Getting off the trauma boat

When it comes to parenting, messaging ought to be straightforward but profound. Parenting styles, particularly if the parent has experienced severe childhood trauma, can have a significant impact on how kids are brought up. These tendencies are frequently inherited without conscious awareness, resulting in intergenerational cycles of stress, guilt, and emotional detachment. But the good news is these cycles can be broken with reflection, support, and self-regulation. Hence, it is crucial to challenge conventional parenting wisdom by focusing not on what to do for your child, but on what to unlearn from your past. 

Childhood’s long shadows

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) refer to abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction experienced before the age of 18. According to research and decades of clinical experience, ACEs have lasting physiological and psychological effects. From chronic stress to developmental delays, children who endure trauma may carry these imprints well into adulthood, sometimes without even realising it.

Take the case of a mother who reached out because she found herself yelling at and hitting her five-year-old daughter, even though she wanted to be gentle and calm. As a child, she had faced repeated physical abuse, emotional neglect, and even sexual assault — all of which left her battling guilt, low self-worth, and uncontrollable rage. She didn’t want to perpetuate the same trauma, yet her body and mind were reacting from a place of unresolved pain.

This is the crux of the problem: trauma doesn’t simply fade with time. It lodges itself into the nervous system, hijacks responses, and becomes the lens through which we interpret our children’s behaviour.

Unhealed parents, unintended consequences

What many parents don’t realise is that how they were parented — how they were spoken to, touched, disciplined, ignored, praised, or criticised — becomes the blueprint for how they raise their own children. This blueprint often operates beneath conscious awareness.

A father who was shamed for crying as a boy might now tell his son to “man up.” A mother who never felt truly seen might struggle to connect with her daughter’s emotional world. The internalised messages of “I’m not good enough,” “Emotions are dangerous,” or “Love must be earned” often show up in subtle ways: harsh discipline, overprotection, emotional unavailability, or even micromanaging. These behaviours of parents are not intentional but happen when they are triggered, as an automatic, unconscious response.

But when this pain remains unexamined, it can create an environment where the child doesn’t feel safe enough to express, explore, or even exist freely. Over time, this impacts the child’s ability to be emotionally resilient as an adult and affects the adult’s health and relationships, including parenting experiences.

Children raised in such emotional climates often experience anxiety, depression, poor self-worth or low confidence, and to cope, they may become perfectionists, people-pleasers, or emotionally avoidant — coping patterns that echo their parents’ unresolved wounds.

The central thesis that drives these authors is that healing must begin with the parent. Understanding how past pain influences present behaviour is the first step in creating a safe, connected, and nurturing space for children to thrive. Parenting is not just about managing a child’s behaviour — it’s about managing the emotional legacy we pass on. You cannot regulate your child until you learn to regulate yourself.

A compass of understanding

Dr Diana Baumrind, a renowned clinical and developmental psychologist, developed a valuable framework that categorises parenting styles based on two axes: control (or demand) and warmth (or responsiveness). These four styles help us understand how childhood experiences influence parenting approaches:

l Authoritarian (High Control, Low Warmth): “Do as I say or else.” These parents enforce strict rules, often with punishment, and offer little room for discussion. Lack of emotional connection can leave children feeling unheard, unseen, and unvalued. Children raised under such rigidity often suffer from low self-esteem, anxiety, or rebellion.

l Permissive (Low Control, High Warmth): “Anything for my child’s happiness.” Permissive parents overindulge their children to avoid conflict, often out of guilt or overcompensation for their own painful pasts. This can foster entitlement and poor impulse control in children. While children may feel loved, the absence of structure can leave them feeling anxious and ill-equipped for the realities of life.

l Negligent (Low Control, Low Warmth): Emotional and physical needs are overlooked, sometimes due to the parent’s own mental health issues or unresolved trauma. Children raised in such environments often struggle with emotional regulation and form insecure attachments.

l Authoritative or Balanced (High Control, High Warmth): These parents provide structure and discipline but are also emotionally attuned and responsive. Children raised in such homes are more likely to be confident, resilient, and socially competent.

