Our experiences can affect how we parent
Your parenting decisions have a tremendous impact on your child’s emotional and social development. Their belief systems are modeled by your example, and they will pick up moral values, discipline, and manners from what they see. Studies from the Karin Pervis institute for Child Development show that the sense of self in any child does not develop without connection; in fact it develops in the parent-child relationship and other important relationships early in life.
We are biologically hard-wired to connect with others and when these connections do not happen or they happen in a way that hurt us, our sense of self does not develop appropriately.
Our Histories
Many parents today were emotionally shut down as children, never had a supportive or emotionally intimate connection with their own parents. They grew up old school: children are seen not heard, physical punishment was accepted at home and school, spare the rod spoil the child, etc. They grew up developing tough defenses to survive their own emotional loneliness early in life. When they become parents themselves, they parent in the same way creating intergenerational trauma.
According to Ana Gomez, psychotherapist and author:
- The parent may be highly traumatized by living through the traumas of their children and the healing needs to take place in both the child and the parent.
- Due to the parents’ early experiences with their own parents, they may have difficulties setting boundaries with their kids, or they may be overprotective, neglectful, abusive, distant, or too intrusive.
- Parents’ emotional problems can affect their children’s emotional, physical, and psychological development. For instance, a parent with depression, without knowing or intending to, may neglect their child’s needs for connection and love. This can result in having a child with emotional and behavioral problems.
We repeat the past because the most primitive parts of our brain tell us that safety lies in familiarity – John Bowlby, psychologist and founder of Attachment Theory
Parenting and Adoption
Parenting the adopted or fostered child requires a parent to learn so many different skills and topics to understand and lead their children. Children can develop attachment-related injuries, which then makes it harder for the parent to connect on a deeper level and the cycle continues. Adopted and foster kids need help with:
- Attachment /Identity Development
- Early/ Relational Trauma
- Grief/ Deregulation
- Emotional/ Behavioral Regulation
What is TBRI?
TBRI is an attachment-based, trauma-informed intervention that is designed to meet the complex needs of vulnerable children. TBRI uses Empowering Principles to address physical needs, Connecting Principles for attachment needs, and Correcting Principles to disarm fear-based behaviors. While the intervention is based on years of attachment, sensory processing, and neuroscience research, the heartbeat of TBRI is connection.
Click here for a video on the TBRI Intervention.
I work alongside parents helping them through the triggers and overwhelming stress that parenting can bring. I help struggling parents find and heal the emotional blocks that are preventing them from connecting to their children in the way they wish they could. We work together healing possible attachment injuries you may have or past traumas that get in the way of your parenting today. We develop ways for you to care for yourself, set healthy boundaries, and not lose yourself.
When we see ourselves not being the parents we want to be, the most noble thing we can do is reach out for help. It is vital that we, as parents, give our children a healthy basis for eventual adulthood and interdependence. Combining EMDR, psychoeducation about trauma development, and using the TBRI methods for parenting, I help parents develop a more nurturing, loving, and connected relationship with their children.
Contact me for a FREE 15 min phone consultation!
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