(Re)Parenting
Being a parent is really f*&king hard. And being able to be the kind of parent you want your kids to have takes work (especially when they have learned to press all your buttons!). Whether you're struggling with the unrealistic expectations of mothers, baggage from your own childhood, relationship/co-parenting challenges, therapy can help you unpack the complicated tangle of thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and behaviours, so that you can have more clarity, self-compassion, and control over how you show up for yourself and your kids.
Therapy can help us learn how to give to ourselves those things that we may have needed when we were little. We can learn how to notice when our own inner child shows up with its own needs (and possibly some unhelpful reactions too), and how to reparent those young parts of ourselves.
Learn how to be a "Cycle Breaker"
For those of us that may have lacked the understanding, validation, and compassion that we needed from our caregivers, therapy can help us discover that we have those strong, resilient, compassionate and nurturing parts within our Self - we just need to learn how to connect to and trust that Self to show up for our vulnerable parts in ways that our parents may not have been capable of.
In order to show up for your kids, first you need to show up for yourself.
Learning how to manage all of the challenges of modern-day parenting (intensive mothering in late capitalism, anyone?), along with the demands of work, family, in-laws, friends, etc., requires that we build our own internal resources, so that we can treat ourselves with the compassion we deserve, and that we need to stay calm and regulated.
You don't have to be a perfect parent to have a strong attachment with your kids!
As a mother myself, I have first-hand experience with the challenges of supporting children to be their best selves, while also just trying to keep them alive, do the laundry, and survive. the. day. By working through your own attachment wounds, using a combination of relational, psychodynamic, parts work (IFS), and trauma work (when indicated), you can learn to enhance connection and reduce conflict in your relationships with your kids, your partner, others, and, most importantly, with yourself.
