Children are not meant to carry the emotional burdens of their parents. When they do, they stop being children. —Mark Wolynn

How Our Brains Learn to Survive

Our brains are survival machines, imprinting every experience so we can navigate danger. We’re never more moldable than when we’re most vulnerable—from birth to eighteen. This is exactly why understanding fawning matters so much. Dr. Mary Catherine MacDonald, PhD, discusses how fawning is a learned response in her book The Joy Reset: Six Ways Trauma Steals Your Happiness and How to Get it Back. While fawn often gets lumped into discussions about survival responses, Dr. MacDonald points out a crucial distinction: fawning develops over time, unlike other survival mechanisms.

Why does this difference matter? Because fawning reveals something specific about what we learned to do in order to survive.

When trauma happens, a present threat overwhelms our nervous system to keep us alive. If we see a bear in the woods, we might run. If we trip and the bear catches up, we might fight if there’s a weapon nearby. If we fall and the bear pins us down, we freeze, hoping it thinks we’re dead and leaves us alone. All of these responses make sense for immediate survival.

But fawning is different. This response isn’t to one immediate threat—it’s to a series of events over time.

Consider a child with a mother who screams whenever something upsets her. The child learns to notice every possible trigger because that’s the only way to prevent future explosions. This creates relational patterns that make it extremely difficult to simply be present and enjoy time with another person, because we’re constantly worried about doing something that might upset them.

What situations trigger your fawning response most strongly? Can you identify the original “training ground” where you learned this pattern?

How Early Experiences Shape Us

Before we become adults, our brains are incredibly malleable. We’re easily shaped by conditioning because that’s how we learn. 

A child who grows up with parents who are attuned to their needs will be shaped by positive interactions. These children can learn that relationships offer freedom to do things they enjoy and have energy to develop into their unique selves.

But a child who learns they need to be what others need them to be in order to stay safe will often develop into whoever others want them to be.

The Generational Misunderstanding

I’ve heard from some parents and grandparents that adult children who grew up fawning should just keep fawning with their parents—that this is what children are “supposed to do” to honor them.

But here’s the reality: we get back what we give in our relationships.

If we expect our children to make us happy, our relationships might end when our children learn that relationships aren’t about keeping each other happy. They’re about loving one another unconditionally, even when we make each other unhappy.

For loving relationships to grow, each person needs to take responsibility for their own state of mind. In my own life, I’ve seen situations where this never happens. As a result, the children have no choice but to walk away from the relationship because it’s too painful otherwise.

I’ve never known anyone who made this choice easily. We’re wired for family, but when our family continues to cause harm, sometimes there isn’t another choice. Some people, after a lot of work, have learned acceptance of others who haven’t changed. Others can’t. It’s a difficult decision either way that requires tremendous energy to maintain.

But understanding goes a long way in helping us heal and learn a better way to live that honors our true selves.

What would change in your family relationships if everyone took responsibility for their own emotional state? What fears come up when you imagine this?

My Own Reckoning

It’s hard to admit that as a parent, for a long time, I expected my children to give me what I needed to survive. That’s what I was doing—surviving in my relationships with others, working so hard to keep others happy so I could be safe. I had little energy at times for my own kids.

I’m not shaming myself, because that’s often the whole problem. Shame causes us to shift responsibility to others or withdraw.

I’ve learned that the most empowering thing I can do for myself and my children is to take responsibility, no matter how much it hurts to say: I wish to God I had not harmed them. But I did. We all do. Some of us worse than others.

When we see how our lack of presence has impacted our children, it’s incredibly hard not to withdraw or lash out. But if we sit with this discomfort and ask ourselves what we wish our own parents had done for us, we can dig deep and make changes.

It won’t be done perfectly. It never is. But because our brains can be rewired and reshaped as long as we’re here, we can change and make things better and break the patterns.

It starts with sitting with the pain without shame—giving ourselves what we needed, then sharing it with others in our lives out of compassion for ourselves.

What do you wish your parents had done differently? How might you begin offering that same understanding to yourself?

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Reflections: Do You Recognize Fawning in Yourself?

(These reflections were created by Claude Sonnet 4.)

