PDF Summary:13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don't Do, by Amy Morin

There are countless books telling parents how to give their children the best possible upbringing, but psychotherapist Amy Morin realized that there were few—if any—warning parents about what not to do. That’s why she wrote 13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don’t Do, describing 13 common mistakes and how to avoid them. Morin also gives detailed explanations about why those mistakes can derail even the best parents and suggestions about what to do instead.

Our guide will compile Morin’s 13 “don’ts” into four categories: managing expectations and consequences, letting children experience hardship, maintaining the home’s hierarchy, and remembering what’s most important. Our commentary will draw connections to self-help books like Atomic Habits to help you effectively implement Morin’s ideas. We’ll also link to scientific articles that support some of Morin’s principles and explain why they work. Finally, we’ll suggest alternate approaches for especially difficult parenting challenges.

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Teaching self-esteem and self-care. People who respect and trust themselves feel empowered to confront and solve their problems. However, part of respecting yourself is taking care of yourself—for instance, teach your child how to stay healthy, make sure they have time to do things they enjoy, and let them know that it’s OK to take a break sometimes. All of these self-care practices help build up reserves of inner strength that your child can tap when they’re struggling.

Having honest conversations. Listen to your child’s concerns and answer their questions truthfully. If your child is young, often the best thing you can do is simply reassure them that you’re there to help and to keep them safe. Once they’re a bit older, usually around 12 years old, you can also share stories about times when you struggled and how you coped with those situations; learning that you got through similar hardships will be reassuring for your child.

Mentally Strong Parents Don’t Base Decisions on Fear

Morin says that parents generally become overprotective because they’re afraid for their children, which is natural and understandable. However, that leads to another of her “don’ts”: Don’t base your parenting decisions on fear. She adds that if you’re making decisions to protect your child from embarrassment, discomfort, or failure—in other words, anything short of actual danger—then you’re letting fear drive your parenting.

This is harmful because fear-based parenting decisions tend to stunt a child’s development. Children of fearful, overprotective parents never learn to take care of themselves or make their own decisions; they grow up completely reliant on their parents’ protection. Therefore, when they lose that protection as adults, they don’t have the skills or the confidence to make their own way in the world.

(Shortform note: Morin advises that you don’t try to protect your child from anything except actual danger. You can do this more effectively—and ease your worries at the same time—by learning about the most common dangers that kids actually face, and about situations that are much less dangerous than many parents believe. For instance, it’s estimated that only about one in 10,000 missing children (that’s only 0.01%) were abducted by strangers, yet many parents are terrified of their children even talking to people they don’t know. On the other hand, being cautious around swimming pools is very reasonable, since accidental drownings are tragically common. Teaching your child safety skills, such as how to swim, will be helpful for both your child’s safety and your own anxiety.)

Furthermore, says Morin, fearful parents tend to micromanage everything, thereby stifling their children’s freedom and self-expression. This kind of overbearing parenting style often leads to frustrated, resentful children.

For example, an anxious parent might insist on choosing their kid’s outfit every day, long after the child is capable of getting dressed on their own. The parent might be afraid their child will become the target of bullies if they choose their own clothes, or they might worry about the child getting a bad reputation by projecting the “wrong” image with their clothing choices.

Fearful parents also view any small act of rebellion—for instance, if the child from the previous example were to sneak a different shirt to school—as a sign that they need to become even stricter. Since they’ve already decided that the “risk” their child took is unacceptable, they conclude that the only solution is to tighten their control and make sure their child never takes such a risk again.

(Shortform note: In addition to stifling free will and self-expression, fear-based parenting tends to make children frustrated and resentful because it’s insulting to the child. Every time an anxious parent takes a decision away from their child, they’re implying the child isn’t competent enough to make that decision. It becomes even more insulting when that decision is something trivial, like which shirt to wear to school; though the parent is only trying to help, it comes across as them thinking that the child is too stupid to pick their own outfit. When someone grows up being constantly insulted in this way, it’s not surprising that they’d become angry and resentful.)

Mentally Strong Parents Don’t Protect Their Children From Mistakes

On the topic of perfectionism, another of Morin’s tips is to not fix your child’s mistakes for them.

Morin says that messing up—and facing the consequences—is one of the most effective ways for children to learn. Therefore, it’s crucial that you don’t jump in to fix every little mistake your child makes.

For example, if your child forgets their homework at school, don’t drive them back out to get it. Letting your child experience the embarrassment of admitting they didn’t do their homework, and the shame of getting a zero on that assignment, will go a long way toward making sure they’re more responsible in the future.

