Wounds To Scars

Category: Parenting

  • Four ways to live with your children after trauma

    Four ways to live with your children after trauma

    Living with our children means more than just giving them our physical presence.  It entails having a relationship with the children that enables you to sympathise with them.

    This kind of relationship can be challenging or seem impossible depending on your initial connection with your primary caregivers.  It might also depend on whether you have unresolved trauma from your past.

    Here are four ways to live with your children

    1. Be intentional

    Create opportunities where you can bond and connect with your child.  Be playful; take part in their activities without directing the process.  Give eye contact, listen to their little trials and enter into the experience with them by showing genuine sympathy.  Make it okay for them to have needs.  When this you do this it gives a feeling of security and acceptance.

    1. Be emotionally available

    Emotional availability can be difficult if you have unresolved trauma, the best way to be emotionally available in your parenting is to seek support.  Get help to deal with any traumatic events in your childhood. The best gift to give to your child is one of a healed or on-the-road-to-healed parent.  Healing means you will be available to listen and be able to be with your child in a way that will create strong bonds.  When this connection is absent, the child learns to adapt as best as possible.  At best, the child grows up to be a ‘loner’ because inconsistencies in parenting create uncertainty, isolation acts as a way to disconnect them from their peers, and so they could lose out on having deep, connected relationships with others as they struggle with emotional connection and intimacy.

    1. Be consistent

    Unresolved trauma acts as a barrier to consistency in parenting.  In this environment, the child will do whatever it takes to get attention. Sometimes, this behaviour might present as problematic or unruly.  They become overly focused on others to meet their needs, and this obsession with seeking gratification from the outside can create anxiety.

    1. Be a safe place

    Work hard at dispelling concerns, listening to what disturbs them and decipher the cause.  The behaviour tells a story, so this requires studying the children’s reaction to read what could be underneath all the disruption.

    The connection will not happen if children perceive you to be scary.  For example, saying things that could be interpreted by them as scary or threatening.  Though you might not mean what you say, they are not able to reason out and make a decision as to whether it is a real or perceived threat. They take what you say at face value and sometimes freeze.  Shutting down and disconnecting might be the only way to handle what they are hearing.  When this, happens they will remain in that place unless professional help is sought to help them access emotions and give and receive love and affection.

    In mind and feeling put you in their place.   Living with them means more than exerting yourself to provide, it means the exertion will enable you to establish a sympatric relationship that will help them have a secure place from which to explore the world.

     

  • Growing up with a drug using parent

    Growing up with a drug using parent

    I recently read an article which talks about the benefits of ‘children living with parents while they are rehabilitated off drug use’.  The writer speaks about a drug rehabilitation service that works with parents helping them to get into treatment as a way of keeping their children.  Living together in rehab is seen as a positive move, one that will spear the children the trauma of separation.

    The trauma is not only about being separated at birth but for some, it continues through out their lives and emerging at the other end is adults working to overcome cycles of rejection, neglect and sometimes abuse.  So though on the face of it, this looks great there needs to be a long term commitment to continued support that will enable these children to get the parents they deserve.

    Recovery is possible

    Addiction doesn’t have to be a life sentence; some programs can help.  I worked in addictions for many years and saw many miracles.  But I also saw the hard work that has to go into this becoming a reality.  The things that have to change, the facing of old wounds previously medicated by drugs, the giving up of the maladaptive coping mechanism.  Sometimes this is an ongoing work and takes support from many different agencies to ensure success.

    The impact on families

    I also saw the effects of substance use on families; I saw the impact on children, the daily rejection, the anger with no outlet, the decisions that they make to not become like mom. The confusion.  I never forgot the words of one 11 years old ‘ I am usually fine at school but start to get anxious after lunch because I never know who will pick me up after school’ if its mum, ‘will she be drunk?’.  ‘If she is I know, we won’t have supper, and I will spend most of the night hiding in the closet.’

    Reestablishing relationships

    As stated above this will take effort on the part of the drug user and the agencies helping to support them.  Perhaps they will have to learn how to connect with children who will be struggling with the effects of rejection and abandonment.

    Research indicates the risk of depression and suicidal ideation in the lives of someone growing up in an environment where they face rejection, abuse, substance using parent. These risk factors are high, and the work to undo the impact of this can sometimes take years of concentrated effort.  If you are reading this, and have grown up in a home where these risks were present there is hope, healing is possible. When you apply yourself to your health and healing and commit time and energy to it, you will see the fruits of your effort.

    If you have experienced this and is now a parent, you might be feeling uncertain of how to parent in a way that is different to what you experienced.  The five days challenge raising resilient children will help to give you some of the tools that you will need to make impactful changes.  You can register for the challenge HERE

    Additionally, join our private Facebook group Parenting after childhood Trauma for weekly training.

  • Why didn’t you defend me?

    Why didn’t you defend me?

    ‘Why didn’t you defend me?’ This question lingers in many homes and is the basis of numerous unresolved conflicts and lifelong hurt.

    Many live in anger for years, and it keeps them from healing and moving on.

