7 ways your childhood affects the way you raise your children.. tackle the past for the future
Heal the past for the sake of the future...
Nothing shifts one's focus toward the future more than having a child. Most parents who look into the eyes of their new baby see that what awaits them is a new page.
However, research does tell us that there is one factor by which we can predict how we will perform as parents, which is the extent to which we are able to make sense of our past. So, even though the last place we might look when we become parents is our childhood, we must do that if we want to be a better parent to our children right now.
Although what happened to us in the past and specifically in childhood appears in our parenting traits, this does not mean that we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of our parents.
In fact, no matter what distress or trauma we endured in our early childhood, what is most important is the extent to which we are able to accept the pain we have experienced in the past and come to terms with our experience. By addressing what happened to us, we will be better able to connect with our children and provide the care they need. We can recognize that our "instinctive" reactions are not always the way we want to be raised. We can begin to understand why certain behaviors of our children provoke us and not others.
This process is not about blaming our parents. Our parents are human beings, and all human beings have flaws, we have to imitate their positive traits and break free from their negative traits.
Maltreatment
However, realizing the ways in which our parents have influenced us is part of growing up and becoming who we are now.
With this in mind, we can begin to notice the ways in which our histories infiltrate our parenting, distort our behaviour, and at times potentially harm ourselves and our children.
Here are 7 ways childhood and past can affect how we raise our children:
1- Tradition:
When we become a parent, we begin to notice negative traits in ourselves that are similar to our parents. Our child signs something, and we scream, “Now look what I did!” It may be an expression we've never used, but it's one we've heard a lot in our childhood. We may have learned many good things from our parents, but we are hurting our children when we fail to recognize the ways in which we repeat the bad things we inherited from our parents.
An extreme example of this is corporal punishment. Many parents justify hitting their children simply because this is how their parents disciplined them. And they reject the myriad of proven studies showing that corporal punishment only has harmful effects. We must not justify harmful actions, big or small, because we learned them from our parents. Instead, we should aim to be the generation out of this maelstrom.
2- Overreaction.
We may react to a destructive environment by trying to compensate or rebel against the way our parents treat us. We may be well intentioned when we try to do it differently, but we often unintentionally exaggerate it. For example, if our parents meddle in every detail, we may react by not interfering in the details of our children's lives. And while we were bothered by intrusion in the past, our children may feel neglected now.
When we go too far in the opposite direction, we still distort our behavior based on our history. Instead of identifying the qualities that matter to us, we are still reacting to the things that have happened to us.
3- Projection.
A lot of the reasons we overcompensate for our parents' mistakes is because we project our feelings when we were kids onto our kids now. We may see them as our fathers saw us, as "savages" or "incapable". We call them the "bad kid." We may feel sorry for them, and expect that we hurt their feelings in the same way we once hurt our parents.
When we see our children as an extension of ourselves, we pressure them to be like us or to outdo us. We may expect them to pursue our dreams or pursue our interests, rather than finding their own. When we project our feelings and thoughts onto our children, we fail to see them for what they are as distinct individuals. We may not get the point when we are fulfilling the “needs” we think they have instead of responding to their actual needs, and we act as if we were educating ourselves in our childhood.
4- Reconfigure.
For many, it can be difficult to trace the ways in which we recreate our emotional environment from our early childhood into our adult life. However, even if our circumstances in childhood were unsuitable, we have developed some psychological defenses that may cause us to look for the same circumstances when we start our own family. For example, we may unknowingly choose a partner who repeats a particular dynamic from our past. We may find ourselves looking for someone to reject us, the same way our parents rejected us in childhood.
These situations may not be pleasant, but we have a feeling of familiarity that makes us unconsciously drawn to them. As children, disagreement with or fear of a parent can make us feel like our lives are in danger. As a result, we may internalize our parents' point of view or create a familiar family environment for ourselves in adulthood. This repetition eventually exposes our children to the same negative atmosphere that we were exposed to in the past during our childhood.
5- Take a defensive stance.
The coping methods we built to get through difficult times as children can become psychological defenses that affect us throughout our lives. These coping techniques may have been good for us when we were young, but they can hurt us as adults, especially as parents. For example, if one of our parents was dismissive or intimidating, we might have retained, from our childhood, a feeling of self-sufficiency and that we didn't really want anything from anyone. Perhaps this helped us meet our needs at an age Our first time was when we depended on our parents for survival, but as an adult, this situation can limit our relationships.
We may have trouble expressing our feelings and taking care of our children. We may have a hard time accepting love from them. Part of growing up means knowing our defenses, finding ways to live without these buildups that affect our personality, and discovering who we really are and what we really want. How do we want to be with our children? What example do we want to set for them?
6- Feeling provoked.
No matter how good our intentions are, we are bound to feel provoked by our children in moments of frustration. We are often provoked by current situations that painfully remind us of our past, even if we are unaware of what is creating the painful feelings. Often in these moments, we feel that time has taken us back to the same old painful situation. We may act in a way that is either childish or parental, but we are not who we really are.
For example, when a child irritates, we may “get on the nerve” in the same way that our parents were angry in the past, or we may feel fearful as we did as children when our parents punished us. When you have severe or exaggerated reactions to your children, look back on your own experience as this can clarify your current situation.
7- Listen to the inner voice that criticizes.
Our fears and self-attacks tend to increase when we become parents, because the presence of our children reminds us of when and where we developed these self-perceptions in the first place. Our “critical inner voice” begins to take shape very early in our development when we internalize the negative attitudes our parents had toward us and themselves. Maybe when we were kids, we felt that no one wanted us or that we were weak. And now as adults, we still see ourselves as unwanted and helpless. When we try to be strong with our children, we may feel internal vocal attacks that criticize us and make it difficult for us to think clearly or act rationally—thoughts like, "You can't control him," or "He hates you." You are a bad mother! “
Or if we had a father who felt unfit to deal with us when we were born, we might find ourselves hearing voices like, “How are you going to take care of this baby? You don't know how to be a father. . The more we can challenge these voices and this internal enemy, the more freedom we make our decisions about how to act, and the less likely we are to pass on this way of thinking to our children.
Knowing ourselves and being aware of our experiences helps us discern and rid ourselves of the destructive layers of our past, which limit us in our lives, so that we can become what we truly strive for. For all parents, who are looking for answers on how to develop themselves into a better parent, the key is often to take a trip back into your past and do so with strength, curiosity, and compassion.