I often think about something a very thoughtful dad of two said to me during a coaching session last year. We were talking about his transition home after long days at work, and how hard he tried to come into the house with an open heart and mind.
Things had been very challenging with his 5-year-old son, and he worried about what he might encounter when he opened the door. He worried too about how triggering his son’s behavior often felt.
He tried to shed his day on the commute home, and plug back into family life with energy. But, he said, as soon as he stepped through the door, he felt as if he were “back in the lion’s den again, ready for war.”
This experience is common in the parents I work with, and perhaps you can relate. I know I can. So often parents feel a disconnect between how they want to act as parents, and what they actually end up thinking, feeling, or doing in the heat of the moment.
I promised myself that I would never yell at my kids the way my dad yelled at me, but then I get so frustrated that I end up doing it anyway.
I was staying so patient with her asking me over and over and over again, until finally I just blew up.
I thought I had already worked on the way I was treated as a child, but then my kid started intensely testing limits and I got totally flooded.
I know it’s normal to have feelings, but his crying is so intense that I sometimes feel like I have to get away from it as quickly as possible.
What Happens When Old Wounds Get Triggered
Often, when we get very angry or frustrated by our children’s behavior, it is because an old “wound”—a painful or hurtful experience from our own childhood—gets triggered by whatever our child did or said.
It could be that they exhibit a behavior that was unacceptable in your family, and seeing it reminds you of how you were treated in a similar situation. Or that their big feeling touches an old memory of that feeling from when you were small.
When these kinds of old hurts or even traumas from our own childhoods get triggered by our children, it can make the already difficult job of parenting consciously that much harder.
Before we even realize it is happening, we can find ourselves having an internal experience reminiscent of our childhoods, as well as the in-the-moment experience of being angry or frustrated as a parent. Read about a time when this happened to me.
What we feel, say, and do can come from what we heard or how we were treated by our own parent(s) as children. It can come from how we felt as children. And of course, it comes from how we feel in the moment as we experience our own child.
Sometimes all of these things can happen at once, in a split second.
Often parents tell me that they feel mystified about their reactions to their children’s behavior. Why do they get so angry so fast? Why is it so hard to remain calm in the face of irritating behavior? Why can’t they be “better”?
But if we consider how much can happen in that “simple” moment of irritation, it can start to make sense.
Parenting in moments when old hurts get triggered is a bit like trying to drive in a hail storm on a narrow road, with bad windshield wipers and cars pulling out in front of you over and over.
In that scenario, we typically hunker down, grip the steering wheel tightly, and just try to stay alive.
Similarly, when we’re trying to parent in moments when old wounds get touched, the confusing soup of thoughts, feelings, and story that arise can make it deeply challenging to do anything but lapse into survival mode.
How You Can Work With It
Working with old wounds takes time and tenderness, especially when we’re in the midst of parenting young children. Like any deep, meaningful work, it requires support and a commitment to being a friend to yourself.
As I do with so many things related to parenting, I always recommend that parents start slowly, with baby steps.
Notice
The first baby step we can take is to notice.
As small a thing as it seems, noticing is actually a big step masquerading as a baby step. Noticing when our kids’ behavior triggers an old hurt can be profound. Often it catches us off guard—we see ourselves responding in a certain way and suddenly, we come to a screeching halt. Our response is so familiar, and often, so sore.
You can blow right past it, rub the sore spot a bit with distraction, perhaps, or just file it away under “Do Not Open.”
Or, you can let your mind come back to it later, when there’s a bit more space and you feel a bit more resourced than you did in the moment.
You can ask yourself:
What’s here? (What is the feeling, the body sensation, the flavor of the experience?)
What does it remind me of? (Is there an old hurt that comes to mind?)
Repair
Another small-but-profound thing we can do is repair the moments with our children when we might have acted in a regretful way due to an old wound being triggered.
When our past hurts get touched, it is hard for us to access our higher beliefs and most useful tools. Typically they get swept away by the sneaker wave of feelings or sensations that can wash over us.
But even though you may not have been your best self in the moment, you can repair the “rupture”—or broken connection—with your child after the fact.
When we repair, we come back to our child when we’re calm and we seek to reestablish the connection that got broken. We apologize for our part and try to understand theirs, if they are old enough to participate. You can learn more about this practice here.
If you didn’t have the experience of repair in your original family, this practice can be even more powerful. When you use this tool in your own family, there can be healing for you, too, even as you work to offer healing to your children.
Each time you repair, you model how to maintain and restore important relationships, and you offer your children a future with fewer wounds.
Ask for Help
It’s hard to do this work alone.
Sometimes we need a little help from a partner or a close friend to unpack what comes up for us in the moments when old hurts get touched. A listening partner can be a wonderful support too.
And sometimes we need more help than a close other can provide. In those cases, a skilled therapist can be enormously helpful. I have found that the work on old wounds I have done with a therapist over the years resonates with me still. It has made me a better parent.
Summary
So, take it slow.
Start by noticing.
Repair the ruptures when they happen.
And don’t be afraid to ask for help.
* Please note: the tools and suggestions in this post are not meant to be a substitute for care or treatment from a licensed medical professional or therapist. If you feel that you want or need support with past traumas or experiences, please seek professional help or reach out to me for a referral.
