The Adult Child Struggle With Self-Worth

Of the many adult child issues, achieving and maintaining a sense of self-worth is a major one.

When people either purchase an item in a store or receive one as a gift, they often consult the box for the words “no assembly required,” which is seldom the case with aircraft models and outdoor patio furniture. If children came in a box, their own labels would not make this claim. Indeed, when it comes to self-worth, it needs to be collected, cultivated, and cemented during their early upbringing years. Yet deficient parents who never understood their own childhood circumstances and hence never made attempts to heal their own wounds, have difficulty in instilling self-confidence and -esteem in their children because they lack it themselves. This “assembly required” process consists of far more than the words they utter, no matter how positive they may seem.

“In childhood, our identify is formed by the reflections we see in the eyes of the people around us,” according to the Adult Children of Alcoholics textbook (World Service Organization, 2006, p. 84). “We fear losing this reflection, thinking the mirror makes us real, and that we disappear or have no self without it.”

Claims such as “I love you” are hollow if they are not supported by confirming actions and those who are subjected to unsubstantiated blame, negative comments or criticism, abuse in its many forms, and abandonment in its own many forms, find it difficult to detect and believe such statements.

“Verbal and emotional abuse can be just as damaging as physical abuse, even though there are no physical bruises,” the Adult Children of Alcoholics textbook continues (ibid, p. 29). “The body is badly bruised on the inside. We have been called vulgar names and labeled wrongly. We have been judged as inferior or unintelligent…Many emotionally abusive parents believe they are disciplining the children with loving instruction. But, in reality, they are undercutting the child’s sense of worth.”

However, isn’t discipline necessary in the parental direction and guidance process?

I am reminded of a movie about a half-dozen kids I saw many years ago. Five were subjected to parental rules and restrictions, such as times to play outside, times to be inside to have dinner and complete their homework assignments, and, even in the early-teen period, curfews as to when they were expected to return home and get ready for bed. One seemed to have no limitations: he could do whatever he wished and was therefore viewed as the “lucky one” who was sometimes envied.

But the truth was that those with the rules had parents who expressed care, concern, and love through their direction, and were the real “lucky ones,” while the one without direction had parents who abandoned him and he most likely starved for what the others had.

“The difference between appropriate parenting that corrects with love and affirmation, and shame which destroys the spirit, is how you feel about the act or comment” the Adult Children of Alcoholics textbook advises (ibid, p. 169).

Children do not always accept or believe what their parents say about them. Instead, they pick up, feel, and absorb every gesture, clue, and tone, as they unknowingly ascribe to the “actions speak louder than words” philosophy, to build their own sense of worth, coming to their own conclusions about their value.

Those subjected to alcoholic or para-alcoholic upbringings wrestle with an additional difficulty. Defenseless against the negatively-charged projections of their parents’ own low sense of self-esteem, sometimes subjected to boundary-crossing enmeshments, and unaware of such a phenomenon, they believe that the inferior self-images they develop because of them are their own when, in reality, they are those of their parents.

During such instances, the parents revert from being the adults they are to the defenseless children they once were and act out of their own unresolved issues and unhealed wounds. Children, of course, have no understanding of this concept at an early age and only conclude that they are inferior, burdens, and just not lovable.

All of these aspects render the self-worth “assembly process” very difficult for children swimming against the tide in dysfunctional homes, which are conditions those raised in more stable ones do have to deal with.

“In loving homes, children are eager to see themselves reflected by those around them,” the Adult Children of Alcoholics textbook concludes (ibid, p. 86). “A positive self-reflection increases their sense of security and feelings of self-esteem. They come to believe they have value because they are accepted and loved.”

In the end, a child’s self-worth is either cultivated or intercepted by the interpretation of his parents’ actions, expressions, feelings, dialogue, and interactions with him in an assembly process that spans his impressionable years.

Robert G. Waldvogel has earned the Interdisciplinary Certificate in Behavioral Health for Late Adolescence and the Emerging Adult and a Postgraduate Certificate in the Fundamentals of Cognitive Behavioral Treatment at Adelphi University’s School of Social Work. He has led Twelve-Step support groups on Long Island for the past decade, and created the Adult Child Recovery-through-Writing, and the Strengthening Our Spirituality Programs taught at the Thrive Recovery Community and Outreach Center in Westbury. He is a frequent contributor to Wisdom Magazine.