Take a moment to reflect on these questions:

• Part 2 coming soon: “Practical Strategies for Breaking Fawning Patterns” – specific techniques for changing these responses in real-time
• Supporting others: How to help someone who’s learning to stop fawning (without trying to fix them)
• Parenting differently: Teaching children healthy relationship dynamics from the start
• The neuroscience of change: Understanding why these patterns are so hard to break and how our brains actually rewire

• Do you find yourself constantly worried about upsetting others?
• Do you apologize excessively, even for things that aren’t your fault?
• Do you struggle to express your own needs or opinions?
• Do you feel exhausted after social interactions because you were “performing”?
• Do you automatically say “yes” to requests, even when you want to say “no”?
• Do you find it difficult to enjoy time with others because you’re scanning for signs of their displeasure?

If several of these resonate, you might be recognizing fawning patterns in yourself.

Fawning Beyond Family: Where Else It Shows Up

In the Workplace

• Over-apologizing for normal workplace interactions (“Sorry to bother you with this email about the project deadline”)
• Avoiding necessary conflicts even when they would improve work outcomes
• Taking on extra work you don’t have time for because you can’t bear to disappoint anyone
• Staying silent during meetings when you have valuable input, fearing it might create tension

In Friendships

Fawning looks like: Always being the one who accommodates everyone else’s schedule, never suggesting activities you’d enjoy, constantly checking if your friends are “okay” with you.

Genuine care looks like: Being flexible when possible but also advocating for your needs, suggesting activities you enjoy, checking in with friends because you care about them, not because you’re afraid of their reaction.

What Healthy Boundaries Actually Look Like

• Saying “I need to think about that” instead of immediately saying yes
• Expressing disagreement respectfully: “I see it differently” rather than “You’re probably right, but…”
• Taking time to consider your own feelings before responding to others’ needs
• Being able to receive compliments without deflecting or minimizing them

Three Things You Can Do Today

1. Practice the Pause

Before automatically agreeing to something, say: “Let me check my calendar and get back to you.” This gives you space to consider what you actually want.

2. Notice Your Apologies

Count how many times you apologize in one day. Are you apologizing for existing, for having needs, or for things that aren’t actually problems?

3. Ask Yourself: “What Do I Need Right Now?”

Set a phone reminder to ask yourself this question three times today. Practice noticing your own needs without immediately dismissing them.

When to Seek Professional Help

Consider reaching out to a therapist if:

• You feel unable to make decisions without intense anxiety about others’ reactions
• You experience panic attacks when you think you’ve upset someone
• You find yourself in repeatedly harmful relationships
• You’re having thoughts of self-harm because you feel like such a “burden”
• You’ve been trying to change these patterns alone but feel stuck

Therapeutic approaches that can help: Trauma-informed therapy, EMDR, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and somatic therapies.

Resources for Deeper Healing

Books

• The Joy Reset: Six Ways Trauma Steals Your Happiness and How to Get it Back by Mary Catherine MacDonald, PhD
• Complex PTSD by Pete Walker
• Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson
• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
• Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Glover Tawwab

Online Communities

• r/CPTSD on Reddit (for complex trauma support)
• Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families (ACA) meetings
• Codependents Anonymous (CoDA) meetings
• Psychology Today’s therapist finder with trauma specialization filters

Starting Conversations About Change

With family: “I’m learning about some patterns in how I relate to others, and I’d like to try some new ways of communicating. This might feel different at first, but it’s about me becoming healthier.”

With friends: “I’m working on being more honest about my own needs. If I seem different lately, it’s because I’m trying to show up more authentically.”

With yourself: “I learned these patterns to survive, and they served me well when I needed them. Now I’m learning new patterns that serve the life I want to create.”

A Final Thought

Change is possible, but it’s not linear. You’ll have days when you catch yourself mid-fawn and redirect. You’ll have days when you don’t catch it until afterward. And you’ll have days when you fall back into old patterns completely.

All of this is normal. Healing isn’t about perfection—it’s about increasing awareness and expanding your choices. Every small step away from survival mode and toward authentic connection is worth celebrating.

You are not broken. You are not too much. You learned to survive, and now you’re learning to thrive.