How To Reparent Yourself While Parenting Your Child

Giving your child something you never received is hard.

Parenting your child while re-parenting yourself is hard.

And, I promise you, it will be worth it.

There is no exact substitute for what you are supposed to receive from a parent or primary caregiver during those early years. Having at least one consistent, responsive attachment figure in infancy and early childhood is critically important for a child's emotional, social, and cognitive development. The primary attachment figure helps a child manage emotions and develop healthy self-regulation skills. Consistent responsiveness from this figure teaches children how to soothe themselves over time and creates trust between them and the caregiver. Lack of a stable attachment figure in infancy and early childhood can lead to insecure attachment patterns, difficulty with emotion regulation, behavioral issues, and increased vulnerability to mental health challenges.

What is Reparenting?

Reparenting involves giving yourself what you didn’t get as a child from your parent or caregivers. It’s about offering yourself the empathy, compassion, boundaries, and guidance you deserve.

While you won’t be able to give yourself exactly what you didn’t get as a child, you can get pretty close. Here is some evidence that reparenting, inner-child work, and showing yourself compassion can help.

Neff & Germer (2013) conducted a randomized controlled trial on adults practicing Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC). They found significant improvements in emotional resilience, reduced anxiety and depression, and an increase in overall well-being. This aligns closely with reparenting, which emphasizes the use of compassionate self-talk and self-care.

Gilbert & Procter (2006) demonstrated that Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT), which explicitly teaches individuals to relate compassionately to themselves (akin to reparenting practices), effectively reduced shame, anxiety, and depressive symptoms in adults with high levels of self-criticism.

Levy et al. (2006) found in their randomized controlled trial of adult attachment-based therapies that these approaches effectively improved attachment security, emotional regulation, and interpersonal functioning in adults with attachment insecurities stemming from their childhood experiences.

Slade et al. (2020) reviewed multiple studies, which showed that adults undergoing attachment-based interventions— specifically those targeting childhood attachment injuries —improved significantly in attachment security, emotional resilience, and relationship satisfaction.

Why Reparenting is Essential While Parenting

Research shows that unresolved childhood trauma can negatively impact parental behavior, increasing the risk of anxiety, harsh parenting practices, and difficulty in managing children's emotional needs (Siegel & Hartzell, 2014). By reparenting yourself, you create the emotional space to break unhealthy generational patterns and provide a secure environment for your children.

Steps to Reparent Yourself While Parenting

• Acknowledge Your Inner Child. Recognize the experiences and emotions of your younger self. Validating these feelings allows you to approach them with empathy rather than judgment.

It makes sense why I feel this way.

That’s my inner child speaking up. I am an adult now.

My child is going to trigger me. What matters is how I react in those moments.

• Offer Yourself Compassion and Validation. Practice self-compassion by treating yourself with the kindness you would extend to your child. Remind yourself regularly that your feelings are valid and that mistakes are a natural part of the learning and growth process.

I am learning and I am growing every day. I will learn how to be the parent my child needs.

I am parenting without a roadmap. I am learning as I go.

I can always repair and start over.

• Identify and Rewrite Unhelpful Narratives. Examine beliefs about yourself that stem from childhood. For example, thoughts such as "I am unlovable" or "I am not good enough" can be transformed into more supportive and realistic narratives.

I am a good parent. Good parents are accountable, they apologize, and they’re always learning.

I am not what my parents said I would be.

• Set Healthy Boundaries. Healthy boundaries create emotional safety and clarity, both of which are essential for effective parenting. Clearly defining your limits helps model boundary-setting for your child and prevents emotional burnout.

• Develop Self-Regulation Strategies. Improving emotional regulation helps manage stress and respond calmly during challenging parenting moments.
• Build a Supportive Community. Connection is crucial in healing. Engaging with supportive peers, parenting groups, or online communities, such as Calling Home, can provide encouragement, understanding, and shared strategies for reparenting while parenting.

Managing Difficult Emotions During Reparenting

When Your Child Triggers You:

• Pause and identify the specific trigger. Ask yourself, "What unmet need from my childhood is this moment bringing up?"
• Use calming self-talk or grounding techniques.
• If needed, take a break to regain composure before addressing your child.

When You Feel Jealous Of Your Child:

• Remind yourself that providing a better childhood for your child is a testament to your growth and strength.
• Celebrate the positive differences you're making in your child's life as signs of breaking generational cycles.
• Share these feelings with a trusted friend, therapist, or in one of our groups at Calling Home to normalize and process them in a healthy way.
• Remember that it’s normal to wish you could have experienced the childhood your child is getting. This does not make you a bad parent.

Dealing with Feelings of Being a Bad Parent:

• Recognize that feeling uncertain or inadequate at times is common among parents, especially if you experienced childhood trauma.
• Remind yourself that making mistakes, learning from them, and repairing the damage are essential parts of learning and being a great parent.
• Regularly reflect on your progress and the positive changes you're actively making in your parenting approach.

You Are An Adult Now

One of the most important things you need to remember today is that you are an adult. Even when it feels like you’re still a helpless child, you have to remind yourself that you are not. You do not have to continue speaking to yourself in the way your parent did when you were a child. The person criticizing you in your head does not have to live there rent-free anymore - you can ask them to leave. Reparenting yourself includes telling yourself, “I am the adult now, and I am in charge of how I treat myself.”