(Shortform note: Making mistakes is a great way to learn, but only if the person is ready to learn from their mistakes. In Ego Is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday explains that having excessive pride—in his words, ego—can make this learning process impossible. This is because learning from mistakes requires the person to truthfully examine what went wrong, figure out how they caused or contributed to the problem, and determine how they can do better next time. However, their ego will only want to look at what they did right and blame any failures on others. Therefore, after making a mistake, your child might need your help to remain calm so they can rationally examine what happened and what they could learn from the experience.)

Furthermore, Morin says the single most important lesson children learn from making mistakes is how to recover from such mistakes. In other words, by allowing your child to make mistakes and learn from them, you’ll help them to develop resilience, independence, and problem-solving skills.

Conversely, children who grow up shielded from consequences tend to develop into anxious, uncertain adults. Because they never learned how to deal with mistakes, they become terrified of doing anything wrong once that protection is gone. As a result, they often become perfectionistic and unwilling to take risks.

Finally, Morin adds that even though you aren’t protecting your child from their mistakes, you can still offer them much-needed support during this learning process. One way to do this is by telling them about times that you made mistakes and learned from them; this will help instill the idea that nobody’s perfect, mistakes are a part of life, and the truly important thing is how to turn those mistakes into personal growth.

How a Growth Mindset Builds Failure Resilience

The key to recovering from failure (or helping your child do so) is developing what psychologist Carol Dweck (Mindset) calls a growth mindset. In simple terms, people with this mindset believe that it’s possible to build upon their natural talents and abilities; therefore, they view failures as opportunities for learning and improvement. By embracing challenges and viewing failures as temporary obstacles to overcome, those with a growth mindset are better equipped to bounce back from adversity and continue pursuing their goals with resilience and determination.

In contrast, people with fixed mindsets believe that skills and intelligence are purely inherent, and can’t be improved upon. Therefore, someone with this mindset views failure as a reflection of their identity; they don’t just think “I failed,” they think “I am a failure.” Furthermore, since they don’t think that it’s possible to improve, they give up after their first failed attempt, which is the opposite of failure resilience.

The good news, Dweck says, is that you can develop a growth mindset even if you don’t naturally have one. The fixed mindset is inherently judgmental, so the trick to overcoming that mindset is to recognize judgmental thoughts—both about yourself and others—and replace them with learning-oriented thoughts. Therefore, when your child says something like “I can’t do it” (a judgmental thought), you could encourage them to instead think about how they could get a little closer to achieving the thing they’re trying to do.

Mentally Strong Parents Don’t Enable Victimhood

Children who don’t yet have the skills to cope with hardship and discomfort often play the victim; they exaggerate their failures, overstate their pain, and insist that they can never succeed because the whole world is against them. Morin says that you shouldn’t indulge that kind of self-pity because then your child might never grow out of their victim mentality—psychologists refer to this mindset as learned helplessness.

Therefore, the author recommends encouraging your kid to learn and grow from their struggles. For instance, you might help them figure out why things went badly and how they can avoid that problem in the future. You can also guide them toward positive, productive action to improve their situation. Then, instead of learning that they're a helpless victim of an unfair world, your child will learn that they can always improve and try again.

How Learned Helplessness Develops, and How to Overcome It

In Awaken the Giant Within, Tony Robbins—drawing in part from the work of psychologist Martin Seligman—goes into more detail about what learned helplessness is and how you can start to overcome it.

In brief, Robbins says learned helplessness is a habit of over-generalizing mistakes and failures. He explains that people with this mindset have three key thought patterns: They believe that problems are permanent (unsolvable), pervasive (affecting many areas of their lives), and personal (a sign that something is inherently wrong with them).

For example, if your child fails a history test, they might say something like “I’m bad at history.” Such a statement generalizes that one failure into a personal weakness that can never be overcome; the child is really saying that they’re inherently bad at history (personal), they will always be bad at history (permanent), and therefore they’ll fail at anything that requires historical knowledge (pervasive).

However, Robbins also offers a simple way to start breaking out of a learned helplessness mindset: Identify a problem that you can solve right now—any problem at all—and then solve it. By doing so, you’ll start to teach yourself that you’re not helpless, and you can create positive changes. Therefore, if your child is slipping into a victimized mindset, help them to identify such a problem and let them fix it; you can then point out that they’re clearly not as helpless as they think.

