How to deal with childhood trauma and how your parents raised you

File photo: Besides upbringing being the origin of their choice of strict parental techniques, Jacobs state another possibility. Picture: AP

File photo: Besides upbringing being the origin of their choice of strict parental techniques, Jacobs state another possibility. Picture: AP

Published Mar 12, 2022

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One thing is for sure, toxicity reigns supreme in brown and black households primarily.

A Twitter user with the handle @deshola55 posted a tweet about this parenting style.

In a follow-up tweet, she states that her mother requires a week’s notice of future events she wishes to attend.

— Sugamummy🤤✊🏾🍜 (@deshola55) February 16, 2022

A user that goes by the name Majola presents a solution to this very relatable experience, advising others to “just have a friend they [parents] know and trust”.

A variation of tweets like @deshola55 ‘s exists across the world. One very popular comment made by youngsters in- or fortunately already out of- such households is the outcome of this parenting style: lying.

@__blankita

“I’m thinking about some of the lies I’ve told.”

The lies are not what you’d expect. Sometimes it goes the other way.

User @chukspreciouz claims to have never asked for permission from her parents, revealing that she does not “even know if my parents were strict”. Instead, she would inform her friends that her parents “said no”.

Much more eerie is the unspoken rule that quite many kids from such homes are familiar with.

“If you had fun yesterday, you can’t have fun today”, user @esiteeeri tweeted, advising that “you gotta give it a break” otherwise permission will not be granted.

Toxic.

Insight from counselling psychologist, Philencia Jacobs

Asked for her insight on the reasoning for parents to wild out or take up strict parental techniques, Philencia Jacobs says that her perspective is that “strict or borderline abusive parents” may not have other options on how to cope with their children.

“(They) perhaps have no other tools or coping mechanisms with which to discipline or communicate with their child(ren).”

She further states that their childhood may have contributed to their choice of parenting style.

“Being violent, whether yelling or hitting their child, is the only way they know because of the way they were brought up.”

Another reason, she says, may be that they have not approached other methods of parental guidance, stating that “they never really made the effort to explore more positive avenues”.

Besides upbringing being the origin of their choice of strict parental techniques, Jacobs state another possibility: parents being overwhelmed within a given moment or just tired, and their responses towards their child(ren) may be thoughtless.

“Their response to their child is reactive in that moment”.

Dictatorship, however, may be another reason.

“I also agree that another possibility is that they do want to execute control over their child and violence is a certain way to control (their) child(ren) - however, it’s very damaging to (the) child’s sense of self-worth.”

The good news is that generation of today have “awakened” and are distancing themselves from toxic parenting styles.