In every bookstore there are books about toxic parents and we all have to agree that we learned as we parented and most of our kids have some legitimate complaints. Usually we did the best we could do with what we had to work with. What we had to work with is often called “multi-generational family patterns of dysfunction”. Put simply, it means we learned how to parent from our parents who learned how to parent from their parents who learned how to parent from their parents who learned how to parent from their parents and so on, each generation handing down the same or mostly same parenting style until it gets to the helicopter parent of today who decided to do a 180 and parent exactly opposite the way he/she was parented and winds up creating toxic kid from hell. Healing and understanding is possible, sometimes with the help of a therapist. Guilt doesn’t help anyone and guilt is the chief cause of toxic kids. Here are just a few examples of toxic kids: Your kid only gets off the couch to go to the refrigerator and bathroom. Your kid is thirty. Your kid brings his/her laundry to your...

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