Mentally Strong Parents Don’t “Fix” Their Children’s Emotions

Another temptation Morin warns against is the urge to cheer up your child whenever they feel sad or hurt. This is important because, much like children need to learn how to cope with physical pain and risk, they also need to develop the skills to handle their painful feelings. Therefore, it’s important to let them experience and learn to cope with a wide variety of emotions, from frustration and embarrassment to boredom to grief.

So, instead of trying to make your child feel better right away, the author suggests offering validation and support when they’re struggling. Let your child know that it’s OK to feel what they’re feeling, and that you’re there to help them through it—but not to fix the problem or to somehow make the pain go away.

(Shortform note: What Morin describes here is often called co-regulation. This is a parenting strategy where you help your child regulate big emotions using skills like soothing words and gentle touches, and offering suggestions such as taking a snack break. Your child will internalize those emotional management skills over time, so eventually they’ll no longer need an adult’s help to regulate their feelings. However, co-regulation is challenging; it requires you to stay calm while your child is upset, and there will be times when you have trouble regulating your own emotions, let alone your child’s. That’s why it takes a great deal of mental strength to practice this strategy consistently.)

What to Do Instead: Build Skills and Offer Support

What does it mean to help your child with their feelings but not to make them feel better? To illustrate this concept, here are three suggestions that Morin offers about how to help your child when they’re upset, and prepare them to deal with their own emotions when you’re not there.

1. Build your child’s emotional vocabulary. Encourage your child to talk about what they’re feeling. Get specific: for instance, are they sad or just disappointed? Are they actually angry, or would it be more appropriate to say they’re annoyed or frustrated? Morin adds that the most effective way to do this is to talk about your own feelings in the same way, so your child will learn new vocabulary and understand that it’s OK to discuss their feelings with you.

(Shortform note: In Atlas of the Heart, social worker Brené Brown says that people feel dozens of different emotions, but many of us can only recognize three of them: happiness, sadness, and anger. Brown says that this lack of vocabulary stops us from being able to understand our feelings and share them with each other, which leaves us isolated and depressed. To help people overcome that obstacle, Brown names and defines numerous emotions that people might feel about themselves (such as shame, confidence, and happiness), about each other (like anger, empathy, and vulnerability), and about things that happen (such as anxiety or boredom).)

2. Coach your child on appropriate ways to handle their feelings. All emotions are valid, but that doesn’t mean all behaviors are valid. For instance, it’s common for an angry child to throw a temper tantrum—they scream, cry, break things, and so on. In this case, your role as a parent isn’t to stop them from being angry, but rather to teach anger management skills like talking to someone, writing about their feelings, or finding a safe outlet for their anger such as a punching bag or pillow.

3. Come up with ways your child can influence their own emotions. You can’t manage your child’s emotions for them—however, finding ways they can make themselves feel better is helpful. Everybody is different, so Morin says you’ll have to work together with your child on this one: Brainstorm things your child can do when they need to calm down, cheer up, or otherwise regain control of their feelings.

Children Can Regulate Feelings by Accepting Them

While Morin suggests teaching your child ways to take control of their feelings, psychologist Tara Brach takes a different approach to managing difficult emotions. In Radical Acceptance, Brach says it’s impossible to fully control your feelings, but you can ensure they don’t control you.

You can maintain control of yourself by accepting all of your moment-to-moment thoughts and emotions—the titular Radical Acceptance—but also recognizing that you don’t need to act on what you think or feel. This practice has two key components: recognition, which means clearly understanding your inner experiences, and compassion, which means responding to those experiences with kindness and love rather than with judgment and harsh self-criticism. In this way, you can understand that negative thoughts and feelings are merely passing experiences, and not problems that must be immediately fixed.

One effective way to build these skills is to practice mindfulness meditation with your child. You and your child can sit comfortably, breathe deeply, and pay close attention to what you each think and feel. Do so without judgment: For instance, if you realize that you’re feeling angry about something, just accept that feeling for what it is instead of berating yourself or trying to make it go away. Practicing mindfulness meditation for just a few minutes each day can help your child (and you) develop self-awareness and self-control.

Maintaining the Home’s Hierarchy

Along with protecting your child from hardship and discomfort, you might be tempted to do whatever else you can to make them happy. However, indulging your kid’s every whim can lead to a spoiled child and a miserable and unbalanced household. In this section, we’ll discuss Morin’s tips for avoiding that situation: Don’t overindulge your child, and don’t let your child’s decisions override yours.

Mentally Strong Parents Don’t Overindulge Their Children

Morin says that one sure way to disrupt the balance of power in your home (and to raise a spoiled, selfish child) is to treat your child like they’re the greatest person in the world by praising their every action and granting their every request.

