The other day, I overheard a mom at the farmers’ market tell her daughter “You’re being too sensitive” when the little one started crying over a scraped knee.
It stopped me in my tracks. Not because the mom was being cruel, but because those exact words tumbled out of my own mother’s mouth dozens of times throughout my childhood. Back then, nobody blinked an eye.
Growing up in the ’80s meant hearing certain phrases that were as common as Saturday morning cartoons and sugary cereal. Our parents weren’t trying to harm us.
They were raising us the way they knew how, with the tools they’d inherited from their own parents. But here’s what I’ve learned after transitioning from teaching to parenting education: many of those everyday phrases we heard would make a modern therapist’s eyebrows shoot straight up.
As someone still untangling my own patterns of people-pleasing and perfectionism from my Midwest upbringing, I’ve spent countless hours reflecting on how those seemingly innocent words shaped who I became.
Some left deeper marks than others, and surprisingly, the one that did the most damage actually sounded like praise.
1. “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about”
This was the emotional shutdown special. When tears started flowing over anything less than a broken bone, out came this classic threat. The message was crystal clear: your feelings aren’t valid unless I decide they are.
I remember hiding in my closet after hearing this, trying to swallow my sobs silently.
Now when my daughter comes to me with tears streaming down her face because her tower of blocks fell over, I take a breath and remind myself that her disappointment is real to her. Teaching kids to suppress emotions doesn’t make them stronger; it just makes them better at hiding their struggles.
2. “Because I said so”
The ultimate conversation ender. No explanation, no reasoning, just pure parental authority. While boundaries matter, this phrase taught us that questioning authority was wrong and that we didn’t deserve to understand the rules governing our lives.
These days, when my five-year-old asks why she can’t have ice cream for breakfast, I explain about nutrition and energy.
Sure, sometimes I’m tired and tempted to pull out the old “because I said so,” but I remember how powerless it made me feel as a kid. Understanding the “why” helps children develop critical thinking skills instead of blind obedience.
3. “You’re being too sensitive”
As the middle child who desperately wanted everyone to be happy, I heard this one constantly. Upset about being teased? Too sensitive. Hurt when forgotten at school pickup? Too sensitive. The result? I learned to doubt my own emotional reactions and spent years wondering if my feelings were ever legitimate.
What would a therapist say today? That invalidating a child’s emotions teaches them to distrust their own instincts. When my son gets upset because his sister got a bigger piece of toast (even though they’re exactly the same size), I acknowledge his feelings first before addressing the situation.
4. “Wait until your father gets home”
This phrase turned dad into the family boogeyman and mom into someone who couldn’t handle discipline herself. It created hours of anxiety, waiting for punishment that might or might not come, depending on dad’s mood after work.
The damage here runs deep: it teaches kids that one parent is the “soft” one and the other is scary. It also delays consequences so far from the behavior that kids often forgot what they’d done wrong. Now I handle discipline in the moment, and my husband and I work as a team rather than playing good cop/bad cop.
5. “Children should be seen and not heard”
At family gatherings, we kids knew our place: sitting quietly while adults talked about adult things. Our opinions didn’t matter. Our stories could wait. We were decorative objects, proof of successful reproduction, but not actual participants in family life.
This phrase taught us that our voices didn’t matter, that adults were inherently more important. Is it any wonder so many of us struggle with speaking up in meetings or advocating for ourselves?
I make sure my kids know their thoughts and stories matter, even if sometimes I need to ask them to wait for an appropriate moment to share.
6. “Big boys/girls don’t cry”
Gender stereotypes wrapped in emotional suppression? What could go wrong? This phrase taught boys that vulnerability was weakness and girls that growing up meant stuffing down their feelings.
My older brother heard this constantly, and watching him struggle to express emotions as an adult breaks my heart. In our house, everyone cries when they need to. Tears are just another way our bodies process big feelings.
7. “You’re okay, you’re fine”
Skinned knee? You’re fine. Friend said something mean? You’re okay. This reflexive dismissal taught us to ignore our body’s signals and minimize our own experiences. If mom said you were fine, then you must be fine, even if everything in you screamed otherwise.
When my kids get hurt, I ask them to tell me about it first. Sometimes they really are fine and just need acknowledgment. Sometimes they need comfort. But they get to decide, not me.
8. “Don’t make me come over there”
The threat of physical proximity as punishment. This phrase relied on fear to control behavior, suggesting that if mom or dad had to actually get up, something bad would happen. It worked because we’d learned through experience that an approaching angry parent meant trouble.
Fear-based parenting might get immediate compliance, but it erodes trust. When I need to intervene with my kids, I go to them calmly. My presence should mean help is coming, not punishment.
9. “I’ll take you to the doctor and they’ll give you a shot”
Using medical care as a threat? This one makes me cringe now. How many of us developed medical anxiety because doctors were painted as punishment deliverers rather than helpers?
We wonder why so many adults avoid medical care, but when healthcare was weaponized in childhood, is it really surprising? My kids know doctors help us stay healthy, period.
10. “You’re so mature for your age”
Here it is. The compliment that wasn’t. The phrase that did the most lasting damage while sounding like praise.
As the responsible middle child who helped with my younger sister and never caused trouble, I lived for this validation. Teachers said it. Relatives said it. My parents beamed when others noticed how “grown up” I acted.
But you know what I was? A child who’d learned that my value came from suppressing my childishness, from taking care of others’ emotions, from never being “too much.”
This “compliment” stole childhoods. It turned kids into tiny adults, praising them for not having needs, for being convenient, for making adults’ lives easier.
We became expert people-pleasers, perfectionists, anxiety-ridden overachievers who still struggle to rest or play without guilt. We learned that being “mature” meant our worth came from what we did for others, not from simply being ourselves.
Moving forward with compassion
Looking back at these phrases isn’t about vilifying our parents. They loved us with the tools they had, in a time when parenting advice came from tradition rather than child development research. My own parents, strict as they were, wanted the best for us.
But we know better now. We understand how words shape developing minds, how emotional validation builds resilience, how children need both boundaries and explanations.
As I create a different family culture with more emotional openness, I often catch myself before these old phrases slip out. They’re carved deep in my parenting muscle memory.
What matters is that we’re trying to do better. When I slip up (and I do), I apologize to my kids. I explain that mommy is still learning too. Because maybe that’s the phrase our kids need to hear most: adults are still figuring things out, and that’s okay.
