Reparenting seems to be a buzz word as of late so it’s worth a discussion about what it is and why it might be helpful for you to do it.
I think each generation has its own unique pain points and struggles when it comes to parenting; parenting feels hard because it IS hard and no one has it easy. For the millennial generation, I believe our unique pain point is that we are the first generation trying to actively reparent ourselves WHILE parenting our children. We are the first generation who has jumped into therapy feet first, likely because most of our formative, or “best”, years of lives have run parallel to national tragedies. When I look back….I was in high school=Columbine, college=9/11, finished grad school=market crash, pregnant=Sandy Hook…I could keep going and I’m sure you could do this too. And of course we all have our own personal experiences layered in there as well.
A result of all of this therapy is that many of us are learning how our unmet needs from childhood are showing up in our lives today. Whether you are a parent or not, your unmet needs impact how you think, feel and behave today. The good news is that we can do something about it now that we are adults! We can actually rewire some of that old wiring in our brains and reparent ourselves.
The hard part is that for a lot of us, we don’t start figuring all of this out until we are well into motherhood when we are already exhausted and stretched beyond our means. It’s still absolutely worth doing the work though.
So What Is Reparenting?
Reparenting means that as an adult you meet the needs for yourself that were not met for you as a child. Kids depend on their parents for everything, not just their basic needs, but things like learning how to set a boundary, how to set limits, how to follow a routine, how to solve conflict, how to communicate, how to manage feelings etc.
If you don’t get age appropriate models of communication, accountability, unconditional love, or tools to regulate your emotions you very likely will deal with these issues well into adulthood.
Many of my clients come to me because they are struggling with one of those things in adulthood. It’s causing problems in their life today and they usually feel pretty bad about it. We tend to think “well I’m an adult, I’m a successful yada yada, I am a mother, I should know how to do this, but I just can’t get it together”. But we usually don’t know how to meet our own needs unless it was modeled for us. Even with good parents who had the best of intentions, it’s not likely they were able to model for you everything you needed.
Reparenting yourself means that you are likely excavating things you had long ago buried, which requires emotional labor and possibly asking for some repair on the part of your caregivers. It’s hard work! It’s why I will argue that millennial parents are the most stressed parents to date. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t totally worth doing the work. Not only does allow you to be more compassionate with yourself, it allows you to be compassionate with your children.
Sounds Hard…How Do You Do This?
Reparenting yourself is an ongoing, dynamic process that you can do on your own or alongside someone you trust. Usually this person is a therapist or a safe person who can help you identify your unmet needs and take the appropriate steps to begin meeting them. Usually these needs fall into the categories of:
-Communication
-Setting Boundaries and/or Setting Limits
-Self Care/Self Discipline
-Self Validation
-Resolving Conflict
-Feeling Unconditional Love, Acceptance or Worthiness
For example, you were a child who needed a lot of structure and limits but you had a strong personality and a parent who didn’t know how to embody their authority. You never learned how to set boundaries and limits for yourself and really struggle with self discipline as an adult. Reparenting yourself could start by beginning a weekly routine, disciplining yourself by making your bed every morning and setting a timer for your vitamins at night.
The therapist often slides into a parental role and can help you take back that role for yourself. It’s really fascinating work and personally I love doing it.
A Quick Note Before You Panic
If you’re a parent reading this please remember it is impossible for us to meet every need our child has. I have three children, all of whom are unique people, vastly different from one another. I have to parent, teach and communicate with each one in a different way and it is not reasonable to believe I’m not going to get something wrong. So yes, your kids are going to have some reparenting of their own to do no matter how wonderful of a job you do. Perfection is not your goal. The idea that you should be a perfectly attuned parent who just has happy kids all the time does the greatest disservice to your children in the long run and sets them up to be adults who have no idea how to navigate the complexities of the world. Not screwing up is not the goal and never should be. Please consider this your permission to release yourself from that expectation :)
Resources to Help
Podcast Episode Recommendations:
All three of the episodes below feature Dr. Becky Kennedy, a psychologist who specializes in coaching parents. She has been making the podcast rounds promoting her new book, Good Inside, and I really enjoyed each of these interviews. I found the third episode listed below to be the most helpful personally as a parent, but found value in all of them.
Gwyneth Paltrow x Becky Kennedy: Finding the Good In Us
Breaking Cycles & Reparenting Yourself With Dr. Becky Kennedy
How To Raise Untamed Kids with Dr. Becky Kennedy
She also has online workshops you can have take (I’ve taken a couple myself!) that may pertain to your particular parenting struggle. Definitely worth checking out if you’re feeling like you could use some direction, tools and assurance that everything is going to be okay even when you didn’t get this as a child yourself.
Book Recommendations:
No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model, Richard Schwartz, PhD
The Way of Integrity, Martha Beck
It Didn’t Start With You, Mark Wolynn