She adds that, naturally, you want your child to be confident and strong-willed, but there’s a fine line between confidence and entitlement. A child who thinks they’re exceptional—more important or somehow better than their peers—is likely to grow into a self-centered adult who’s constantly frustrated that the world doesn’t just hand them everything they want.

(Shortform note: Morin warns against overindulgence because it can create feelings of exceptionalism and entitlement. However, in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark Manson notes that some people actually develop feelings of entitlement for the opposite reason: Past traumas lead them to believe that they’re damaged in some unique and special way, so they think they’re entitled to special treatment and extra help that they may not really need.)

The way to stop self-assuredness from twisting into self-importance, says Morin, is to shift your child’s focus toward others; get them to think about how they could help people and make the world better, rather than what they believe the world should be doing for them. For example, a gifted student could reframe their intelligence as an opportunity to help struggling classmates, rather than seeing it as an excuse to coast through school.

(Shortform note: Children are more likely to focus on others once they realize that helping people feels good. In fact, some research has shown that being kind to others provides noticeable boosts to happiness and overall well-being—in other words, by helping others, people also help themselves.)

Mentally Strong Parents Don’t Base Decisions on Guilt

Morin says there will inevitably be times when you feel guilty; perhaps you think you’re failing as a parent, or believe you’ve made some terrible mistake. However, don’t try to assuage your own guilt by overindulging your child because that will foster their feelings of self-importance and entitlement.

Instead, the author urges you to carefully examine your feelings of guilt. Determine whether those feelings are justified, or if you only feel bad because you failed to meet some impossible standard. For example, every child gets hurt sometimes, so there’s no reason to feel bad because you didn’t stop your kid from skinning their knee—and there’s certainly no reason to buy them an extra treat to make up for it, no matter how much they try to guilt-trip you about the injury.

(Shortform note: Unjustified guilt—feeling bad when you haven’t done anything wrong—often comes from unreasonable beliefs that you developed as a child. For instance, if your parents or older siblings tended to blame their bad moods on you, perhaps you now believe it’s your job to make sure everyone around you is happy. As a result, you might feel anxious or guilty when someone else is upset, like your child would be after skinning their knee. You can determine whether your guilt is justified or not by considering whether you’ve actually violated one of your values—for example, if you hurt someone or broke a promise. If you can’t find a way that you’ve acted against your values, then your guilt is likely coming from one of those childhood beliefs.)

On the other hand, writes Morin, if you conclude that you did do something wrong, that’s a chance for you to demonstrate accountability. You can apologize to your child, make whatever amends are appropriate, and let them see you handling your feelings in a healthy way. This will help your child learn to examine their own feelings of guilt and respond to them appropriately.

(Shortform note: Some parents never take accountability for their mistakes, which leads to lasting damage in parent-child relationships. For some, the resistance to admitting fault stems from a belief that, as the highest authority figures in the household, they don't need to be accountable to anyone. Others view apologizing or admitting fault as a sign of weakness. However, this “never apologize” mentality overlooks the benefits that a sincere apology can provide to both parties: When parents apologize, it eases their guilt over mistakes made, while also validating and soothing their child's hurt feelings. In short, apologizing turns a mistake that could damage a parent-child relationship into an opportunity to strengthen that relationship instead.)

Mentally Strong Parents Don’t Let Children Run the Household

According to Morin, another common way parents upend their home’s hierarchy is by giving their children too much authority: letting the child’s decisions override their own or letting the child make decisions about things that shouldn’t be their choice. For example, it’s fine for a kid to decide what to do during their free time, but not to decide whether they’ll go to school that day.

This is important because, once you surrender your authority, you also surrender your ability to discipline and teach your child. In short, if your child learns that they don’t have to do what you say, they’ll have no reason to listen to you anymore.

Morin says you can maintain the hierarchy by setting clear boundaries and expectations. She advises you to be firm, but also to remain calm and avoid being drawn into arguments—simply make it clear that you expect your child to follow the rules you’ve set, and there will be consequences if they don’t.

Balancing Autonomy With Obedience

In this section, Morin emphasizes parental authority and making sure that your child follows your instructions. In How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, the authors advocate a different approach—they suggest giving your child enough autonomy to willingly cooperate with you. They also offer some suggestions on how to strike the right balance of autonomy and obedience:

Speak neutrally and factually. Give your child the information they need to draw their own conclusions; they’ll be much more cooperative if they feel like they came up with the course of action personally. So, instead of scolding your child for having a messy room, you can simply describe the problem, such as “I see dirty clothes on the floor.” You can also use this strategy to guide your child to better decisions, like telling them that their toy could break if they keep throwing it.

