as kids.

So if you had nitpicky parents, you could be unconsciously looking for other’s faults and consequently acting judgemental and unforgiving of their flaws. 

A lot of kids who grew up with critical parents will experience relationship difficulties with others as adults.

Why? Trust issues spanning back to childhood. 

9) Problems setting boundaries

Experts advise that when you spend your childhood walking on eggshells and striving to please your parents, setting healthy boundaries as an adult can be a formidable task.

You may agree to pretty much anything just because saying “no” makes you feel guilty and uncomfortable. That’s because your parents refused to accept your boundaries, so it’s the treatment you came to expect from everyone.

But setting boundaries is a vital component of adulting, and you now have the right to implement and enforce them. 

You’re not a kid anymore. Start setting those boundaries.

10) Rebellion

Sometimes kids whose parents were highly critical end up rebelling against, well, just about anything.

I present my high school self as Exhibit A. By age 16 or so, I was tired of striving for and even occasionally achieving excellence and yet it was never good enough for my parents. So I basically just said, sod it, and pretty much gave up trying to excel. 

I couldn’t see the point. 

I figured if I was going to get lectured and nagged all the time, I might as well earn it. 

And I did! 

Final thoughts

Kids of critical parents face an increased chance of developing depression and anxiety later in life. This may struggle to maintain their adult relationships in the future as well.

If you’ve had highly critical parents who always compared you to other kids and felt it necessary to acknowledge only your failures, you’re probably well aware of the lasting effects this treatment has had on you. 

It’s good to explore those feelings and understand the influence having critical parents has on you and the long-lasting repercussions of their behavior.

It’s like throwing a rock into a calm lake. The ripples travel far and fast.