Self-image and parenting: how not to pass your self-doubt on to your child

“No, I really can’t draw. Everything I draw looks like a potato.”

A mother is sitting at the table with her six-year-old daughter, who has asked her to draw a horse. She says it as a joke, laughing, and draws something that really does look a bit like a potato on four legs. They both laugh. About a week later, at nursery, the daughter puts her crayons down before she has even started: “I can’t draw.” The teacher asks how she knows. The girl shrugs: “Nobody in our family can.”

Nobody told her that. Nobody criticised her. She simply heard how her mother talks about herself — and drew a conclusion about herself. That is what this post is about: how a child’s self-image takes shape alongside the way their parents see themselves. Not to give any parent one more reason for a guilty conscience, but because what you notice can be changed. What you don’t notice tends to repeat itself on its own.

Children listen to what isn’t meant for them, too

As parents, we are very careful about what we say to our children. We try to praise them, encourage them, never say anything hurtful. We are far less careful about what a child hears when we talk about ourselves: in front of the mirror, on the phone to a friend, when something goes wrong at work, when we “look awful again” in a family photo.

Children are more precise observers than we think. They don’t only listen to the content, but to the tone, the face and the body. When a mother says “I’m fat”, the child doesn’t just hear information about her weight. They hear that a body is something to be judged, and that this judgement can make you feel bad. When a father mutters “I’m such an idiot” after a mistake, the child learns how you treat someone who gets something wrong — even when that someone is you.

I have written more about what self-image is and how it differs from self-confidence in Where low self-confidence comes from, and you will find a short explanation in the knowledge base under self-image. Here I am interested above all in one thing: how the doubt a parent carries finds its way into a child.

The mirror: a child first sees themselves in your eyes

As early as 1902, the sociologist Charles Horton Cooley described the idea of the “looking-glass self”: we see ourselves as we imagine others see us. Half a century later, the paediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott described what happens when a baby looks into its mother’s face. What does it see? Mostly — itself. Her face reflects how the baby is being experienced. If the face is alive and responsive, the baby gets the message that it is seen. If the face is absent, anxious or absorbed in itself, the baby mainly sees her mood rather than itself.

This doesn’t mean a parent has to smile all the time. It does mean that a child first reads their worth from the look they receive. And a parent who doubts themselves sometimes struggles to look at their child with a single gaze — because it keeps getting mixed up with how they look at themselves. A child’s poor mark at school quickly turns into “what will people think of me as a mother”, a lost match into “where did I go wrong”. The child senses that their successes and failures don’t really belong to them.

The Dutch researcher Eddie Brummelman and his colleagues followed 565 children aged 7 to 11 for a year and a half, measuring four times what was happening to their self-image. Children whose parents overvalued them — believing they were more special and gifted than others — developed more narcissistic traits over time, but not a healthier self-image. Healthy self-esteem grew where parents showed warmth: where the child felt loved and that their parents enjoyed spending time with them. The mirror, in other words, doesn’t need exaggeration. It needs warmth.

The model: what you do to yourself, you teach

The second route is even more direct. In his social learning theory, the psychologist Albert Bandura described something parents know from everyday life: children learn not only from what we tell them, but above all from what they see us do. A child who watches a parent berate themselves after a mistake doesn’t learn that mistakes are fine, even if the parent says so a hundred times. They learn what happens after a mistake.

The researchers Andrew Elliot and Todd Thrash asked whether fear of failure is passed from one generation to the next. They found that parents with a stronger fear of failure more often had children with the same fear. Part of that route ran through how parents responded to their children’s slip-ups — with withdrawal of warmth, with silence or coolness that tells a child love depends on success. A parent who is afraid of failure obviously doesn’t want to pass it on. But fear has its own way of showing itself.

There is an important detail here: what a child takes on is not only the content of the doubt, but also the way doubt is handled. We carry the voice that once judged us inside as an inner critic. I wrote about how it forms in The inner critic: where the voice that constantly judges you comes from. The risk is that once you become a parent, this voice no longer speaks only to you. It starts speaking in front of your child as well.

Four quiet routes by which doubt is passed on

In conversations with parents, I notice that doubt is rarely passed on through big words. Mostly it travels along small, everyday routes:

• How you talk about your body. Comments about your own weight, wrinkles, “ugly” legs. From them, a child learns not only what you think of yourself, but what matters about a body in the first place.
• How you respond to your own mistake. Do you tell yourself off, apologise at length, go quiet all evening? Or do you say “oops, I got that wrong” and fix it?
• How you compare yourself. “The neighbour had managed all of this by thirty.” A child learns that worth is always relative and that someone is always better.
• How you compensate. A parent who never felt good enough sometimes tries to convince their child they are the best, the cleverest, the most beautiful. It looks like the opposite of doubt, but it sends the child the same message: being ordinary isn’t enough.

That last point surprises many parents. Excessive praise sounds like a cure for low self-image, but it often comes from the same source as doubt — from the fear that you are not enough just as you are. Children sense this. Praise that isn’t connected to anything they did doesn’t reassure them. Sometimes it even worries them, because they can’t live up to it.

Not guilt, but awareness

When reading posts like this, many parents first feel guilt. “So it’s my fault my daughter is so insecure.” I want to be clear here: that is not the point of this reflection.

In relational family therapy, which I am training in, we talk about how patterns pass from generation to generation without anyone planning it. You got your doubt from somewhere. Most likely you didn’t choose it. Your parents got theirs from their own parents. This is what the concept of transgenerational transmission describes — not as an accusation, but as a description of how families carry things nobody has ever said out loud.

