How Can Pain from Our Own Childhood Make Us Better Parents? #childhoodtrauma #pain #healing #parenting #children

Do you know that the pain from your childhood can make you a better parent? 

Hi, I’m Anne Alvares, Parent Coach in the Masterful Parenting Program. 

When I was working with a mom of a teenage boy, she told me that her son has blamed her for moving to Canada away from his friends and family.  He tells her, “Life here is bad and that it’s all your fault.  We never should have come here.” 

I asked her when he spoke these words, what were you thinking?  She said, "He hates me, he doesn’t appreciate me, he makes me feel unworthy". 

How did this make you feel?  And she said, “angry, very angry”. 

What did you do with these feelings? “I didn’t speak to him”, she said. 

I asked her, “Have there been other times when you felt unworthy, perhaps in your childhood?  And she answered tearfully, “Yes”.  

Then I saw the breakthrough.  I said that the feelings of unworthiness stem from your childhood and not from your son’s words. This is the pain that you carry. 

I understand that pain from childhood and I have the same pain.  But we don’t have to carry that pain anymore because we are no longer that child, we are adults. We are worthy and we have children that need us. 

Here’s the thing about childhood pain that’s really important:

What we didn’t get from our parents (love, attention, importance, caring) we can give to our kids.  And when we give what we didn’t get, we heal.  How powerful is that! 

Give your kids what you didn't get and then you will heal.