Becoming an Intentional Parent

Actress Sonia Braga reflected, "I have two kids now and through watching them, I keep having flashbacks to my own childhood." I bring this up because this is an incredibly common feeling. I’m sure she was saying that in a light-hearted and connected way, but as a therapist, I see many people experiencing those flashbacks to their own childhoods in a traumatic way. As you see your own kids, you automatically recognize their innocence, their first rejections, and what they feel after you’ve said something to them. Parenthood brings up what you did or didn’t receive from your parents growing up. There might be some resentment towards your own children for needing you so much, when you had to make do with so little. This is why going to therapy as an adult helps more than just yourself. Your pains from your past don’t need to influence the way you feel when you see your children happy. You gain more patience for meeting your children’s needs because you realize that you deserved more and want to give them everything you didn’t have. You respond in a more intentional way with your kids, no longer responding from a place of pain and insecurity.

"I have two kids now and through watching them, I keep having flashbacks to my own childhood."

~ Sonia Braga