Were You Raised by an Eggshell Parent? Here’s How to Break the Cycle

Many parents can relate to the feelings of guilt, anxiety, and even fear over not living up to the parenting expectations set by society or even our own selves. Whether you lean more toward gentle parenting or a more authoritarian style, it’s not uncommon to worry about how your parenting is impacting your little one, especially when the type of parenting you experienced wasn’t super healthy. Take TikTok’s latest parenting topic of conversation, “eggshell parenting,” for example.

Eggshell parenting, or an eggshell parent, is a term coined by licensed clinical psychologist Kim Sage, PsyD, to describe a parent whose unpredictable behavior and emotional instability leave their child feeling unsettled and like they’re “walking on eggshells.” While it’s more than normal to get frustrated or upset sometimes as a parent, eggshell parenting is more than that.

At its core, eggshell parenting is associated with quick emotional outbursts or intense mood swings, explains Jen Kiss, certified parent coach and owner of Happy Parenting & Families. Sound like something you experienced growing up? Here’s what experts want you to know about eggshell parenting and how to break the cycle.

What Is Eggshell Parenting?

Before you begin to worry, know that eggshell parenting is much more than the occasional outburst. All parents yell or get frustrated from time to time – however, with eggshell parenting, it’s a regular event where a parent is emotionally volatile, to the point where the child’s entire coping mechanisms are shattered. This causes them to experience a great deal of shame or blame.

Eggshell parenting is a form of parenting where there are frequent emotional outbursts by the parent due to their chronically unpredictable and highly inconsistent mood, mind, behaviors, and relational state that cause their child to become hypervigilant in order to self-protect, Dr. Sage explains. “The child often develops trauma responses rooted in fight, flight, freeze, and/or fawn as a way to manage the highly unpredictable nature of their environment and interactions with their caregiver,” she says. “Eggshell parenting often mirrors a disorganized attachment system, whereby the source of safety (the caregiver) is also the source of fear (the same caregiver).”

While a non-eggshell parent might feel guilt or regret after an emotional outburst, whether big or small, an eggshell parent usually doesn’t see their behavior as wrong but rather justified by something their child caused. “A non-eggshell parent will feel bad after they have yelled at their child or had an outburst and can even apologize for their reaction afterwards,” Kiss says. “Eggshell parents don’t view their behavior as inappropriate, apologize, or make repairs.”

Signs of Eggshell Parenting

There are many hallmarks of an eggshell parent. Here, experts share a few signs that indicate someone might be prone to this parenting behavior.

Unpredictable mood swings

It’s common for eggshell parents to lash out and go from zero to 100 very quickly, with little to no warning signs to prepare the child for this change in behavior. “This could be in reaction to something that the child has done or completely unrelated to the child,” explains Emily Guarnotta, PsyD, licensed clinical psychologist, and perinatal therapist and blogger at The Mindful Mommy. “The eggshell parent takes out their frustrations on the child, even if the child was not the cause.”

Blaming or bullying

Eggshell parents may seemingly shame or bully their own children by using verbal and emotional abuse tactics that leave the child feeling negatively about themself. As Dr. Sage explains it, eggshell parents provide what she calls “good love and bad love,” meaning when it’s good, it’s wonderful, but when it’s bad, it can involve yelling, screaming, blaming, shaming, criticizing, punishing, accusations, gaslighting, name calling, and threatening. “A child can never really relax in their own mind and body and will often blame themselves for receiving bad love,” she says. “Deep inside, a child often internalizes these experiences as shame, a shame that they must somehow deserve.”

Sending mixed messages

Since an eggshell parent’s behavior is mostly influenced by whatever mood they’re experiencing at a given moment, it can be difficult for the child, or any other person, to know what to expect. “If a child spills a drink on the floor, an eggshell parent in a good mood may remain calm and simply ask them to clean it up; however, that same parent in a bad mood may become angry, verbally put down the child, or even resort to violence,” Dr. Guarnotta explains.

