Parenting With Trauma

I see you mama..

I see that you are trying your hardest every single day to make the best life that you can for your children. 

I see you trying to break generational trauma and getting so down on yourself when you treat your child the way you were treated. 

I see the love and care that you have for your family and the sacrifices you are making to the point you have lost your own identity. 

Being a parent is already hard enough and doesn’t come with an instruction manual. We often learn that we parent and teach our children the way we were brought up. We take a step back and look and sometimes say, well we didn’t turn out so bad even though we had trauma. But in reality, we are fighting against ourselves to break habits and change but find ourselves sometimes stuck in old ways. 

I am by no means the perfect parent and I have had to relearn how to parent my three children. I always feel extreme guilt because my oldest son who is now six had to endure the me that was struggling with trauma and I parented him that way. I often yelled and didn’t know how to handle meltdowns of his because I was never taught to regulate my emotions. His screaming made me spiral and it was like I just saw a black screen in my brain and everything went downhill with it. I used techniques I thought made sense that my mother used on me, but looking back they were awful and not at all affectionate, loving or beneficial for my son. I had to accept that I messed up but have made up for it by learning myself and getting in tune with my son. I changed the way I speak, or handle situations with my daughters and I feel parenthood has been easier (for what it can be with three wild children). I also had a mother who had total influence over my life and would interfere with how I would parent. For that reason and some others, I decided to cut ties with the relationship. Was it the hardest thing I had to do, yes… but by doing this my children are flourishing and this mama is free and can make her own decisions and feel good about them.  

You may have parents who are still in your life and have influence on how you raise your children. You could be turning to social media with unrealistic expectations which causes you to feel bad about yourself and ways of parenting. Or you may just be stuck in your ways and you want to change but you don’t know how. 

Trauma can be an all-encompassing construct that includes a spectrum of different experiences, we define trauma as abuse endured during childhood in terms of physical neglect or abuse, emotional neglect or abuse, and sexual abuse. 

That trauma follows you into adulthood and then into parenthood and can look like:

• • Shutting down when experiencing overwhelming emotions

  • Being overly protective of your kids

  • Not trusting your kids’ instincts, or not trusting their teachers and caregivers

  • Constant guilt over not being a good enough parent

  • Inability to set healthy boundaries and say “no”

  • Repeating negative messages you received in the past

  • Having trouble connecting emotionally with your kids

  • Struggling to manage your temper

  • Feeling like you can’t get through everyday challenges

  • Constant fear of acting like your own parents did

If you read that and realize you do some of these, it may be time to explore past trauma and gain insight on why you may be experiencing these things. 

For instance, when we are short tempered with our children it could mean many things. We could be tired, hungry, over stimulated, full of anxiety or just burnt out. But other times it could be because you were triggered by something from childhood. If your child seems to be disrespectful or not listening or interrupting, it could send you into a whirlwind of emotions because as a child that happened to you by your caregiver. The sound of yelling or screaming might make you completely shut down and can’t regulate emotions or stop yourself from spiraling. If you lived in a neglectful environment the constant living in messiness or disorganization has you on edge and it’s not allowing your children to fully explore because of the constant panic of letting your house become messy. 

I know that you are trying to be the best parent that you can be! There are just some obstacles that need to be overcome and trauma that needs to be processed. Learning new parenting skills doesn’t take over night but I am here to help you every step of the way. We will celebrate your successes and gently analyze any hiccups we have along the way. 

Just remember to take it easy on yourself. These ways of thinking, behaving, and reacting were learned and some were unintentional. Don’t be hard on yourself for having bad days with your children. Remember to apologize to them on those hard days and try the next day to be better than the last. 

Click on ‘schedule an appointment’ and we can complete a free 15 minute consultation. Together we can rock parenthood and take control of our trauma!