June 13, 2022—Preaching the dangers of the world to your children could have negative consequences, reports The Journal of Positive Psychology.

Psychologist Jeremy Clifton says we sum our world views up in our perception of “how dangerous it is, how fun it is, how stable it is, and so forth.”

He said when taught that the world is a dangerous place, children can become negative and cynical about the word.

“Those of us who see the world as dangerous, dull, and mechanistic are stuck in a place they hate their whole lives,” he explained to Forbes. “The downstream effects on behavior and well-being are enormous.”

He added, “We found that people want to pass on a lot of different primal world beliefs to their kids, including the belief that the world is dangerous and it is against them–and that may be a terrible parenting idea.”

Cliftons says while parents who employ this technique think of it as protective to their children, it actually increases children’s anxiety as they grow into adulthood causing them to embrace the idea that the world really is dangerous and thus they “overreact to threats and see threats that aren’t there.”

Clifton’s advice to parents with this ideology: understand why you fear the world and what those fears are rooted in.

“My advice for anyone interested in primal world beliefs and how they might be impacting their life or the life of their kids is to first find out what your primals are. The first step to getting out of prison is to recognize you’re in prison.”