Never apologizing

As already mentioned, eggshell parents don’t feel the same remorse that non-eggshell parents will likely feel if they behave negatively toward their child, so there’s rarely ever apologies that follow these outbursts. “Even when an eggshell parent behaves completely out of line, they see others as the cause of their mood and do not take accountability for their own behavior, so children feel like they are always at fault,” Dr. Guarnotta says.

Risks of Eggshell Parenting

Eggshell parents are emotionally unsafe parents who themselves often struggle with various forms of trauma, according to Dr. Sage. “Due to their extreme unpredictability, intermittent reinforcement patterns, and lack of providing generally safe environments for their children, they cause their child to become hypervigilant to their mood and mind and relational patterns,” she says.

This is not to say, however, that eggshell parents can’t be loving – in fact, they usually are some of the time. The issue is that even when they can appear to be “safe,” a child has to develop coping mechanisms they can use in the frequent occasions when that parent flips their behavior suddenly and becomes “unsafe.” Deep inside, the child of an eggshell parent often internalizes these experiences as a shame they must somehow deserve, Dr. Sage notes.

Most eggshell parents likely grew up with parents who behaved similarly, the experts explain. But just because you had an eggshell parent, it doesn’t mean you will end up one.

How to Avoid Eggshell Parenting

While it’s hard to break the cycle of eggshell parenting, it’s not impossible. If you think you might be an eggshell parent, particularly if it comes from your own upbringing, follow these tips to break out of the cycle and redirect your behavior.

1. Address your own trauma.

Even if you don’t initially think of yourself as having trauma from childhood, eggshell parenting comes from unaddressed trauma, Kiss notes. “Trauma can be any event that happened in the past where you felt overwhelmed and you felt unable to cope and can also be the result of a prolonged event that was overwhelming or unpredictable,” she says. “You don’t need to have it be a clear memory in order for your body to remember the trauma – or for it to produce a trauma reaction in you.”

Kiss recommends looking for a good therapist or licensed mental health professional to help you process some of your past trauma and work toward a better future for you and your children.

2. Monitor your “internal temperature”

A hallmark of eggshell parenting is the emotionally irregularities that are extremely reactive and sudden. An eggshell parent acts very impulsively, and that intensity may feel out of your control, which is why Dr. Guarnotta recommends working toward getting a good read on your own internal temperature. “Imagining yourself having an internal thermometer that can increase or decrease in temperature depending on your mood can help you monitor how you are feeling,” she says. “If you feel your temperature rising, this is a signal that you need to take action to calm down or possibly need to remove yourself from the situation.”

3. Pause between the trigger and your response

When you do encounter a trigger, whether that’s being late for work or coming home to a messy house, and you feel yourself warming up, try to pause before you react. There is a space in between the trigger and your response, Dr. Guarnotta explains. “If you can lengthen that space and give yourself time to evaluate the situation, think about your potential responses, and select a response that is in line with your values and the parent that you want to be, then you are more likely to be consistent, value driven, and in control,” she says.

4. Own up to your mistakes

This is a big challenge for eggshell parents, as they often don’t recognize when they’ve gone out of line. It’s an important step to start putting pride aside and acknowledging when you’ve made a mistake. “Another person or event may have contributed to you getting upset, but if you overreacted or hurt someone else in the process, then the responsibility is on you,” Dr. Guarnotta says. “Taking responsibility for your actions is a sign of strength and maturity and models good relationship skills for your children.”

5. Practice coping techniques

Since eggshell parenting tends to come from a stress response in the body, also known as “fight or flight,” certain coping techniques, including mindfulness, deep breathing, yoga, or anything that helps regulate the nervous system, can be useful, according to Dr. Sage.

“Mindfulness may feel hard in the beginning, especially if you have trauma, so start slow and be forgiving with yourself,” Kiss says. “Try taking three slow, deep breaths a day, working to focus on your breath during those three breaths, and then add a breath a day until you can begin to work yourself for 20 seconds.” Continue these exercises regularly to see the best results.