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This Is Why People Pleasers Make Terrible Parents (Even If They Have The Best Intentions)

Adelina Vasile
ILLUMINATION
Published in
7 min readNov 23, 2022

Image by Alexandr Ivanov from Pixabay

People pleasers are always pulled between what they want or need and what others want, need, or expect from them.

Once they have children, they get pulled from a new, third direction.

It feels shameful to admit you care so much about other people’s opinions. So, you brush it off as kindness.

But here’s why people-pleasing isn’t kindness. And why it makes your life miserable while giving your kids bad lessons.

Have You Ever Heard of Sociotropy?

The Psychology Dictionary says sociotropy is:

a person’s tendency to place an inordinate value on relationships over personal independence that will leave them vulnerable to depression in the response to a loss of relationships.

That’s right, it’s the term specialists use for people-pleasing.

According to Wikipedia, this is a personality trait. You care too much about keeping your relationships with others.

Go ahead and add your children to the equation. You have their best interest at heart. So making choices that serve them well without…

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ILLUMINATION
ILLUMINATION

Published in ILLUMINATION

We curate and disseminate outstanding articles from diverse domains and disciplines to create fusion and synergy.

Adelina Vasile
Adelina Vasile

Written by Adelina Vasile

Mother, educator, journalist, copywriter. I write about the things I need to learn myself.

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