7 Ways Parents Injure a Child — Without Even Knowing It

A couple recent posts struck interest with readers beyond my normal audience. Both posts dealt with ways one spouse injures another. You can read the husband’s post HERE and the wife’s post HERE.

One suggestion I had multiple times was to consider a similar post for parents.

It’s true. We often injure our children unknowingly. No parent sets out to injure a child. Most parents go overboard to give their children all they need or want. We do the best we know to do. We want them to have more, do more and live better lives than we have experienced.

But, the fact remains, and I know it from dealing with hundreds of people who struggle as adults, because of things their parents did — even great, loving, wonderful, well-meaning parents cause injury to their children unknowingly.

Is it life-threatening? Thankfully, most of the time not. Does it destroy the relationship? Again, most of the time not. I’m not addressing extreme situations, such as abuse or neglect, I’m addressing the well-meaning, well-intentioned, loving parents who may simply not realize how some of their actions (or lack of actions) are not the best decisions for their children. And, how they may actually cause injury to the child — not necessarily a laming injury — but injuries most of us would avoid if we knew to do so.

That’s the point of this post.

Granted, my children are grown. For the most part, my daily parenting days are completed. I’m still parenting, but it’s different now. I am in the influencing stage fully. I can’t send my children to their room. I can’t keep their car keys from them. I can only offer advice as they are willing to receive it.

I have two amazing sons. I can see some things we did right and offer them as suggestions for other parents without reservations. But, looking back, I can see some of these we were guilty of doing — and I remain thankful for God’s grace in spite of me.

Here are 7 ways we injure a child — without even knowing it:

Unrealistic expectations – Ephesians 6 tells the father not to “exasperate the child”. I was guilty of breaking this command at times. Unrealistic expectations often build perfectionistic tendencies in the child and often creates co-depency traits. I sometimes expected more of my boys than they were old enough to do at the time. I expected perfection from them too often. A 10 year old boy is a 10 year old boy. Now, there should be some non-negotiable standards of behavior for a 10 year old, but at 10, kids make mistakes. Why should that surprise me? I’m still making mistakes at 50 years of age. Sometimes I wish I would have lightened up a bit on my boys.

Lack of priorities – When everything and everyone else in life has more value than the time a parent spends with a child they know it. And, it hurts them. They may not even know how to verbalize what they are missing. They aren’t always wise enough yet to look at their life and see how important they should be in a parent’s week. They only know they wish they had more time with the people they admire the most. Someday they’ll know what they missed.

Sharing more than they can handle – Children do not have the emotional capacity to handle everything an adult deals with in life. Whether its an upcoming weather situation or a tragedy in the news or it’s not being able to make monthly personal expense, we create unnecessary fear and anxiety in our children when we share too much information. I’m not suggesting we shelter our children. Actually, I lean more the opposite way. We were very open and honest with our boys, but we were careful how, what and when we shared with them. We thought through the way in which we shared information, being very careful to share only what was needed and in a way that provided clarity not fear.

Giving everything – We sometimes set children up for disappointment in the real world when they never have anything remaining on their want list. Years ago I heard a statistic that most children get the majority of what they want these days — that wasn’t always the case, but as adults, few of us get all that we want. If we aren’t careful, we cause children to struggle with contentment in life, because they don’t know how it feels to wait for what they want.

Over protecting – Children need to learn to fail. There will be a day when can’t shelter them from the world. The more we let them make mistakes when we are still able to help them recover, the better they will be prepared when they no longer live under our roof.

Under protecting – This world is evil. Children don’t have your experience. They aren’t ready to make all the decisions that come their way. Many parents delegate too many choices to their children. There’s a time to give them freedom to choose, but when it’s a matter of moral right and wrong, especially in the earlier years of a child’s life, parents sometimes have to be the bad guy.

Missed teaching moments – We sometimes ignore the power of a moment and we may never get it back. Devaluing the importance of “now” causes many parents to miss the best opportunities for teaching life-changing principles. That moment of discovery is huge for a child. It starts by knowing what you want to teach your children — the values you want them to hold — and constantly looking for life situations that allow you to plant them in your child’s heart.

I realize I’m stepping into dangerous territory when I enter into someone else’s parenting. My only aim is to help. I know parents desire to parent well. But at my age, I’ve made enough mistakes I’m starting to learn from some of them. Before I start to forget them I thought I’d share. Apply as necessary.

Let me also say that grace is always available in your parenting — and it’s never too late. Even adult parents can make changes for good in their parenting. I’ve shared before that my father wasn’t always there when I was growing up, but he taught me how to finish well better than anyone could have done.

What are other ways parents unknowingly injure a child?

By the way, there will be a companion post to this soon with some suggestions to avoid some of these injuries. Feel free to offer some suggestions in the comments.