THE OVERBEARING MOTHER

An overbearing mother, defined as a mother who constantly hovers over her children, shows constant dissatisfaction and disappointment towards the children and regularly criticizes their actions, and likes to exert total control over their children's activities. Overbearing mothers unfortunately often leave psychological effects on their children, leading them to exert a feeling of frustration that affects their healthy growth, relationship with others, and relationship with the overbearing mother herself. It also impairs their ability to make choices, resulting in codependency as they grow into adulthood. They grow up distrusting their own judgment and decision making due to the prolonged criticism and expression of disappointment and dissatisfaction of their actions in childhood. 

This form of codependency that the child develops creates other lack of self confidence issues such as the inability to handle leadership positions, low self-esteem, intense anxiety, and a massive stunt in their emotional growth or maturity. There is a strong connection between overbearing mothers and codependency. As the overbearing mother exhibits total control over their child's actions, yelling, guilt-tripping behaviours, and leans in for

extensive emotional support, their children fall prey to this form of emotional manipulation. This affects their lives tremendously as kids and even more so when they grow into adulthood.

Here are some signs that indicate you may be an overbearing mother. 

• Navigating Your Children's Life: Overbearing mothers navigate and control every aspect of their children's lives. They make decisions for them, often demand constant attention, and even make decisions concerning their friends and public life. She becomes too dependent on her relationship with her children and observes no boundaries in her relationship with her children. Thus her children subconsciously develop the same codependent behavior towards their overbearing mother or others. 
  
  
• Over Protective: An overbearing mother shows signs of overprotection by constantly inquiring about her children's activities. These mother's place a constant watch on their children and see it as a way of managing anxiety and protecting their children from harm.
  
  
• Lack Of Empathy: Overbearing mothers usually ignore their children's feelings and interpret their emotions incorrectly. Without empathy, they make decisions that affect their children's feelings and growth.
  
  
• Constant Comparison: These mothers usually compare their children with others or even with themselves. She constantly puts down her children, reducing their self-esteem, leading to depression and embarrassment.
  
  
• Interference with Personal Relationships: An overbearing mother constantly questions the whereabouts and friends of her children even when they become adults. She gives off an over-controlling behaviour and decides who they should and should not converse with. She shows characteristics of heavy dependency on the relationship she has with her children. 

Children with overbearing mothers grow up with bouts of anxiety, depression, codependency on both a subconscious and conscious level, and even low self-esteem. To aid the proper development of your children, consider these tips to stop or avoid being overbearing:

Allow your children to socialize with friends of their choice

Give them regular compliments

Allow the children to make essential choices for themselves

Abstain from conflicts and arguments

Display acts of love and care and show excitement regularly for their positive actions taken 

Ensure that you give them your full and undivided attention while spending quality time 

If we truly love our children and want the best for them we need to acknowledge the parts we play in their upbringing. If we display more affection and empathy and find ways to be more positively guiding rather than harshly critical we can save our children from a lot of emotional childhood trauma. When we know better, it’s important that we act on what we know and do better. Lets dismantle the conditioned behavioral patterns of the overbearing mother.