Recognising your parenting style — especially how it may have been shaped by your upbringing — is the first step toward change. You have to parent your inner child before you parent your actual child.

Parenting styles are not fixed. With conscious effort, self-awareness, and a commitment to healing, parents can shift towards a more authoritative or balanced approach. When faced with a challenging situation, rather than getting frustrated and thinking, “What’s wrong with my child?”, parents must be encouraged to adopt the guiding principles in their parenting style to shift the focus to their own behaviour: “What can I do to help my child?”

Parenting by stage, not instinct

Another crucial aspect of better parenting is to follow age-appropriate guidance. From toddlers to teens, parenting strategies must evolve with the child’s developmental stage.

For instance, in the early years (birth to age 6), safety, routine, emotional availability and freedom to explore with all five senses are paramount. Toddlers’ need for independence, their lack of impulse control, limited reasoning ability, and short attention spans are age-appropriate behaviours and not misbehaviours. So, parents need to respond with empathy and patience. Children at this stage rely heavily on non-verbal cues and learn from modelling. Screaming, hitting, or even sarcastic remarks during these formative years, even with the right intentions, can actually embed a toxic narrative in the child’s developing brain instead of helping them learn.

Middle childhood (ages 7–12) requires a delicate balance between support and autonomy. This is the age where self-esteem and peer relationships begin to shape a child’s identity. Parents need to shift from command-givers to problem-solving partners. Parents need to give children responsibility for managing their own schedules. Instead of expecting perfection, let children learn from their mistakes. The goal is to encourage independence while still offering a safety net.

Teenagers (13–18) need something that often feels paradoxical: boundaries and freedom. They seek autonomy but still require emotional grounding. This is where many parents falter — either by tightening control or stepping away altogether. Making agreements in advance about certain rules and expectations instead of micromanaging will help reduce power struggles.

Self-regulation is vital

If there’s one golden rule for better parenting, it’s the necessity of parental self-regulation. Children mirror emotional energy. An emotionally dysregulated parent — a parent who is chronically stressed, irritable, anxious, or emotionally unavailable — can unintentionally pass on those states to their children. There are several techniques available, grounded in neuroscience and yogic wisdom, such as breathwork through the SEE (Subconscious Emotional Exploration) Protocol for Self-hypnosis, body awareness, journaling, and somatic processing to deal with these stressors. Therapy, inner child healing, and community support also go a long way. These are not fluffy add-ons but vital practices to recalibrate the nervous system.

One striking aspect is how trauma gets stored not only in memory but in the body. That’s why parents may find themselves lashing out in a moment, even when they logically know better. It’s a bodily trigger, not a moral failure. Healing requires engaging both mind and body.

Resilience is built, not born

Children are not passive recipients of trauma — they are also active builders of resilience. Emotional resilience is the ability to bounce back from challenges and adapt in the face of stress. And it can be cultivated.

How? Through connection, not coercion. Through acceptance, not shame. Through problem-solving, not punishment. Through modelling, not lecturing.

Rather than obsessing over achievements or “good” behaviour, parents must focus on creating an ecosystem where their children feel seen, safe, and supported. This is what builds a child’s emotional scaffolding — the very foundation of lifelong mental health. The ecosystem, when it includes Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs), facilitates better mental health, resilience and self-esteem in children. 

PCEs include feeling safe and protected by adults at home, having a loving and supportive caregiver, enjoying family and community traditions, feeling a sense of belonging at school, having trustworthy friends, being able to talk to family about feelings, and being treated fairly by teachers and community members.

Parenting is not a task to be mastered but a journey of continuous learning and growth for the entire family. There are no prescriptive formulae, but rather we need to examine why we behave the way we do — and how we can do better, starting with ourselves.

Riri G Trivedi is an experienced certified parenting coach, psychotherapist and trainer. Anagha Nagpal is a certified parent educator specialising in positive parenting techniques and a regression therapist. They have co-authored ‘This Book Won’t Teach You Parenting’, recently published by Penguin.