When I was in high school, I told myself I would never be like my parents. Years later I still think I've succeeded in a way but there are always instances when I would just find myself saying things I know only my parents would say or acting in certain situations the way my parents would handle them. At first I told myself perhaps it was just the inevitable adaptation of their habits and all as I lived with them for so long as a kid, and kids have a very easily influenced slate of a mind. Now, although that remains true, there is still some other aspects surrounding this issue I think you guys should know.

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Search for Familiar Routes

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I remember, I was in this community with less unfortunate kids whom we were required to teach as a university requirement and the kid assigned to me wouldn't listen to what I was teaching her. It got so frustrating especially that I'm not really good with kids or I simply don't even try to be. I could not just yell at her or spank her hand lightly the way my mother used to handle my stubbornness during study sessions, so I played with her instead. Still, it was like the way my mother play with those toddlers she's very fond of. All of a sudden, I felt like I was becoming my mom or that I was finally encountering maturity...

The reason for that is because according to neuroscientists, when we are put under pressure from a stressful situation, our neurons in our brain seek familiar ways out of it. Of course, growing up we've seen our parents handle it all from handling children like our young selves down to the worst life obstacles there could ever be. Our close link to them and their experiences then sets the model for us to follow especially at the most frustrating situations of all like handling kids with the shortest attention span...

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Does this mean we're doomed to make the same life choices our parents made?

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The fruit may not fall far from the tree, but it certainly is never the tree or the rest of the other fruits the tree bears. Sure, our genetic makeup is patterned from our parents but the experiences and memories we store in our systems as we grow do not have to be as similar. Here are a couple of ways to break that so-called pattern if ever you feel like you're trapped into becoming your parents and you so not want to be like them:

1. First Things First, Stop Telling Yourself You Are Like Your Parents

It's true that what you claim is what you become. Owning up to something is not the same as telling yourself you'll really end up being like your parents because they gave you life blah blah blah. Being your parents' child is not like a crime or other awful thing one must own up to like that. Alright, maybe it's really bad you are a product of such a couple but being given that life doesn't mean being trapped entirely in the world they built around you.

You are an individual with your own choices and identity. You might not know much about the latter because you are still exploring and so does your mom or your dad, so why claim you are like them when they are not even sure who or what they really are too in the first place? Why get yourself in other people's search for the self when you can just focus on yours, right?

2. A Little Modification is Big Enough to Create Something New

Let's say you are sooooo like you parents but you have at least one quality that is so unlike them. Perhaps it's a really tiny quality compared to the huge amounts of inherited traits you've got in your system, but if you get in touch with that little part of yourself and maybe think of it as something bigger, you could definitely create a self separate from the you-are-your-parents character.

What if that small quality is bad though? Okay, first of all I'm not suggesting you forget your morals but always ask if is it bad because society's unreasonable standards think it is, or because your parents would never recommend it, or because it just REALLY is bad? If it's the first two cases, then explore that part of you more and see where it leads you--definitely somewhere where you could find that freedom from that trap.

If it's the last one, then I'm sure you just need to explore more things in life as there are many wonderful things beyond where you are that could make you become not just the person you want to be apart from your parents' images but even the best you could ever be in this life.

references:

• Psychology Today

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