The original focus of this newsletter was going to be about use of the word “normal” in our society. You see, yesterday I heard a wonderful interview on CBC Radio featuring Gabor Maté speaking about his new book, “The Myth of Normal” and I expected that it was going to touch on the literal idea of what is normal.
However, when I began to research his book, it appears to be focused more on trauma and how it shows up in ourselves, our children, our families and in society — far more than any of us realizes.
You see, trauma is at the root of many of our responses…mostly in our responses to things that are disappointing, embarrassing, or that don’t go our way. Here’s a fascinating quote from Maté’s book:
“Trauma pervades our culture, from personal functioning through social relationships through parenting, education, popular culture, economics and politics. In fact, someone without the marks of trauma would be an outlier in our society.”
I’ve learned, through this expert and others, including Dr. Nicole LePera, that our various traumas feed almost everything we do including, and most especially, influencing our parenting styles.
Trauma-Informed Parenting
Whether you’re permissive because your own parents were extremely strict and controlling and you want your child to feel free to explore their world and independence or you feel the need to check your child’s social media, whereabouts and personal messages because you’re constantly worried about their safety, past traumas all feed into our behaviours.
Now, that’s not to scare all of us parents into thinking that our own concerns and experiences as well as those of our partners’ and parents will ruin our children (guilt is definitely a thing, right?!). But, we need to be aware that these experiences don’t exist on their own and/or disappear into a void — they stay within the body and the mind and are often passed on to the next generation — directly or indirectly.
So, the sooner that we understand how intergenerational trauma is expressed and get real with our own experiences and influences, the better equipped we are to parent our children in a way that is authentic and meaningful.
“We inherit pain. When it’s not coped with, it gets passed again,” said Merissa Nathan Gerson, author and visiting assistant professor of communications at Tulane University.
The last thing we want to do is pretend that difficult experiences don’t exist and bypass any grief, worry, anxiety, frustration, or pain expressed by our children. Noticing, acknowledging, and discussing these emotions is the first step to healing.
Yours in peaceful parenting,
Lisa