Overcoming Trauma to Become Better Parents
I’m loving this book so much—The Power of Showing Up: How Parental Response Shapes Who Our Kids Become and How Their Brains Get Wired. It’s about how the most important thing we can do as parents is to show up for our children. Showing up means that we help them feel safe, seen, soothed, and secure.
If we had any attachment difficulties in our own childhoods, then we are more likely to struggle with providing these four things for our children. But, ultimately, the book is incredibly hopeful and encouraging. It posits that any of us can “break the cycle.” It starts by getting clear about our own childhoods and owning our stories. That’s the first step on the path to overcoming trauma.
Here are some questions that can jump start that process:
- In what ways did your parents or other caregivers help you feel safe? In what ways did you not feel safe? Think about your physical, emotional, and relational experiences.
- Did you feel protected by your parents? In what ways did they do a good job of protecting you? In what ways did they fail?
- Did you ever feel terrified of your parents? Were your parents ever the source of your fear?
- How do you wish your parents would have responded differently? What would have been ideal for you to feel safe?
- Was there anyone you could turn to in your family or beyond as a sanctuary of safety?
- When you think about your child feeling scared by your own parental behavior and reactivity, how does that make you feel? Under what circumstances do you find yourself flipping your lid?
- How do you think your child would want you to respond when they come to you feeling upset after a difficult interaction with you. What could you change?
- How did repair happen in your family after a subtle or severe rupture when you were growing up? How do you initiate repair now as a parent?
I feel so grateful that I went to Therapeutic Assessment therapy and that it indirectly helped me get clear about my childhood and own my story. The process was “indirect” because I came into therapy with a series of questions that I was seeking to answer that were more focused on my current realities at work. But my therapist helped me understand how all of my current struggles were connected to past struggles.
I just wish I would’ve read this book as a new parent! It feels late to be coming to these realizations. I’m wondering