What exactly is re-parenting and why is it "the work"?
I hadn't heard about re-parenting until my daughter was well into toddlerhood.
Sure, I'd heard the cliche that "children are our greatest teachers", but I didn't truly understand what it meant, not in a way that felt true to me. As she got older I started to see the how my responses to her behaviour were a direct consequence of the patterns I had grown up with. I also noticed a voice in my head that would say something like "it's not fair that I'm giving her all of this time/listening/space/freedom and she's still not happy". Ouch.
And I noticed how often my own inner voice became my mum's - her words and reactions would blend with mine and take over, even when I was aware that wasn't the parenting I'm trying to offer to her.
And I also felt sad for my inner child, for the things she didn't get to have that she deserved, whether it was compassion, listening or more choice.
Only then did I start to understand what re-parenting was and how actually parenting my children with integrity required me first to re-parent myself. As they grow older I see clearly that most of the work is this - healing my old wounds, stepping out of authoritarian ways of parenting, choosing different words and different actions, being compassionate with myself when I'm not able to offer the acceptance I would like.
Re-parenting can look like:
healing our childhood wounds, so we are not so easily set off by day to day occurrences or our children's behaviour.
offering ourselves the compassion, connection and acceptance we didn't receive from our parents and elders.
believing that we are worthy of love, regardless of our actions.
It can also look like re-learning how to parent, because our true parenting instinct is clouded by our past experiences.
It looks like understanding that while the love was there, there may not have been able to be present or offer full acceptance.
Re-parenting can also look like forming new relationships, new friendships who can give us the things we didn't receive and perhaps are still not receiving from our adult families.
This is not to blame our parents, but to offer ourselves the parenting they couldn't offer because they were dealing with their own intergenerational trauma, whether they were aware of it or not.
And I love that learning about our own triggers, trauma and upbringing is a core part of Aware Parenting. And it's one of the reasons I'm starting the Aware Parenting Mother's Circle.
If you would like to find other families and mothers who want to explore these painful places in a safe space, if you are willing to work on yourself so we can break the cycle with our children, I invite you to join us from December 12.
Parent-blaming is emotionally unkind and scientifically incorrect. All parents do their best; only our best is limited by our own unresolved or unconscious trauma.
Gabor Maté, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts