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First, let me stress the difference between toxic traits and a toxic mom
A toxic mom is a mom that does toxic things to her kids with no intention to learn or stop
A mom with toxic traits wants to learn what those traits are and wants to stop
If you are here, I am willing to bet that you are the latter
There are a lot more toxic traits depending on the age of your kids than this list, but these are the main ones I found for younger kids
Teenage and adult kids have their own list, but many of these traits overlap
11 toxic traits that some moms may have are:
- Comparing your kids to other kids
- Make mistakes part of your or their identity
- Using love as a weapon or a reward
- Emotional manipulation
- Humiliation
- Living through the kids
- Too busy for their interests
- Unrealistic rules
- Out-of-balance consequences
- Emotional invalidation
- Expecting kids to know something without being taught
All of these traits are damaging in their own way
I also want to mention the difference between an action and a trait
Actions are things that you do once or twice but then stop because you realize you made a mistake
Traits are things that you do regularly
If you find that you do one or more of these, I encourage you to choose the one that feels easiest to stop to work on first
Start with success and then move to harder traits to stop
Making effort every day and being aware will go a long way toward a healthier household for you and your kids
You will find as you read that I am not coming to look down on the terrible moms that do these things
You will see that many of these are things that I have done and have worked on fixing
So please don’t take these as an attack
But just use the information to help you understand your traits and how to work through them
Comparing your kids to other kids
I am guilty of this one
And I hate that I am, but it is something I have been working on for about a year
I have two kids that potentially have autism
They have a huge language delay and that was really hard on me for a long time
I was seeing kids their age or younger talk and the comparison started without me even realizing it
But then I found myself comparing them to kids all the time
And not comparing their strengths
I was comparing their struggles with others’ success
It wasn’t fair for any of us
I was getting stressed and frustrated
And their successes weren’t being seen by the expectations I had
The more my husband and I let go of expectations and comparisons, the happier the family got
And the more I was able to see all the amazing things they were doing
My kids are so smart and they have amazing problem-solving skills
And now they don’t have the weight of those expectations on them either and the meltdowns that resulted from those expectations are gone as well
Make mistakes part of your or their identity
I do this one too
I have done this to myself for as long as I can remember so I think this is a generational curse
But it is a generational curse that I want to end
Our mistakes don’t make us who we are
We are what we repeatedly do, but that can be changed whenever we want to put in the work
The best way to decide if you are doing this is by paying attention to the words that you use
When you make a mistake, do you see the mistake as an action or do you think “I am so dumb?”
If you have a sentence that starts with “I am”, “you are”, or “you always” then you are probably turning that action into identity
This breeds people that are extremely hard on themselves and hard on their kids
Instead, look at the action as an action
Instead of saying “you are rude”, say “____ was a very rude action” and have a discussion about that action
The goal is to help them not do it anymore, not to decide that it is part of who they are
Using love as a weapon or a reward
Unconditional love is something I wish that all children had
While I believe that I am good about it, I grew up with parents that weren’t good about it
The only time I got love or attention from my dad was when I was publicly making him look good
Love was a reward for making him look like a good dad
Love can also be used as a weapon
Sending kids to their room and they can only come back when their attitude is gone is using love as a weapon
We should be helping them understand those big feelings, but we punish them for having them instead
Emotional manipulation
Emotional manipulation is anytime someone else seeks to control your emotions
There is a scale of severity, but we should be avoiding it altogether
We should avoid telling our kids how to feel or that their emotions are wrong
Instead, we should be connecting with them so we understand their emotions
And then we can better teach them how to understand their emotions
Emotional intelligence is one of the best gifts you can give your children
Doing this takes some time, but I believe that it is worth it
I experienced a lot of emotional manipulation growing up
I wasn’t allowed to feel any emotion that made my dad uncomfortable
This resulted in me not knowing how to cope as an adult
