What Verbal Abuse by Parents Teaches Children About Love

One of the worst things about being verbally abused by parents is that the damage can be lifelong, yet it can take a lifetime for someone to recognize the pattern of abuse they experienced.

When children from verbally abusive homes grow up, however, even if they don't understand what they went through, they still carry with them the lessons they learned. These lessons are the distorted beliefs about themselves and the world that follow them like shadows as they forge new adult relationships. 

Parental Verbal Abuse Teaches 11 Distorted Views to Children

The lessons verbally abused children learn can carry over into any new relationship, but these beliefs may primarily affect romantic relationships. Below are 11 distortions that verbal abuse by parents can cause children to grow up believing.

1. Love is conditional. Verbally abusive parents send a message to their children that they do not deserve love and acceptance just for being alive, that the love can be withdrawn at any moment for a perceived infraction—or just because the parent feels like it.
2. If I'm perfect, I can stop the abuse. Children begin to believe that if they can change something about themselves, they can control the outcome and their parents will stop verbally abusing them.
3. Standing up for myself is bad. Verbally abusive parents often don’t respect the opinions or beliefs of their children, then use guilt or shame to make the children feel as if they are the ones being disrespectful if they express anger or even just try to set boundaries.
4. Nothing is off-limits as long as the person loves me. Children who experience verbal abuse learn that pain and love are intertwined and if they experienced a relationship that wasn’t painful in adulthood, they may not think they’re actually in love.
5. What she or he did to me isn’t really a big deal. Children who have been verbally abused have been taught that verbal abuse isn’t a big deal. It’s minimized, ignored, or swept under the rug. They may be called too sensitive if they don’t just “get over it”--“I’ll give you something to cry about.”
6. Every family (or couple) has problems. Verbally abusive parents may say this to minimize what’s happening at home. As adults, the child may grow up thinking that an abusive relationship is as good as it gets.
7. My feelings aren’t important. Verbally abused children learn to minimize and suppress their own feelings because they often aren’t taken seriously by the parents.
8. I want too much. I'm too needy. Children who grow up verbally or emotionally abused don’t have bruises or scars, but they often feel as if something is horribly wrong and don’t know why. Their parents may treat them as if they’re acting “spoiled” for expecting to be treated with dignity and respect, and point out that they have a roof over their heads and food in the refrigerator and all their physical needs are taken care of so what are they complaining about?
9. I shouldn't expect people to be nice to me. As adults, children who have been verbally abused may react in many different ways to people who are nice to them. They may treat it with suspicion or even boredom. It can even result in further victimization if they feel so starved for affection that they fall for someone predatory who gives them what they never had but turns out to be a covert abuser. 
10. No one is genuinely interested in what I have to say. Children who have been verbally abused expect to be criticized or dominated in conversation, so they may feel reluctant to talk about themselves. They may also instead go overboard and say too much if they haven’t gotten much attention at all because they aren’t sure of how to interact in a conversation and they’re afraid they’re about to be interrupted.
11. I'm defective. The most damaging lesson learned of all by a verbally abused child is that he or she is flawed. This internalized belief forms unconsciously because it’s less painful for children to accept that their parents don’t love them unconditionally than to think that there is something wrong with them. It's easier emotionally to believe, "My parent is doing this because I'm the problem." In other words, children psychologically choose the parent over themselves--after all, the parent must know better, right? 

Verbal Abuse by Parents Leads to Abusive Relationships

Growing up with verbally abusive parents normalizes situations for children where they feel unloveable, have their inner lives minimized and ignored, and are told either implicitly or explicitly that they are bad or flawed. 

The result can lead them to enter into a romantic relationship in which they re-enact these painful experiences until they are able to wake up and recognize the pattern for what it is--if they ever do.

Sometimes re-victimization can occur in which adults who were verbally abused by parents as children find themselves in many abusive relationships as adults. 

Watch the video below, as there’s a surprising and important reason why and I think it's an important perspective to hear.