Do you think parents can shape your personality?

Im an only child, My parents are much older and extremely boring people and I feel like I’m mirroring their behaviours and becoming boring myself, is it because of them or is it just my personality? Usually people with more of a fun family seem to be better socialites etc

Reply 1

username5347244

Original post by nerual16

well your family usually tend the child to be a certain way. so i'd say yeah it cou;d be your family.

Reply 2

JoshDarnIt_

I dunno, although me and my Dad have similar interests, we're quite dissimilar in other areas of our personality. And I'm nothing like my Mum.

Reply 3

SoftGingerCat

I think that is a complicated question, especially as someone who loves psychology. Behaviourists would argue that yes your family does shape your personality. You grow up with them and learn to enjoy the things they do because your exposed to them more often which could create this 'boring' personality. However this is not always true. You always hear of the black sheep of the family who doesn't enjoy other family activities. I honestly do believe that your family controls alot of your personality in the early years but as you are exposed to new people and experiences, it adapts. However, whether it is a boring personality or not is decided by you. If you want to seem more 'cool', start by examining and working out what 'cool' people enjoy and how they act. Then try to mimic those attributes. If they feel comfortable for you, then great! If they don't then they just arn't for you.
Remeber that being boring or cool is subjective, there is always someone who will find you interesting and same way someone will find you boring!

Reply 4

rawrjoshhh

Original post by nerual16

Hi, I find your situation quite interesting mainly because your behavior which seems like its mirroring your parents and also because I've always wanted to talk about how to overcome our mental barriers within our social lives. It's completely normal to assume some similarities between you and and your parents, mostly because you're an only child. However, I think your behavior is founded by early childhood experiences (parenting methods and number of siblings, but in this case you're an only child) and some social tendencies you've learned to harness in different scenarios. For example, you may realize that when you're bored you may stay seated to read a book or relax in your living room for an unusual duration of time when compared to more sociable people. To overcome this behavioral trait learned from your parents, you'll just have to get used to doing things out of your comfort zone so that you can re-learn or possibly over-write some habits in certain scenarios. A pretty good example of this is, going out more often and jumping into group sports kind of like football or basketball just FOR FUN. Remember, people that are huge socialites have learned to enjoy minor aspects in some major activities and it's something that is usually overlooked by people that haven't yet learned true enjoyment. Whenever possible, go out to your local park and join some football or basketball games. I'm assuming that you're in your early teen years, so enjoy your youth while you still got it!

p.s don't worry about other families and their ways of socializing, just learn more about yourself and what you might turn out to like.

Reply 5

flaurie

Volunteer Team

I would say so, I would be a lot more confident and outgoing if I had the parents that my friends have, but I like the person I have become through my parents raising me, and wouldn’t have key parts of my personality without them :h:

Reply 6

tae155

I think family does impact your personality a lot because as you grow up you tend to take a lot of influence from those around you. It could also be that you are like that because you have inherited those qualities from your parents. However, family isnt your only influence as friends, school/work life and experiences are also key to building your personality. It could be that you are naturally that way since sometimes children turn out differently to their parents because its part of their nature. Like I have qualities that are similiar to my mum and dad but in some things my personality is very different

not really imo

In my personal opinion you're personality is definately influenced by you're upbringing whether that be from biological or adoptive parents. That's not to say 100% of you're personality is the responsibility of those bringing you up, you see many people with very dissimilar personalities to their parents and this is usually due to outside influence. People, especially kids are very easily influenced and that does indeed shape their personalities in my opinion.

In terms of you being "Boring" I don't think there is a boring, just something that may interest you may not interest 90% of other people although that may indeed be influenced by you're parents if they have the same mannerisms and interests. For example i've lived with my grandparents since I was 3 and I would say my personality is very similar to my grandparents and very dissimilar to my biological parents. That's not however to say that my personality and interests are 100% the same as my grandparents and that is probably the same case with you.

Reply 9

howisladypole

I'm basically a female version of my father, whether I like it or not lol

Reply 10

londonmyst

Yes, to a certain extent.
Parents are usually the people who exert the most control over their children's early lives; memories and living conditions throughout the childhood years.

Family traditions, accent and exposure to affection or aggression/criminality within the family unit often play a significant role in an individuals character development.
Irrespective of whether the specific person grows up to view their parents as worthy of respect, emulation, on par with toxic waste or deserving of lifelong detention in broadmoor.

Reply 11

StriderHort

Yes, v easy to trace which traits in me come from what parent.

My compassion, justice, patience , most good things comes from my Mum.

Anything streetwise, sneaky, mercenary or outright dodgy from my Dad.

I picked up violence from Japanese cartoons.

Reply 12

CoolCavy

Volunteer Team

Definitely, a lot of personality disorders arise partially as a result of upbringing

Reply 13

UnwantedKid

Yes the problems I had growing up thanks to my family are the reason why I have trust issues, the reason why I'm good at lying, and the reason why I'm good at having different peronalities depending on the people I'm with. A lot of my 'better' traits also stem from my upbringing too, because I've promised myself to never become like the kind of people my parents are.