Instead of feeling anger and learning how to deal with it, I taught myself not to care so I didn’t feel that anger
When I started to heal from that and care about things, I didn’t know how to handle that anger
Humiliation
Humiliation seems like an obvious toxic trait to me, but I have been seeing it a lot lately
The more that social media becomes a staple in our lives, the more moms want to be part of it
The problem comes when moms have nothing to post except for their kids
Videos of kids being upset, heartbroken, having a rough time, and more are appearing every day
While it seems harmless, it is a form of humiliation
Then there are videos of teens getting punished on video
Like the girl her got her hair forcefully cut because she wasn’t getting good grades
Think of one example in your life when humiliation taught you anything except fear, sneakiness, and distrust
I don’t know about you, but I want my kids to love learning
You cannot teach love through humiliation
If you try, they will quit the moment they are under the fear of you anymore
Living through the kids
This is a big one that I experienced
My mom didn’t have a life outside of her kids
She became a mom at 17 and that was just her life for 25 years
I felt like she was trying to live through me
She picked clothes she wanted to wear but was “too overweight”
She volunteered everywhere that I volunteered
There was no getting away and all my achievements were her achievements
I get it
Having a life when you are a mom is hard
But it isn’t fair to try to steal your kids’ life
They need to feel like their accomplishments are theirs instead of being yours
I did a lot of cool things as a teen, but I always had her eyes on me
I didn’t feel like those accomplishments were mine
Too busy for their interests
This one hit me hard
I do a lot
I have two blogs, an e-commerce business, cooking, cleaning, YouTube, and more
But I have to make sure that I am never too busy to be interested in their passions
Kids get excited about things just like adults do
When you get excited, what do you want to do?
You want to share that excitement with someone you love
What happens when that person shrugs you off?
It is so painful
I have been there and I try so hard to never to do that to my kids
I am their biggest cheerleader
There will not be long-term consequences if the dishes have to wait to be cleaned
But there will be long-term consequences if your kids’ passions are ignored
Unrealistic rules
As parents, it is our job to make the rules and guidelines for our kids
But what I see a lot is a focus on results instead of using the rules to teach kids about life
You might have a rule on what grades are acceptable
But there is no focus on the effort they put into those grades
Humans will naturally go the path of least resistance
And sometimes we forget that their brains are not developed enough for some rules
Having a rule that your 2-year-old will listen to you on the first try is unrealistic because their brain isn’t developed enough for that
You are expecting the impossible and then they are getting punished for falling short
Out-of-balance consequences
Continuing the last one, out-of-balance consequences are a common problem
Your toddler makes a mess, they get screamed at and put in the corner
That is not a balanced consequence
Imagine being at work and your boss doing that
What would the actual consequence be?
You need to clean it up!
Mistakes happen and we need to treat our kids like they are humans
They should never have higher expectations than an adult
Emotional invalidation
Emotions are big and heavy for adults with fully-developed brains
Imagine how it is for kids that don’t even understand what they are feeling
Regardless of what emotion is happening and if you agree with it, we should be validating what our kids are feeling and helping them understand what it is
Just like emotional manipulation, it isn’t our job to tell kids what to feel
It is our job to understand their feelings and teach them to understand them as well
Expecting kids to know something without being taught
Sometimes it is easy to forget that common sense isn’t naturally learned
It is taught
That is why so many people don’t have it
Kids need to be taught common sense
They shouldn’t be expected to know anything that they weren’t taught
It isn’t fair
Once again, imagine your boss getting pissed at you for not knowing something that work that they never taught you
I wouldn’t feel like it is my fault
It was theirs for not teaching me that rule or skill that is obviously very important
How to stop these traits in your life
You made it to the end!
If you have found one or more of these traits in your life, that’s ok!
I think every mom has at least done a few of these
And maybe does them often
Awareness is the first step to change
The decision to change comes next
Pick one to work on and mindfully work on it every day
Apologize to your kids when you mess up and explain why that behavior isn’t ok
The more you work through it, the easier it gets to stop the trait
Don’t give up
Change is hard
But you can do hard things