Do you ever feel like your parenting is completely off track from where you want it to be? You promise yourself you won't yell, then find yourself yelling at your kids before breakfast.

You intend to be patient and present, but end up getting distracted by your phone, or snapping at your child. This disconnect between your parenting intentions and reality can leave you feeling guilty, ashamed, and afraid that you're passing on intergenerational trauma despite your best efforts.

In this episode, we reveal the origins of our harsh inner critic and how cultural expectations set parents up for struggle. You'll discover practical reparenting techniques, step-by-step self-compassion exercises, and how recognizing your emotional triggers can transform your parenting journey.

This isn't about perfect parenting - it's about healing your own childhood wounds through a process called reparenting, so you can break intergenerational patterns and build the connection with your child you've always wanted.

Questions This Episode Will Answer

How can I identify and manage my emotional triggers in parenting?

Emotional triggers often originate from unhealed childhood experiences. Notice when you have outsized reactions to your child's behavior—these point to areas needing healing. The episode offers a self-compassion exercise to help you treat yourself with the same kindness that you treat others. Creating space between trigger and reaction allows you to respond intentionally rather than reactively.

How does my inner critic affect my ability to parent effectively?

Your inner critic—which is often a voice of your parent/caregiver—triggers shame spirals that make it harder to parent effectively. It damages your relationship with yourself and teaches your children to develop their own harsh inner critics. Through reparenting, you can recognize this voice isn't truly yours, but one you absorbed from your environment. Learning to quiet this voice creates space for authentic connection with your child and breaks intergenerational trauma patterns.

What is reparenting and how can it help my relationship with my child?

Reparenting is giving yourself what your parents couldn't provide during your childhood. It involves a five-step process: becoming aware of your patterns, accepting them without judgment, validating your childhood experiences, reframing your beliefs, and taking action to reinforce new patterns. When you heal your own emotional wounds through reparenting, you become more capable of meeting your child's needs without being triggered.

How do I break intergenerational trauma patterns in my parenting?

Breaking intergenerational trauma starts with awareness of the patterns you inherited. Practice self-compassion exercises when triggered rather than self-criticism. Use the reparenting process to heal your own childhood wounds. Find supportive community to help you recognize when old patterns emerge. Each time you respond differently to your child than your parents did to you, you're disrupting the cycle of intergenerational trauma.

Can self-compassion exercises really help when I'm triggered with my kids?

Yes, self-compassion exercises are powerful tools for managing parenting triggers. Dr. Susan Pollak's three-step self-compassion exercise can create the mental space needed to respond differently: acknowledge the difficulty ("This is hard"), remember your common humanity ("Other parents struggle with this too"), and offer yourself kindness ("What do I need right now?"). Regular practice builds your capacity to access self-compassion even in intense trigger moments.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

• How to identify your emotional triggers in parenting and their connection to intergenerational trauma
• A practical three-step self-compassion exercise for managing triggered moments with your children
• The complete five-step reparenting process to heal your own childhood wounds
• How schema therapy concepts explain the origins of your parenting triggers
• Why intergenerational trauma persists and specific practices to break the cycle
• Step-by-step self-compassion exercises you can practice daily to build emotional resilience
• How traditional parenting tools can unintentionally continue the cycle of intergenerational trauma
• Practical reparenting techniques to meet both your needs and your child's needs simultaneously

FAQs

How do I know if I'm dealing with intergenerational trauma in my parenting?

Signs of intergenerational trauma in parenting include having intense emotional reactions that feel disproportionate to the situation, finding yourself saying things your parents said to you despite promising yourself you wouldn't, or noticing patterns of behavior that resemble how you were parented. The good news is awareness is the first step in breaking these patterns, and reparenting techniques can help you heal.

What's the difference between reparenting and regular parenting skills?

Reparenting focuses on healing your own childhood wounds by meeting needs that weren't met when you were young. Traditional parenting tools focus primarily on changing your child's behavior. Reparenting addresses the root causes of your emotional triggers, allowing you to show up more authentically with your child.

How do I practice self-compassion when I think I've failed as a parent?

Start with a simple self-compassion exercise: put your hand on your heart, acknowledge the pain ("This feels really hard right now"), remember you're not alone ("Many parents struggle with this"), and offer yourself kindness ("I'm doing my best in a difficult situation"). Regular practice of self-compassion exercises builds your capacity to extend compassion to yourself even in moments of perceived failure.

Can I really change deep emotional triggers if they're connected to childhood trauma?

Yes, you can change your response to emotional triggers through consistent reparenting practice and self-compassion. The five-step reparenting process helps you recognize triggers, understand their origins in your own childhood, and develop new responses. This work takes time and often benefits from community support, but thousands of parents have successfully reduced their triggering and broken intergenerational trauma patterns.

How do I start reparenting myself if I don't even know what I needed as a child?

Begin by noticing when you're triggered with your child—these moments often reveal exactly what you needed and didn't receive. Pay attention to your emotional reactions and physical sensations when parenting feels hard. Try this self-compassion exercise: when triggered, ask yourself, "What did I need in similar situations as a child?" Then imagine giving that very thing to your younger self. Community support can also help you identify unmet childhood needs that may not be immediately obvious to you.

If you want help to break down the changes you want to make into tiny manageable steps and be held (gently!) accountable for taking them (or adjusting course if needed…), we’d love to have you join the group of likeminded parents in the membership.

Get the information you need and the support to actually implement it, all in what members call “the least judgmental corner of the internet.”

Enrollment open until May 28th. Click the banner to learn more.

Other episodes mentioned:

• 122: Self-Compassion for Parents
• 245: Does praise help or hurt your child? What research actually shows
• 233: Time Outs: Helpful or harmful? Here’s what the research says

Jump to highlights:

00:54 Introduction of today’s episode

04:25 These difficult moments don't define you as a parent or prove you're doing something wrong. Parents everywhere, regardless of background, culture, or family structure, experience this same disconnect between who they want to be and how they actually respond when things get challenging

05:18 Self-compassion can actually create some breathing room that we parent desperately need rather that continuing the pattern with shame and self-criticism. Self-compassion allows us to hold our struggles with kindness and self-compassion isn't just something to make us feel better about ourselves. We can actually think of it as a circuit breaker for our brain that allows us to respond differently next time

13:53 When your self-critical voice takes over and tells you to shape your child's behavior, you risk losing your connection with them. That's why things seem like they're off track, because if they were on track, you would feel close to each other

15:40 Three-step process that Dr. Pollak uses to access some self-compassion in difficult moments

17:48 The deepest human need that we all share is to be truly seen and accepted for who we are, not for our achievements or for our good behavior, but for our whole authentic selves

22:39 One of the most powerful discoveries Jen have made in her parenting journey is that raising children gives us a huge opportunity to heal ourselves

23:46 Five main categories of schemas that affect how we see ourselves and others

26:40 Five-step process that we can use, that is drawn from schema therapy.

32:53 What Jenny experienced in the ACTion group and how it changes her parenting strategies

35:40 What advice Elyse would offer for a parent who has joined the membership and who hasn’t sure how to engage with all the resources available

38:07 Stephanie’s experiences in the ACTion group

41:20 An open invitation for Parenting Membership

42:58 Wrapping up the discussion