Parenting and the Victim Mentality

The process of developing a victim mentality starts at a young age.  It is a direct result of how we parent and raise our children.  We as parents believe that we should respond to every cry for help or every perceived problem that face our children.  However, this is not the truth! 

Let’s analyze the situation a little deeper. We as parents must ask ourselves some questions with regards to our current parenting style.  What are we parents really doing when we take away all of the obstacles and problems that our children face?  What are we teaching our children when it comes to dealing with adversity?  Are we teaching our children how to overcome their problems or how to handle injustices?  Does taking our children down the paths of least resistance develop their character?  Do our children ever learn to experience the consequences for the choices that they make or do we as parents jump in and save them?  Do we parents think that by taking away the consequences for bad choices and bad behavior that we are helping our children mature and develop?  These are some serious questions that need answers.  The problem is many of us have never even questioned are parenting style.

When we take away the obstacles and problems from our children’s lives, we take away the opportunities for our children to grow.  The process of our children learning to overcome small obstacles trains our children how to problem solve and handle small doses of stress.  Our job as parents is not to remove obstacles but rather to observe from a distance.  Unfortunately, when we parents insert ourselves into every situation to problem solve for our children, we remove this learning opportunity from our children’s lives and their character development is hampered.  Our children begin to depend on us as parents to solve their problems.  This parenting habit is practiced subconsciously and automatically by the parents and many times with the best of intentions.  The entire process becomes a parenting problem solving loop.  Our child perceives adversity or struggle and cries out to the parent for help.  We as parents insert ourselves into the situation and provide the solution or best course of action to eliminate the problem.  Sounds like a good ending, doesn’t it?  However, instead of our child learning how to deal with the adversity and develop their problem-solving skills they have actually learned nothing.  When this parental problem-solving loop is repeated on a continuous basis our children learn to depend on us instead of growing into mature young adults.

The problem is that our children get used to us coming to the rescue every time there is a problem.  Our children learn that they do not actually have to deal with any issue because we as parents always step in and take away the obstacle or deal with the problem.  Some of our children habitually learn to manufacture a struggle or a problem to manipulate us into getting what they want.  Why would they do this?  They know that if they can create a problem, struggle, or even the appearance of a problem then we parents will insert ourselves into the situation and solve the problem for them.  When we parents solve the problems that our children face every day, we steal from them character development and maturing opportunities.  As a result, they do not know how to handle adversity in their lives.  When this process is repeated over the course of their childhood, they develop a dependency on the parents.  This dependency leads to the development of the victim mentality in our sons and our daughters.  Imagine yourself in your children’s shoes as they move into adulthood. Our children learned from the parenting habits that we implemented over the course of their life that if they show any signs of a struggle that we parents would provide the solution.  Our children never learned problem solving skills, so they never learned how to deal with adversity.  We parents, then put expectations on them based on their age, not their maturity.  We expect them to finish High School and go to college or get a job.   Once they become young adults, we expect them to handle their own problems and to find their own solutions.  We expect them to be responsible.  We expect them to save their own money and pay their own bills.  But our children who have grown physically into young adults have gotten used to us parents doing everything for them.  Because our young adult children have never had to deal with their own problems, they become fearful.  They wonder if they have what it takes to succeed because they have built up a dependency on their parents.  Our children become fearful about their decisions.  What if they make the wrong choices?  Choose the wrong degree?  Choose the wrong career?  So, what do they choose to do?  They choose to do nothing.  They are paralyzed!  The fear of failure, and the inability to handle adversity keeps them in their comfort zone.  Why even move out of the house at all?  In the home, they still get their needs met.  We parents try to give them wisdom to solve their problems.  Mom will slip them money when dad is not looking.  They can still eat food out of the refrigerator.  When the parents ask the young adult to do something, they get resentful because they are entitled to everything that the parent is doing for them.  They are entitled to do whatever they want because they have never learned to face the consequences for their actions.  We as parents have taught them to become dependent on us.   We have taught them that we are needed to provide all of the solutions for their lives.  We have taught them that we can take away the consequences for their behavior.  We have taught them to never mature into adults and take responsibility for their choices and actions.   

The above scenario is being played out in millions of households around the world.  Many times, we have the best of intentions when we help our children deal with adversity.  However, when we combine those good intentions with a need to control the lives of our children, we have unknowingly parented our children into dependency.  This dependency is wreaking havoc on our lives and the lives of our children.  We must first understand the problem and then take active steps to make a change to break this parent child dependency.  We must as parents figure out the balance of when to help solve a problem our children are facing and when to let them reap the consequences for their choices and behaviors.  We need to break ourselves from the addiction and codependency of solving our children’s problems.  We need to stop robbing the opportunities that bring growth and development to our children.  We need to let them make mistakes and fail! We need to realize that we all make mistakes in our lives.  Would it not be better for our children to learn from their mistakes at a young age under our supervision rather than when they are young adults?  We hear all the time how this generation is self-entitled and lazy.  Have we ever wondered why are children are not responsible and are fearful of new opportunities?  We parents have got to take responsibility for the growth and maturing process of our children.  We have got to change what we are doing and own the process of raising our children to become responsible.  We must let our children make mistakes even if we see it happening.  We have to realize that we parents do not have to solve all of our children’s problems.  In fact, it is detrimental to their growth and development into adults that we do solve their problems.  We parents must balance solving our children’s problems with allowing them to solve their own problems.  We must realize that our children’s growth into responsible adults begins when we stop inserting ourselves into every situation that they face.

Now I realize that there are times when we as parents need to step in and solve an issue. It also depends upon the age of a child.  I also realize that there is a balance to parenting our children.  The problem with this balancing act is that most parents are currently out of balance.  Our society is out of balance.  The parenting style that is being implemented across our country is building a nation of self-entitled, underachieving children.  These children are becoming adults that do not know how to handle adversity.  The seeds of our children’s failure or success as adults are being sown at least in part by the parental habits we implement daily.  If we stop inserting ourselves into every small situation our children will learn and develop.  If we continue to handle their problems, they will become dependent on us and not be able to deal with adversity.