How Self Awareness Can Improve Your Parenting
Every one of us has some amount of “baggage” that we carry with us from childhood. Every one of us was once a little person who experienced a caregiver being unresponsive, or a time when we felt lonely, out of control, ashamed, etc. No parent can eliminate these experiences for their kids. In fact, to do so would take away important opportunities needed for healthy development. In families that provide a general foundation of enough safety, security, predictability and nurturing, these experiences allow for growth and maturation. In families that are neglectful or abusive, they are more intense and more destructive.
We learn about ourselves and relationships from our early experiences with the people who are close to us. How can I expect to be treated? How can I get taken care of if I feel sad or lonely, angry, or afraid? How do people react when I am confident and successful? Our answers to these questions are the basis for our future patterns of relationship - to ourselves, to our children, to our partners and friends. They can often be credited for helping us survive very difficult situations. And they can be the cornerstones of healthy adult relationships. When I talk about “baggage” however, I am talking about the ways in which our answers (or pieces of answers) to these questions create relationship patterns that are aren’t as effective now that we are adults. These beliefs and relationship patterns develop when we are young and immature. They help to form our strategies and styles of connection in our relationships but they often do not mature with the rest of us.
A classic example is common in adult children of alcoholics. If an addicted parent is neglectful, needy, or unpredictable, their children will feel out of control and anxious. Many children will try to manage this by adopting family roles which preserve their connections and attempt to create some feeling of security. They may be the peace-keeper or try to defend, excuse, or distract people from painful interactions. Their success in these areas helps to compensate for their vulnerability and help them feel in control, capable and safe. These coping skills help a child survive emotionally. But they can cause problems later in adult relationships.
Parenthood is the perfect way to trigger our baggage because we have entered into an adult-child relationship again. We may identify with our kids and try to compensate for our own unsatisfied longing. We may unconsciously recreate difficult dynamics as a way of avoiding feeling our own loss. Sometimes we become overly lenient and protective or overly rigid and demanding. We may become withdrawn and distant or involved in an unhealthy way that makes it harder for kids to grow up. When kids hit the ages at which we experienced a loss, our baggage can be triggered even more.
Working at understanding our baggage, and the ways it shows up in our relationships with our kids, is a huge gift to them. It allows us to notice more easily when we are responding from the part of us that is the mature adult parent, and when we are responding from the place we were when we first tried to figure out how emotional relationships work. We all go to these places. But when we can see it coming or notice we are there, we can better show up with our “adult selves” for our kids and their “young selves.” We can even model a curiosity and willingness to learn from our mistakes... because goodness knows, we all make plenty of them.