Provide choices. Come up with a couple of different options that you find acceptable, then let your child pick between them. For example, you might ask whether they want carrots or broccoli with dinner tonight; they’ll get their vegetables either way, and they’ll be pleased to have a say in the matter.

Use written notes. The authors say that writing down instructions makes them seem less personal, and therefore makes children less likely to resist them. For example, if you leave a note by the door reminding people to wipe their shoes on the doormat before coming inside, that no longer seems like you telling your child to wipe their shoes; it’s simply a rule that exists. Therefore, this strategy avoids power struggles because the child no longer sees a specific person to argue with.

Mentally Strong Parents Don’t Lose Sight of the Big Picture

Morin says that, now more than ever, people tend to get so caught up in the demands of everyday life that they start forgetting the beliefs and values that are most important to them. This brings us to her final “don’t”: Don’t lose sight of the things that matter most.

The author advises you to occasionally step back and consider whether your child is learning the values you hope to teach them—does their behavior line up with your morals? If not, Morin says you may need to think about whether your behavior lines up with your morals, because your child will learn much more from how you act than from what you say. For instance, if you say that you value honesty, but frequently lie to your child to protect their feelings or avoid unpleasant conversations, you’re sending the message that convenience is more important than honesty.

To illustrate this point, Morin cites a 2014 Harvard study about values. Researchers surveyed parents about which values they most wanted their children to demonstrate, as well as asking teenagers what they thought their parents valued most. The results showed a striking disconnect: Most of the adults said they valued kindness above all else, but most of the teenagers believed success was their parents’ top priority. Clearly, many of those parents had gotten caught up in the frantic pace of day-to-day life and lost sight of the big picture.

Important Values Versus Urgent Tasks

How could so many people lose sight of the values they say are most important to them, as the Harvard study suggests? As Morin says, it’s because they got stuck in an endless cycle of urgent tasks. We can further illustrate this point by looking at First Things First, where educator and businessman Stephen Covey emphasizes the difference between importance and urgency.

When something is important, there will be negative consequences if you ignore it. For instance, your child might grow up thinking that how much they earn is more important than how well they treat others, even if you believe the opposite.

On the other hand, something urgent is merely time-sensitive; it has to be done within a certain timeframe, but nothing terrible will happen if you don’t do it. For example, getting your child home in time for a livestream of their favorite YouTuber is urgent, but missing the stream isn’t going to hurt them. The problem is that urgency gives the illusion of importance, which is why many parents end up focusing on daily tasks and forgetting their core values.

Of course, some things are both important and urgent, such as doctor’s appointments and catching the school bus. However, Covey says there are probably fewer things than you think in this category—and once those tasks are handled, you’ll have time to focus on what’s important, but not urgent.

What to Do Instead: Try Making a Mission Statement

How can you keep your core values in mind while dealing with the countless demands of modern life? Morin suggests borrowing a common business practice by creating a mission statement for your family.

Start by talking with your spouse, or any other adults you live with. Discuss which values are most important to you, and decide what ideals you want to embody and pass on to your child. Next, call the entire household together in order to get your child’s input; ask them things like what it means to be a family, what you all can achieve together, and what your family can contribute to the world.

Once that’s done, work together to create a short, simple mission statement that describes your family’s ideals and goals. One such mission statement might be, “We will be honest with ourselves and with each other. We will be kind to everyone. We will never turn our backs on those who need us.”

Display your family mission statement someplace where everyone will see it regularly, and it will serve as a reminder of what matters most.

Your Mission Statement and Your Child’s “Dominant Questions”

Morin says that having a prominent mission statement for your family is an effective way to influence your child’s behavior. One way it does so is by changing the questions they ask themselves.

Life coach Jim Kwik says that thinking is merely the process of asking and answering questions, and dominant questions are queries that constantly run in the background of our minds. These questions act as powerful filters, causing our brains to prioritize information that can help us answer them. Therefore, dominant questions play a significant role in determining our thought processes and, ultimately, our behavior. For example, if one of your current questions is “which car should I buy?” you’ll probably start noticing car ads and recommendations everywhere—and, of course, you’ll also actively look for information to guide your decision.

When your child repeatedly sees the mission statement your family came up with, they start to internalize the key values that statement represents, and so they create dominant questions reflecting those values. For example, if your family mission statement emphasizes kindness and compassion, your child might develop a dominant question such as, "How can I show kindness in this situation?" or "What would be the most compassionate response to what this person said?" These questions then guide their thoughts and actions.