Eggshell Parenting

In the quiet corners of homes where love and unpredictability coexist, a subtle but powerful form of emotional damage takes root.

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It's called eggshell parenting, a term popularised by California-based psychologist Dr. Kim Sage, and it's leaving children anxious, emotionally exhausted, and unprepared for healthy relationships.

In her clinical practice and widely viewed online talks, Dr. Sage describes eggshell parenting as a form of parenting where a child constantly feels the need to tiptoe around a parent's volatile emotions.

"Even if you are loving and safe and wonderful," Sage explains, "if it follows that you can be unsafe, at the core, you are not safe." The inconsistency becomes the trauma not just what is done or said, but how unpredictable and unsafe love becomes when tied to emotional instability.

Eggshell parenting is not about outright abuse in the traditional sense. Instead, it's about a pattern of behaviour that creates emotional confusion and fear.

Children learn to read subtle cuesthe tone of voice, the expression on a parent's face, the way they slam a doorconstantly scanning for danger.