How To Be An Emotionally Healthy Parent For Your Children?

"Tring to get a difficult person to be good to us is a clear sign of childhood trauma" - Patrick Teahan

When I heard that, my whole life began to make sense. 

It all goes back to our childhoods. 

Our beliefs about ourselves are formed in our early childhoods. Those beliefs are stored in our subconscious. It is believed that  95% of our decisions are based on our subconscious beliefs.

When you co-parent with a narcissistic partner or ex-partner, your children are in the presence of a person who is incapable of allowing your children to grow up as individuals. 

So, your deeper connection with your children can act as an antidote to the narcissistic person's manipulative behaviour towards your children. 

Abusive people will maliciously fracture the relationship between you and your children. They do it to isolate children from the support and eventually exert control over them. 

Your ability to show up in your children's lives as a healthy adult matters more than ever. 

What are the signs of a healthy parent?

1) They show up consistently in their children's lives.

    Despite difficulties and challenges in their lives, healthy parents prioritize their children's needs. Narcissistic people prioritize their needs over children's because they look for convenience. A healthy parent will tune into the children's emotional needs and make time to be with their children. 

2) A healthy parent works with reality rather than fighting it.

     No matter what happens in our lives, a healthy parent will accept the reality and, they will support the children. Instead of personalising children's natural developmental stages and behaviours that come with it, a healthy parent will support their children. Children's emotions, choices, boundaries, mistakes, likes, dislikes, sexualities etc are all accepted and supported. It is a myth that a healthy parent is permissive. A healthy parent holds authority and can guide children without minimizing children's reality. 

3) A healthy parent has a strong sense of who they are.

     A narcissistic person is empty inside. They don't have a sense of who they are. That's why they look for external validation. They will use the children to get this validation. If you are co-parenting with a grandiose narcissist, you will notice that they will push the children to achieve the things that they couldn't achieve or already have achieved. They won't recognize what children's passions, likes and dislikes are. 

    So, it's vital that you have a sense of who you are. It is important to recognize the patterns of blame shift, dysregulation, our own unrecognized needs, etc. so that we don't rely on our children to provide that validation. 

     If you have been in a narcissistic relationship for a long time, you may have lost a sense of who you are. Work through your traumas and belief systems so that you come back home to you. 

4) A healthy parent will not take what children do personally.

    Children don't know how to push your buttons. Your buttons are yours to recognize. If we personalize children's actions, that's an indication of our unresolved traumas and conditioning. Be mindful of your triggers and your responses. Reparenting ourselves helps us see and change these patterns.

5) A healthy parent will respect children's boundaries and will accept them for who they are.

   Our societies are obsessed with children respecting adults. But, not enough attention is given to respecting children. Offer children choices. Ask them for their observations and opinions. Listen to children with empathy. Respect their boundaries. Allow their individuality to grow. Hold space for them when they have made mistakes and reflect on their learnings. Ask open-ended questions to elicit answers. 

    Although it sounds like it's a lot of work, when you have a connection to yourself and you have a secure sense of who you are, these behaviours come naturally. Parenting is an inside-out job. 

    You will not get it right all the time. I guarantee that. But, how you repair the relationship with your children will help you strengthen your relationship with your children. 

6) A healthy parent takes accountability for their behaviour. 

    We all have moments where we feel angry, we forget our children's events, or we can't be bothered to cook or listen to our children. Our children don't mind those moments at all. As long as they feel our empathy and unconditional love towards them. If our children see us changing our behaviour when we have messed up, take accountability without guilt-tripping them and make an effort to be in their lives, our children will securely attach to us. 

   Be mindful of not being overly permissive or overly suppressive. Remain in the middle by being emotionally attuned. 

7) A healthy parent will always be truthful.

    This does not mean that you are going to share information that's not suitable for your children. This means that you are real with your children. You are a human being with real emotions, a person who makes mistakes, a person who messes up etc. It also means that you are speaking your truth with your children. 

I have highlighted a few more traits of a healthy parent. 

8) A Healthy parent doesn't like to be exploited or exploit their children. Their boundaries are clear, even with the children. 

9) A healthy parent is capable of positive compromise where both the parent and the child feel listened to. 

10) A healthy parent doesn't feel threatened by their children. 

Throughout our lives, we are conditioned to be far from who we truly are. When we have our children, we are often faced with the parts of ourselves that we have abandoned. Taking ourselves through a process of reparenting aka be the adult that our inner child needed enables us to let go of conditioning and trauma. Then we are fully present with our children.

Even though, we will never get it right all the time, our children will trust enough to feel securely attached. 

And, that's a "good enough" job. 

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