The first time I yelled at my child, I swore it would be the last.
The second time, I told myself I was just tired.
By the fifth time, I realised I wasn’t yelling because of what he did. What I had never healed was the reason I was screaming.
That’s when therapy opened a door I didn’t know existed. And on the other side of it was a truth I didn’t want to hear: I was parenting from trauma.
The Sentence That Shook Me
It was a regular therapy session. I was venting — again — about how overwhelmed I felt as a parent. My son had thrown a tantrum over the colour of his cereal bowl, and I completely lost it. I yelled, slammed the bowl down, and stormed out of the room.
I felt ashamed. Guilty. Exhausted.
That’s when my therapist, calm as ever, said:
“You’re not a bad parent. But I think… You might be parenting from trauma.”
I froze.
Me? The over-thinker. The over-planner. The person who reads parenting blogs all the time and worries about screen time limits? That couldn’t be true.
But the truth was already sinking in. And it hurt.
I Thought I Was Doing Everything Right
As a child from a troubled home, I promised myself: I won’t be like them.
I wouldn’t scream like my mother. I wouldn’t disappear emotionally like my father. I would try to protect my child from everything that I was missing.
And in some ways, I did.
But in many ways, I swung too far in the opposite direction:
I panicked over small mistakes.
I hovered too much, afraid he’d feel abandoned.
I shut down at the first sign of conflict, terrified I’d lose control.
I saw normal childhood behavior as a sign of personal rejection.
I wasn’t parenting him. I was parenting my scared inner child who never got what she needed.
Trauma Doesn’t Disappear — It Hides in Our Reactions
What I learned in therapy changed everything:
Trauma doesn’t always show up as chaos. Sometimes, it hides in overprotectiveness. In perfectionism. In fear masked as love.
I was responding to triggers that I was unaware I had:
A slammed door reminded me of my dad storming out.
Eye rolls from my child felt like the disrespect I endured in silence growing up.
Whining made my skin crawl because, as a child, my whining was punished.
I wasn’t parenting in the moment. I was parenting in the past.
The Guilt Hit Me Hard
At first, I didn’t feel empowered. It was devastating.
I cried in my car after therapy. I apologized to my child more times than I can count. I beat myself up for all the moments I let my triggers do the talking instead of love.
But my therapist reminded me:
“Awareness isn’t a failing — it’s the first stage of therapy.”
I started to see my behavior not as a failure, but as a pattern. A forgotten pattern.
Breaking the Cycle — One Step at a Time
Healing didn’t happen overnight. But awareness helped me begin.
- I paused before reacting.
- I learned to soothe myself before trying to soothe my child.
- I reminded myself: He’s not them. I’m not who I used to be.
- I started reparenting myself. I’m giving myself the compassion I didn’t get as a child.
An amazing thing happened: our home grew quieter. My child started to feel safer. I started to feel less afraid.
Parenting With Pain — and Love
If you’re reading this and think you’re parenting from trauma, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad parent. It makes you a human one.
We all carry the past with us. But we also get to choose whether we pass it down. I didn’t need to be perfect. I just needed to be present — and brave enough to look inward.
Thanks to therapy, I’m no longer parenting out of fear. I’m parenting from awareness, softness, and truth. And that’s a better gift to my child than any perfect performance ever could be.