    1.  Because the one person they would like to supply the answer can’t and in some cases won’t
    2. Because answering you would mean facing their trauma, the one that they have buried and tried to live without tackling.  The only problem is you know suppressing has been unsuccessful because you have lived the effects of what they are trying to hide.

    Here are some possible reasons mother could not protect you:

    1.  Perhaps she also suffered abused, and no one defended her. Therefore, she does not have an example of what advocacy should look like for a child.
    2. Mother maybe searching for something in herself that she thinks can be found in relationships, to the outside, these are an unhealthy destructive relationship, but they seem to answer a chord within her.

    3. Mother is lost and lonely she does not have the tools to defend you.  Growing up with a mother who is emotionally inaccessible and unavailable can challenge your sense of self.

    Three strategies that will help you heal and move on

    Own your truth, 

    It doesn’t have to be validated by anyone, this is your lived experience, and you know the impact it has had on your life.

    Mourn and move on, 

    Give yourself permission to grieve the loss of what wasnt; this will help to liberate you.  Grieving will help you put boundaries in place that will protect you and your children from this unhealthy relationship.  It will also contribute to breaking generational cycles of trauma that may exist in your family.

     

    Chose action, not anger

    Sometimes people live in anger too long.   Anger sometimes acts as a shield to protect them from the individual who has hurt them.  Anger doesn’t protect it only harms.  If you are still living in angry, perhaps you haven’t allowed your self to process the pain.  Do this for you, give yourself permission to heal you are worth it.  Giving up anger and choosing to heal doesn’t mean you will have to reestablish or establish a relationship with the parent it just means that you can move on and live life unencumbered by the effects of your childhood.

     

    Raising Resilient Children

    Are you parenting after experiencing childhood challenges? Would like help to show up different for your children? Join my five days challenge Raising Resilient Children.

    The challenge starts as soon as you sign up and will help you to tackle the effects of past hurts so that you can give your kids a different future.

     

  • Breaking the Silence

    Breaking the Silence

    Unfortunately, there is still a culture of silence around sexual abuse.  This weekend I had the opportunity to talk with a young girl who was sexually molested.  Its usually a sad event helping someone work through the impact of sexual trauma, but this has been particularly disheartening because of the close ties.

    As we externalise the pain, I realised once again that healing is a process and as much as I would like to rescue her from some of the more sensitive places that the journey will take her, I cannot.  Everyone’s journey is different; everyone emerges as a warrior having walked their walk and processes their unique experiences.  I had to be content with the fact that she has made the decision to heal.

    Healing will not happen unless you consciously choose it.

    Culture of silence

    Another astounding realisation surrounding this event is the attitude of her peers.  We have moved a long way in beginning to talk about abuse but is seems we still have a great distance to go in tackling some entrenched views that seem to have passed on through the generations.

    The molestation was sad for me, but the attitude of her peers leaves a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.   Because it tells me that we still have a lot of work to do in educating young girls about their worth, acceptable behaviour and the importance of healing.  We need to give the message that sexual abuse is wrong as many times as it will take for change to occur.  Our children need this because it will provide them with the courage to speak their truth.

    I grew up in a culture where there were no words to describe or report sexual abuse, and so I internalised the trauma.  It was astounding to me to realised that nearly 40 years on young women are still in that position.  Her friends chastised her for choosing to report the abuse.  They told her she should have just let it go.  Yes, you read that right.  I cannot help wondering about the events they are trying to forget and let go.

    How do young girls know that it is unacceptable to talk about molestation and who is responsible for the silence?  Is it the home? The schools, Law enforcement or society.  I think it is important to identify where the silence starts so that we can help to facilitate dialogue and that will sensitise our children to the need to share when they have assaulted.  The problem will not go away because we ignore it.

    Here is what the silence does not tell them, 

    • It cannot talk about the low self-esteem that they will battle for the rest of their lives.
    • It neglects to mention the relationships choices that they will make over and over again because of an entrenched mindset of not being worthy enough.
    • It won’t tell them that parenting will become challenging and they will not know how to pass on values of self-worth and self-advocacy on to their children.

    Unfortunately, this is what the young people glean from our silence.

    • You are not worth it.
    • No one will listen to you.
    • Who will believe?
    • I think I am to blame.
    • This happens to everyone; you are not special.

    Breaking the silence 

    We need to break the silence around abuse; this is everyone’s problem. Therefore, we all have to contribute to the solution.  We can begin by making sex and inappropriate touching part of an ongoing conversation.  By doing this, you will give someone a language to talk to you in if something does happen.  I don’t think we can believe that this won’t occur to me.  The statistic says 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 8 boys suffer sexual molestation before the age of 18.  Therefore it is not a problem that we can continue to ignore.

    If you suffered abuse and haven’t yet made the decision to process the pain, the only hope for healing is walking through it.  Some delay because they have preconceived ideas about healing that stops them from accessing support.  The truth is it will challenge and stretch you, but if you are willing to do the work you can thrive again. 

    You can start by signing up for my FREE video course HEALING YOUR WOUNDED SELF.