Threatening - again, threatening is a sign of weakness. When my mom says, "If you don't I'll ", she is using force to get what she wants. Many parents use threats as an education measure, but they do not understand that getting your kids to do what you want out of fear will give them short-term gain but long-term pain. Continuous criticism - in the past, criticism was a way for people to control those who were weaker than them. Over time, it was replaced with the concept of "feedback" and was presented as a way to help the person being criticized learn, grow and evolve. Even today, some people use "constructive criticism" as a replacement for sharing ideas, encouragement and support. Constant criticism kills children's ability to trust their own judgment, make mistakes and learn from them as they need to obey their parents' rules of living. Criticized children lack self-esteem and spend years of their adult life seeking their criticizing parents' approval. This week, two people talked about how many movies (like Despicable Me and Megamind) show villains who became bad because their parents had criticized them and they were looking for some kind of an approval and recognition. Perfectionism - this is defined as expectations from self and others that are too high and cause stress. Like some other items on this list, it is hard to define when expectations are "too high", so it is subject to interpretations. To find out if you are a perfectionist and your expectations are causing stress, ask yourself if your children perform lower than your expectations consistently. That is proof that your expectations are too high. Although some people may not think that this is a form of bullying, criticism develops a sense of inadequacy in children and causes big problems later on in their life.