Guilt looks back and asks who is responsible. Awareness looks forward and asks what you can do now. Guilt often paralyses you; awareness gives you a choice. And choice is exactly what separates a parent who continues a pattern from a parent who starts to change it. You don’t have to be free of doubt. It is enough to notice when your doubt is speaking — and not let it speak to your child in your place.

Research doesn’t talk about destiny either. In a long-term study, the psychologist Ulrich Orth showed that the quality of the family environment in the early years — warmth, stimulation, a safe setting — affects self-esteem well into adulthood. But the effect was small. A child is not simply a product of their parents. Their self-image is also shaped by temperament, peers, teachers, other people close to them, and the experiences they will have themselves. You are an important part of that story, but not the whole story.

How it sounds at home

This is how a short conversation might sound between a father and his ten-year-old son, after the father forgot the words of his welcome speech at his son’s school event (composite example, not a real person):

“Did you see how I got muddled? Awful. Everyone was looking at me like an idiot.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
The father goes quiet. Then he says: “You know what, you’re right. I forgot two sentences, then I looked at my notes and carried on. I was embarrassed. But it passed.”
“I always feel embarrassed too when I make a mistake in an essay.”
“Really? What do you do then?”
“Nothing. I just wish I could disappear.”
“I know that feeling. Shall we practise your essay together sometime? And both get a few things wrong on purpose.”

In this conversation, the father did something harder than it looks. He started with an old habit — a harsh verdict on himself. Then he stopped and showed a different way: he admitted the embarrassment, named it, and said it had passed. In that moment, his son got permission to talk about his own shame. And he got a model of how to deal with it.

Repair matters more than perfection

Winnicott coined the phrase “good-enough mother”. He didn’t mean a mother who only half tries. He meant a mother who sometimes gets it wrong — and precisely by doing so allows her child to learn that a relationship survives a mistake. The same is true of self-image. A child doesn’t need a parent who never doubts themselves. They need a parent who can notice the doubt and pick themselves up afterwards.

This means you don’t have to never again say “I’m so stupid”. You can say it, and then add: “Actually, I’m not stupid. I forgot something that happens to everyone.” A child who hears that correction gets more than a child who never hears any self-criticism at all. They see that the inner voice can be stopped, argued with and reshaped.

What the researcher Kristin Neff calls self-compassion can help here too: a relationship with yourself in which, after a mistake, you treat yourself as you would treat a good friend. You can read more in Self-compassion instead of self-criticism: what Kristin Neff’s research shows. For parents, self-compassion is a double gift: it helps you, and at the same time shows your child that there is a gentler way of talking to yourself.

Interestingly, parenthood and self-image meet in another way as well. When you become a mother or a father, your identity changes, and old wounds can open with it. I wrote about this transition in Parenthood as a transition: who am I now that I am a mother or a father? Many parents only truly notice their own doubt when they see it in their child.

Exercise: a week of listening to your own voice

This exercise doesn’t ask you to change. It only asks you to listen for one week. You can start today.

1. Carry a small note or a note on your phone. Every time you say something about yourself in front of your child — about your looks, abilities or mistakes — write it down word for word.
2. Next to each note, add one word: how you felt at the time. Shame, anger, tiredness, a joke? It often turns out that self-criticism appears when we are exhausted.
3. At the end of the week, read the list as if someone else had written it. What would a child who hears these sentences conclude about how to treat yourself?
4. Choose a single sentence you want to change. Not all of them. One. Write next to it what you could say instead — or what correction you could add.
5. Next week, try saying the correction out loud whenever the old sentence slips out. Don’t hide that you said it. Just add a new ending.

If during the exercise you notice that there are many sentences and that they are harsh, it isn’t proof that you are a bad parent. It is proof that you carry a voice that was once aimed at you. A voice like that deserves attention — perhaps also a conversation with someone who can help you understand it. You can also try the exercise Two columns for the inner critic.

Where this view falls short

Since I am writing about how a parent influences a child, it is only fair to say where that influence is not as great as it seems.

A child is not just your reflection. Some children are born more sensitive, more cautious or more self-critical than others. Even with parents who have a solid self-image, a child can doubt themselves. And with parents full of doubt, a child can grow up surprisingly resilient. Temperament, siblings, peers, school and the other parent all have their say.

Faked confidence doesn’t help. If you pretend in front of your child that you never doubt yourself, it doesn’t protect them. Children are very good at sensing when what is said doesn’t match what is felt. It is better to say “this scares me a little, but I’ll give it a go anyway” than to walk around with a smile that convinces nobody.

When a child is struggling, the cause isn’t always at home. If you notice your child withdrawing, putting themselves down, not eating, not sleeping or saying they are worthless, this is not the time for self-blame. It is time to talk to your child’s paediatrician, the school counselling service or a specialist in children’s mental health. Sometimes a child’s distress has nothing to do with your self-image — bullying, for example.

Your self-image deserves attention for your own sake too. Parents often start working on themselves “for the children”. That can be a good beginning. But your doubt doesn’t matter only because it might harm your child. It matters because you are the one suffering.

What to remember

• A child builds their self-image partly from how you talk about yourself — not only from what you say to them.
• A parent has influence along two routes: as a mirror (how you see your child) and as a model (how you treat yourself).
• Healthy self-esteem grows with warmth, not with excessive praise.
• It’s not about guilt but about awareness: you most likely inherited your doubt, and you don’t have to hand it on.
• A child doesn’t need a parent without doubt, but a parent who can repair — out loud, too.