Parenting Determines Whether We Develop Healthy Inner-Voices, or Unhealthy Inner-Critics

No one is born with poor self-love, lack of self-esteem or feeling worthless. We are created to love ourselves and to eventually grow to understand our worth and purpose in life.

We all come into this world naturally loving and feeling good about ourselves. Have you ever seen an infant look at itself in a mirror for the first time? They experience amazement and joy. But as that infant grows into being a toddler, he/she develops an inner-voice. That inner-voice is generally created by our parents. We hear what they say to and about us. 

People who grew up in functional households heard affirming comments from their parents, like “You’re my angel,” “You are so beautiful,” or “You are a joy.” As a result, such children developed a healthy inner-voice. But not all of us were that fortunate. In addictive households, when we heard “You’re so stupid, “ or “You’re going to be an ugly duckling like your father’s sisters,” our inner-voices were skewed. We internalized these negative statements and they became our inner-critic.

Those of us who grew up with alcoholic/dysfunctional parents learned to speak to ourselves the same way we heard our parents speak to us. We also developed our inner-voice, or inner-critic, by experiencing the ways our parents spoke to themselves and to each other. And, for the most part, they were just as critical of themselves and each other as they were of us.

Additionally, we built our inner-voices/critics and behavioral patterns based on what we observed, and we were constantly observing the behaviors of our parents and other significant family members. This is why functional parenting is so important. Functional, loving and affirming parenting creates functional, loving and affirming children. 

For those of us who developed an unhealthy inner-critic instead of a healthy inner-voice, all is not lost. Recovery programs teach us how to reparent our still wounded inner-child. Recovery teaches us to rebuke and replace our inner-critic with a healthy inner-voice.