How Trauma Informed My Parenting-Become A Calm Mama

How Trauma Informed My Parenting

When my son Lincoln was 4 years old, he was having major meltdowns, getting in trouble at preschool and being aggressive. And I was screaming all the time.

There were times that I felt like a victim, like I was being abused by my son. When I told Tiffany this, she explained that it was not normal to feel this way and that I didn’t have to continue feeling this way. That is when I realized I needed some help.

One of the first parenting workshops I attended was also my first experience with inner child work. I realized that when Lincoln was being aggressive, I felt like I was in danger, being attacked.

As a result of my adverse childhood experiences, I never really felt safe in my body, environment or relationships. Everything always felt dangerous, so I was constantly seeking security and a sense of control.

I tried to find the rules of how I was supposed to live, and it often showed up as perfectionism. I wanted to crack the code on everything - figure it out so I could do it “right” and be safe.

This trauma also showed up for me in the form of eating disorders, people pleasing and a high sense of vigilance,

When I had kids, there were so many decisions to make, and I didn’t feel like I knew the right answer to any of them. And when it came to behavior, I didn’t know how to not yell at them. So I’d yell. Then I’d feel ashamed and beat myself up, tell myself that they were bad. When you don’t have good parents, you actually don’t know what else to do. There’s no template to follow.

As parents, we can have the best intentions. Then, we’re triggered and an old wound or stress response comes back up, and we’re in it, doing the thing we don’t want to do.

There are so many things I went through that I wanted to protect my kids from. I made their emotional health my #1 parenting goal, which meant that I lowered my standards in other areas. I just wanted them to feel safe and held and cared for.

How I’m Healing From Childhood Trauma

There are several choices I made and strategies I used over the past 15-ish years to help me out of the trauma response, overreactivity and toxic stress.

A lot of my childhood stress came from growing up in an unpredictable environment. When I was a kid, I never knew what was happening. There was so much confusion, and nobody talked to me about it.

As a mom, I became really focused on not having chaos in our family. I wanted everything to be simple and flow smoothly. When my kids were young I was doing a lot of healing work, and I needed routines to support me.